Oh, I forgot: fair use is an American rule, I don't know much about it, to what extend it might be just a myth. As I don't know American copyright law.

Yes, for education, and by the way for use in churches, there's an exemption. But education means schools, not private people educating themselves. If you prepare music for a worship service or holy mass you're safe. As music teacher in a public school you're too. But your concert in the gymnasium of the school.....I don't know, but I doubt you safe then. I also doubt a concert would be safe in the community hall of a church. It's just a question of luck: will GEMA hear about it and will they send someone...... That guy will give you a list and ask you to fill in all the songs you play. And then you're worried until the bill comes because you have no idea how high it will be..... That is definitely not funny.

Copyright rules of Youtube? Youtube doesn't make those rules, government, parliament/congress does. If you talk to the judge at court he will be amused if you refer to Youtube rules. And governments have transnational agreements worldwide, so there's an international copyright law too. The laws in your country add on and they may be even stricter. Right now the EU is getting tough on social media and partly it's about copyright. Corporations aren't mightier than governments, thanks God they aren't. The(m) guys who put you on handcuffs are still being sent by governments. Google's afraid of handcuffs too certainly. ;D

Ferenc Simon said
The fact that you have a story to go along with it adds even more to its value I only wrote a single song that was completely done by me. It was meant sort of as a graduation song for a couple of friends. It's quite cringy and the lyrics are decent, though perhaps a bit too 'mainstream'.. Nevertheless it can be a lovely song, though I only ever played it a few times acoustically and there is just a single pretty bad quality recording I made right after I wrote it.. (They each received an mp3 player with this song on it, it was kind of a last minute gift idea...) The whole process took like 2 hours, since it kind of came naturally (well that.. and I was short on time since as usual I left everything to the last minute).  

When I was 30 I felt like it would honor me if I composed my own songs. In fact I had started composing in the 80s and even tried a couple things in the 70s when I was a teenager. And I assumed it would be fun to play my own songs. In the meantime I made the experience again and again, that other people's songs inspire me more. In fact I had 3 own compositions in the 90s which were regional hits. One of it was a summer hit with a rap part that beat all international hits in the poll of a public transportation event. But apart from these 3 songs I made the experience people prefer to hear melodies they knew before. Would be like Yesterday, O Sole Mio ect. - common people go for that. And these people will be not happy if I improvise. So if I have that kind of audience, who just loves easy listening, they will not allow me to improvise much. They will tend  to leave if I try. So it's better to have a jazz audience because they appreciate improvisation. Or you are paid like international stars and improvise in your free time in some small pub.

AndrewH said
................(I'm a patent lawyer in my day job; while I don't deal with copyright issues a lot, I'm at least familiar with US copyright law as it falls under the IP umbrella.)  

So everybody update your profiles to "live in USA" and then be safe.

I know you don't but many average people talk like a 9 year old: "Daddy is mightier than the state." Well, if you closely follow the news and are interested in politics you learn: daddy is not. But if daddy cares about politics—which is a lot about discussing and making law—he can even beat a big corporation. Like the big corporation who owns my whole neighborhood.

Actually it's not much different in the USA where Facebook is under pressure because of Russian fake news. Here in Europe American corporations want to do business too and they tried to ignore our law. Google had to give in to our data privacy rules years ago. Then it was copyright and now it's their monopolism and refusing to share with smaller companies. Facebook recently tried to ignore our hate speech rules and German government and EU got really tough on them. A couple days ago an Austrian lawyer and media activist won a law suit against Facebook. Facebook tries to use Ireland as kinda fortress and act from there, "You have to sue us in Ireland." No, that Austrian lawyer doesn't have to. The uninformed lose, any corporation can play with them like a cat with a mouse. Ireland is under pressure too in the EU because they try to be a lawless El Dorado for big corporations and invite them to a kind of freedom the EU doesn't allow. It takes years but Ireland will have to give in unless they want to start a Irexit.

Google and Facebook are not just American corporations, they have facilities and managers here in Europe who have to obey our law. Like Germans easily end in jail in the U.S. after doing wrong things in the name of Volkswagen. They also thought like, "What do we care, we are a German corporation with international power." It was stupid what they did and now they pay a high prize. Walmart once thought they would be powerful enough to conquer Europe and destroy our worker protection. They gave up the idea to enter our market because they would have to change their ideas completely for we won't ever adapt our rules to them. I know how those people talk, "Europe, that's communism." Because they're disappointed and angry.

I can explain to you how it works because I live it: My neighborhood was bought off by a big corporation (one of the biggest in the world) who tried to scare away renters. I tried to convince many people to resist, but most didn't believe me and moved out. Those who advise renters in the name of my district called me the winner of the modernization because the rent I pay is still pretty low. I exchanged a couple letters with the lawyer of my opponent and finally they gave in, because I didn't let the craftspeople in due to legally invalid declaration of that modernization. I certainly visited a lawyer who is specialized on law of tenancy now and then, but you have to be interested too to make your decisions. The strategy of those lawyers is, "We do not give advice to landlords and never inform them about their mistakes." The whole quarter was scaffolded but I didn't open the door for weeks and just wrote letters. And they had to give in to all my claims because they wanted to rip out the gas pipe but gas was part of my contract. Providing just one renter of a quarter with gas? No, they gave in to all my other points and I agreed to ending gas supply. Their declaration from years ago was worth nothing, I did not have to open my door to craftspeople. My apartment then was modernized too but I got that modernization cheaply. That was over 10 years ago, so I really had no negative consequences in the aftermath. Like many people are afraid because they think they're powerless.

I got a bill about about additional payment recently which was excessive because they had charged something twice. And they learned it again: They ignored my objection and took all that money from my bank account, I corrected their bill, typed it completely new and wrote them, "This new update is now valid." And it was, my lawyer said I can stop their billing because they broke rules and I booked the money back to my account. Then I transferred the money according to the bill I had typed. Corporations like that usually sent brutal reminders then to scare people. I then explained to them what would happen if the sued me: They would lose because their bill was ridiculous and my one correct. I'm certainly a member of a tenants union and have insurance for tenant lawsuits there.

Jane Doe keeps telling you little people would be powerless. She will possibly lose her dear hometown she had been born in and be depressed for the rest of her life. Because she refuses to care about politics and democracy which is to empower people. There's a term for a state in which corporations rule. It's called fascism and we don't have that and we don't care to get ourselves into that. Even if daily politics are shitty and annoying people have to care about democracy. If the majority forgets the importance of democracy they go ahead terrible and cruel times. That's why I think this way too long opus is necessary, because people have to care about their rights.

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My recent posting here was total overdo. It was a terrible off-topic before shifting here, so I'm sorry for that. I'm like a novelist with a writing addiction who can't stop typing. So I see the need to cut back now. I'm not a person who feels good in crowds and on parties, that's why forums aren't much my element anyhow. I call it Jean Arthur syndrome.