In the US you don’t need to get the copyright holder's permission to record cover songs, you need to pay for a mechanical license. In the case of live performances you don’t need to get permission directly. The venue is the one that pays royalties to a handful of groups that have agreements with thousands of artists.
Yup. I have a strong “fuck you” to ASCAP for charging my favorite small coffee shop insurmountable fees and forcing them to stop having live musical performances. FWIW the musicians played mostly original work.
ASCAP has also been actively against the EFF, Creative Commons, and others.
> In June 2010, ASCAP sent letters to its members soliciting donations to fight entities that support weaker copyright restrictions, such as Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Creative Commons
