What is legal and illegal when it comes to starting a stay at home business?

[bcnu]

Businesses can be locally regulated, including requiring you to notify the town or county that you have a business in a residential property, let alone having to obtain a permit.

If your business is taxable in your jurisdiction, you would also need a treasury account for making the necessary deposits and filings. Also, if your business name does not include your actual surname, you are typically required to file a registration of the "fictitious name" or "d/b/a" (in the county or municipality, depending upon state) so that people can find out who actually owns the business.

As for using copyrighted music, it is completely illegal to duplicate and distribute other peoples' songs without a license, whether or not you're doing it for money. You could be sued for up to $150,000 for each song, even if you never make a dime on it. It is also a federal crime to willfully infringe copyright for commercial gain or private profit. 18 USC 2319. Felony federal prison time is no joke.

Distributing iTunes for any purpose, outside of the limited copies on your own devices, is also illegal and a violation of the contract you signed when you became a member. You could be banned, in addition to being sued by the copyright owners. Same answer if you bought the CDs for the music: it's not yours to duplicate or distribute.

What you need is a license from ASCAP or BMI that covers the tunes you're planning to distribute. They'll want a percentage, if not also a sizable fee up front. Just check out their websites, type in a few songs you are thinking of using and see how much they want to charge you for making "short runs" of your videos using their music.