• Business & Career Building

  Using music

  Posted by Chuck Obernesser on September 19, 2007 at 1:34 pm

  Hello to all,
  I know this must be talked about quite a bit, but I am not sure if I have a different case when it come to royalities. So I thought I would ask you folks. I have a new client who sells bread in the area. He has bought a crank organ which now has a computer in it which plays songs when he cranks the thing.(no he does not have a monkey to dance along with it) He has special cartidiges which are pluged in and then he cranks away. But he has some different songs. One collection is the sound of music, the entertainer, etc. Am I allowed to use these songs in his commercial? Or can i not?

  Thanks for any insight,
  Chuck O.

  Todd Terry replied 18 years, 9 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
• 1 Reply

• 

  Todd Terry

  September 19, 2007 at 3:06 pm

  Technically, no, you can’t use that music… well, at least not all of it, and at least not for free.

  You have gotten around having to pay performance or synchronization rights since you are not using an existing recording of the song…

  However there is still the matter of the publshing rights, which must be paid to the composers unless the music is old enough to be in the public domain.

  Even that can be hazy… you mentioned “The Entertainer.” Scott Joplin wrote that in 1903, so it is in the public domain. At least the ORIGINAL version is. Any subsequent versions or adaptations (such as Marvin Hamlisch’s famous arrangement of it) will have their own individual copyrights that are protected.

  T2

  __________________________________
  Todd Terry
  Creative Director
  Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
  fantasticplastic.com
  

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