THEATER NOTES : Violations of Copyright Laws Can Be a Frequent Occurrence : Even companies may not be aware of all the intricacies of the rules governing the use of songs and scripts.

One Ventura County theater group is known for performing original versions of classic stories, augmented by popular songs selected by the director. Another local company occasionally peps up less-than-sensational musicals with well-known songs from outside the original score. And virtually every theater group features recorded music before their shows and during intermission.

Whether any of those practices is legal is governed by a complex system of copyright laws. The public is unaware of most of them, and even theater companies have been known to plead ignorance when major fines are levied for violations.

The fact is, drama companies are not supposed to play other people’s music in theaters without paying for it, though they commonly do so. Furthermore, copyrighted plays are not to be altered without express permission from the author. Nor, it evidently needs saying, can copyrighted work be performed without paying for its use.

That excludes Shakespeare and other authors whose work is in the “public domain” and thus unprotected by copyright legislation. But virtually every song, book or script written since the early years of this century is protected by law.

This gets tricky, but understanding some of the principles--seldom revealed to the public--will make you a better-informed theatergoer.

Take that intermission music. Songs are the property of composers and lyricists, and anybody who wants to use them must pay for the privilege.

In this country, two organizations collect royalties for most songs and distribute them to the music’s owners: the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI).

“A singer can do his original works without paying anybody,” explains Steven Blinn, BMI’s media relations director, licensing. “But as soon as anybody does other songwriters’ material in a live setting, those songwriters are entitled to compensation.”

Usually, compensation is assessed via a blanket license, with a facility paying ASCAP and BMI fees covering all performances during a specified time period--annually, for instance, or for the length of a play’s run.

How expensive is it? Plenty, if you’re operating on a community theater or school budget. According to BMI’s Blinn, for a theater with a capacity of under 250 seats, where ticket prices range between $8-$12-- which covers most Ventura County community and college theaters--BMI’s fee for a “musical attractions license” covering intermission and any other music than what’s in the play itself is $35 for each performance of the show, plus $150. If the theater is already licensed by BMI and/or ASCAP both must be paid. The fees are approximately the same.

Licensing the rights to a play includes permission to perform any music that’s specifically included in it--the score of a musical, for instance, or the Irving Berlin song “Always,” which is intrinsic to the farce “Blithe Spirit” and specified by author Noel Coward.

Permission to perform music in such a context falls under what’s called “grand rights” to a show, which are not licensed by ASCAP or BMI, but by the authors, composers and lyricists themselves--usually via their authorized representatives. But what exactly constitutes “grand rights” isn’t totally clear, even to experts.

“If it happens between when the curtain goes up and when the curtain goes down, that’s a grand right,” defines Los Angeles-based attorney Gary DaSilva, who represents authors including Neil Simon.

But in a sense, says Henry Wallengren, spokesman for playwrights’ representative Samuel French Inc., “grand rights” is outmoded as an all-inclusive term.

“There are so many aspects--video rights, reprint rights, translation rights, the composer’s rights, the lyricists’ rights--that it’s a Byzantine set of channels to go through to do a musical these days.”

Which is why it’s easiest to obtain an authorized version of a show from its proper representative, who has taken care of all appropriate licensing.

Less common legal violations of community and school theater groups include the changing of dialogue in copyrighted plays, or simply performing them without paying royalties. Attorney DaSilva tells of an Arizona drama teacher who once cast himself in a production of Neil Simon’s “Barefoot in the Park” and then increased the importance of his part by supplementing Simon’s script. Alerted, Simon’s lawyers cracked down.

“If you make unauthorized changes to a play,” DaSilva explains, “you’re making what’s called a derivative work, attributing work to an author without permission.”

Not that there isn’t recourse. The simplest is for a playwright or his representative to deny permission to perform a given work. “Licensing is discretionary,” DaSilva says. “An author does not have to allow his work to be done at all.”

When a copyrighted play is performed without permission, without royalties being paid (usually from photo-copied or otherwise bootlegged scripts), or even without the author’s representative being properly credited in the program, the representative steps down, hard.

“We send them an astronomical bill,” says Karla Wasion, customer service representative of Dramatic Publishing in Woodstock, Ill.

“We get nasty by demanding royalties between four and times of our usual rate,” concurs Samuel French’s West Coast director, Leon Embry. “We want to get their attention.”

How do the representatives find out? There are several ways. The Arizona teacher who took it upon himself came to Simon’s attorneys’ attention via a newspaper review, says DaSilva.

“We subscribe to all of the papers in the country,” says Embry, “and we get a lot of brochures and newsletters from groups.”

“There are a lot of snitches out there,” he adds.

Another concerned--very concerned--party is the playwright himself.

“We’ve had authors call and ask if we’re aware of certain performances of their work,” says Wasion. “Of course they’re interested; the royalties that we collect are their pay.”

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GIVE OUR REGARDS TO MOORPARK AVENUE: The Thousand Oaks-based Conejo Players, whose production of “A Few Good Men,” which opens tomorrow night, followed by “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” in November, are on the verge of announcing their 1994 season. Here’s a look at the planned schedule.

The first evening production, circa January, should be the Players’ production of Arthur Miller’s gritty 1961 tragedy “A View from the Bridge,” about a family of Italian-Americans in then-contemporary New York--it’s the Brooklyn Bridge they’re looking from.

After that, look for “Follies,” the ambitious Stephen Sondheim-James Goldman musical with the hits “I’m Still Here” and “Losing My Mind;” Ken Ludwig’s farce “Lend Me a Tenor,” set in a second-rate opera company; Neil Simon’s “The Sunshine Boys” (aging vaudevillians, reunited after a lengthy estrangement); “Carnival,” based on the 1953 film “Lili.”

The Conejo Afternoon Theater series will expand to seven performances of each show, playing on Saturday as well as Sunday afternoons.

First up will be “The Overcoat,” aimed at children and based on a work by Russian author Nikolai Gogol; followed by Bernard Slade’s “Same Time, Next Year” (in which an adulterous couple, whose affair spans a quarter of a century, meet one day each year), and Bill C. Davis’ “Mass Appeal,” an encounter between two priests: one older and conservative, the other inquiring and rebellious.

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NO LONGER JUST YOUNG, NO LONGER JUST SHAKESPEARE: Following its production last year of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the former Ojai Young Shakespeare Company is now the Ojai Theatre Company. The group debuts under its new name next weekend at Libbey Bowl in Ojai with a production of Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth,” featuring Krista Neumann (Mrs. Scott Bakula) and Taylor Kasch as Mrs. and Mr. Antrobus. Also on hand will be a prop dinosaur (species unspecified) and a woolly mammoth, as well as belly dancing by Ansuya Rathor. Shows begin at 8:15 p.m. on Sept. 3-5; tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children.