[fembat]

We are in the early planning stages of developing a fitness app for Spinning. Our trainer would like to use commercial music and played during the workout session as being able to moderate the speed of cycling is crucial to the success of the workout. This will mostly be dance music.

Does anyone know where we stand with regards to licensing music for an app such as this? Any help would be much appreciated.

[pkcable]

We are in the early planning stages of developing a fitness app for Spinning. Our trainer would like to use commercial music and played during the workout session as being able to moderate the speed of cycling is crucial to the success of the workout. This will mostly be dance music.

Does anyone know where we stand with regards to licensing music for an app such as this? Any help would be much appreciated.

I have reached out to some of my friends in the BlackBerry development community, the experience should be similar. Hopefully one of them will be along shortly to answer your question, and point you in the right direction.

EDIT: Thinking out load here, I wonder if you really need to embed the music in the app? Perhaps just an instruction to play such and such here, and such and such there, would suffice? Users can then either use an old fashion boom box to provide the tunes, OR another app such as iTunes, Pandora, Google Play Music, Rhapsody, etc. Maybe that would work and you thus avoid the licensing issue entirely?

Another option would be sound alike music played on a synthesiser, or by a "cover" band.

[fembat]

Thank you so much.

Certainly that is one solution but what we are looking for is an in-gymnasium experience - so the music would be mixed for continuation purposes, as breaks in music can affect your concentration during working out.

[pkcable]

Since my friends have been slow I looked up some info for you...


Guidelines for the use of music under copyright

The Basics of Getting Permission :: Copyright Overview by Rich Stim :: Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center

How to Get Permission to Use a Copyrighted Song | eHow


EDIT: Your developer might want to reach out to vendor relations/support contacts at the Apple App store also as there MAY be a process in place already to request permissions via Apple directly, perhaps via iTunes. (there are ALWAYS ways to do it legally, my DJ friend buys music to play at parties all the time, he has to pay more for his songs that us regular folks, BUT he gets the rights to play the songs he buys at his gigs)