Santa Claus is Coming to Town

[Dreadylocks]

I'm trying to find out the current copyright holder of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. My google searches have only turned up the following information:

It was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie and copyrighted in 1934. Assuming that they renewed the copyright in 1962, and considering that one died in 1985 and the other in 1995, the song will not be in the public domain until 2065

I haven't been able to find anything in my various google searches as to who currently holds the copyright/licensing rights to the song. Do any of you know of resources that could get me this information? Are there special places? Will putting in a request to the library of congress yield me more information than what I already know?

Any help would be appreciated as it's a bit critical to use that song for the short I'm writing.

Thanks!

 

[Dreadylocks]

Ok, I just found this but I don't quite understand it.

http://harryfox.com/songfile/public/publicsearchresults.do?forward=drilldown&index=0

Does this mean that this company owns the licensing rights to the original song? Or is it just the specific recording they are listing?

 

[Alcove Audio]

Harry Fox is pretty much the clearing house and administrator for these things, at least as far as really popular/well-known material.

They can probably answer all of your questions.

 

[Dreadylocks]

Thanks for the info Alcove. I registered for an account and found out that they do have 100% of the licencing/publishing rights. Now I'm just confused by what kind of license to get. Nothing seems to clearly cover my purposes (festival/possible internet streaming). But I sent off an email to them yesterday and am awaiting a reply.

If you or anyone else has any info on the types of licenses out there, I'd love to hear it

 

[Alcove Audio]

For use a prerecorded version of the song in a film of you will need synchronization rights, and that will have to be obtained through ASCAP or BMI - whichever one handles the song.

To record your own version of the song you need to go through Harry Fox for mechanical rights.

When it comes to all this stuff I highly recommend going through an entertainment attorney or an experienced, qualified music supervisor.