Live public performances of musical works are typically licensed in the United States, as "public performances" is one of the six "exclusive rights" listed in 17 USC 106. In the US, the owner of a bar, cafe, or restaurant who wants to have live music commonly obtains a blanket license from ASCAP & BMI to play music in their catalogs. Because ASCAP, BMI, Pro Music Rights,[13], and SESAC have non-overlapping collections, a license from one entity does not provide a license to play music from the other entities.[14]
The Association for Concert Bands (ACB)[15] offers a blanket license to community bands that covers both ASCAP and BMI lists. At the end of the year, a community band completes a spreadsheet showing how often each song was played during the year, which the ACB submits to the rights organizations.
Public performances of works in the context of dramatic works are separately licensed; these licenses are called "grand rights".
In general, someone who plans to perform a piece of music publicly will obtain a "public performance" license from the rightsholder (often the music publisher). Purchasing a copy of the sheet music does not itself usually provide public performance rights.
Developing one's own arrangement of the music is considered a derivative work, which would ordinarily require a separate license. The derivative work is itself copyrighted, but if the original work is under copyright, then permission of both the composition's rightsholder and of the arrangement's rightsholder is needed before performance, distribution, or recording is planned. An arrangement of a traditional song or piece of music will be protected by copyright even if the original piece is in the public domain. For instance, ASCAP has over 40 arrangements of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" under license, and nearly 80 versions of Row, Row, Row Your Boat.[16]
In the United States, limitations and exceptions to performance rights include fair use and the performances described under Section 110 of the US copyright statute[17] The fair use limitation defines uses that are not "infringements", based on consideration of factors such as how the original work was used, the nature of the original work, how much of it was used, and if the original rightsholder suffered economic harm.[18]
In spite of folk wisdom to the contrary, there is no "three second rule" for copying or sampling recorded music. There is no rule that "four notes" can be copied without penalty. Instances under the fair use exception might include criticism or comment. Criticism need not be negative: if a jazz soloist quotes a phrase from a well-known solo by another player, it might be viewed as an homage.[19] Music sampling has been aggressively pursued by copyright holders as a form of "free riding" but might be interpreted as a transformative use.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_licensing