I'm no attorney, so take this for what it's worth, ie, nothing, but:

I get the idea that without specific written permission from the original creator of a work, AND the performers of that work, you can't legally use any piece of music, video, film, artwork, someone's voice or image, photos, or ANYTHING in any of your videos, period, amen.

Rather, you CAN---in the same way that you can rob a bank if you wish---but they have legal recourse if they want to get fussy about it.

As I expected, the unofficial poll says formal permission/agreements are needed to post video of live tribute acts.

Yahoo has a directory for tribute acts, Wikipedia has a very extensive list of links to tribute acts. Its absolutly amazing how many tribute acts come up in a search.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribute_band
http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Music/Artists/Tribute_Bands/

It seems that satire bands such as Dread Zeppelin and Beatallica can exist without formal permission, yet may end up defending themselves as was the case with Beatallica.

In my case, this is not for profit. The tribute band no longer plays, the footage is 10 years old. I just think fans of this artist would really like it. Is there any chance of getting permission that would be no cost to me?

Jeff

Well first thing to do is ASK!
Obviously enough start with the band, make a reasonable effort to contact the manager / leader of the band.
I from time to time visit the Tapers fourms, some good stuff on location recording. At first I thought the whole enterprise was a bit suspect at best. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about these guys and gals make recordings of live events, much like the bootleggers of old. Except this is now it seems a recognised legit pursuit, considerable money is expended on equipment and some stunning quality recordings are made.
I'll admit I don't quite follow the whole legalities of how this works but these guys quite regularly are given feeds from the desk etc so we're not talking about something done on the sly for later sales in a car park. Furthermore at least some of their work is now uploaded to the Library Of Congress and is publicly accessible. From what I can tell no one makes a dime out of this and those doing it are spending considerable sums on kit to do a good job.
I'm thinking (hoping!) that this is a totally altruistic persuit, to enhance the public record of our history, in fact I was also hoping that some video people would get together with these guys so that the public record included vision as well.
To get back to the original topic, obviously ask first. If you cannot contact anyone after a reasonable effort I'd just put it up and see what happens. This probabaly isn't technically the correct approach but worst case I can only see them hitting you with a cease and desist order.
About my only gripe with the existing copyright laws is there's no automatic mechanism that makes works 'abandoned' and hence in the public domain. If i fail to register my vehicle and leave it in a public place, it's gone real quick. If I fail to renew my trading name it's up for grabs, in fact it's illegal to renew it if I'm not actually trading. I don't see why IP should be any different.
Bob.

The band may give you permission, but it still won't do any good if you haven't gotten permission from the music publisher, presumming the music they performed wasn't their original compositions.

Most all clubs and venues pay a licensing fee for a blanket license that allows acts at their venue to perform songs by other artists. This is much the same way a radio station pays a fee which allows them to play copyrighted music. However, this is completely different than what you want to do... You basically have three organizations with which to be concerned, The Harry Fox Agency (for mechanical licensing in case you intend to manufacture copies for distribution.) The other two are ASCAP and BMI.

Here is a link to BMI's licensing (click on the "website" link which covers your specific purpose):

BMI Licensing

Here is ASCAP's Website licensing page:

ASCAP Website licensing

And finally, consult an attorney, as I may be completely full of it.

John