Thank you for clearing this up I know when I was in a small local band we never did tours at public concerts where we got paid. Yes we did do a couple during practice or some free shows, but never when we got paid.
Was playing a cover for fun where we made no profit illegal? Im not sure. Was is morally wrong. To me HELL NO we did it for fun not to get free music we didnt copy exactly we added our own twist and we had fun doing it did it stop someone from buying a CD from the artist who originally wrote it NO, actually I bought a number of CDs to help learn a particular song.