-
Question about Copyrights
Ok, I’ve been noticing that a growing market right now is “Memorial Videos”. What I’m not clear on is how they can use copyrighted songs for bkgrd music without special permission each time. Many sites advertise that they will use whatever songs you want… Is there some sort of loophole that enables them to do that. I’ve been thinking about getting into this business, but need to clear up this question first.
-
9 Replies
-
They can’t. But they do it anyway. They are just rolling the dice and hoping it doesn’t come up snake eyes some day. If this is their business model, they must have flunked statistics in high school.
Australia has an interesting arrangement on copyright that should be the model when/if we ever get it changed here. I’m not optimistic though because the heaviest hitters of the entertainment industry like the current messed-up situation jsut the way it is, and regularly bribe or buy off Congress to maintain the status quo.
-
[Don Colborn] “Is there some sort of loophole that enables them to do that”
Nope.
The same rules apply to this as any other project, and for each piece of music there are publishing, performance/synch rights that should be dealt with.
I’m willing to bet that any company that does those videos and says they “can use any song” is doing so illegally… they just know that due to the extremely limited distribution there is very little chance of ever getting caught.
Doesn’t make it legal though. Or right.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Nothing is obscure, once it gets on the internet. All it will take for that company to get sued out of business is for one of their customers to post a clip they did on YouTube or theproduction company’s own promo web site and bam, you’ve got the evidence needed for the rights holders to sue and win.
I can’t think of too many honest businesses who’s business model is: “break the law in everything you’re doing for profit and just hope you don’t get caught”. Is that the Madoff business school that teaches that?:-)
-
Mark,
I’m interested to know which parts of Australian copyright law you think would be good for America to emulate. I don’t have much experience in international copyright, but I understand there were significant changes to their laws in 2006.Can you (or perhaps some of the folks who visit this forum from the land down under) give us a thumbnail sketch of some basic differences in copyright law between U.S. and Australia?
Appreciated,
Timothy J. Allen -
Isn’t the Madoff way to get your money for a song?
-
Australia’s copyright laws are, if anything, more barbaric and restrictive than America’s, even if you add in the free trade agreement modifications I think you’re refering to.
But where the folks from Down Under so far has us beat all to heck is, they have THIS:
https://www.apra-amcos.com.au/MusicConsumers/MakingRecordingsBusinessUse/Videographers.aspx
Pay one reasonable annual fee that you could offset in one or two gigs, use anything (within certain limits) without fear of a black-bag team from the RIAA coming to waterboard you.
This is an exceptionally civilized and sensible approach, and that’s what I was getting at about things we can emulate from the Aussies. It is one-stop shopping and you’re free to use the music creatively without having to secure separate rights in all the categories like mechanical, synch, etc.
We need to champion this idea in the states. I would bet you most event videographers would LOVE the peace of mind they could get from this simple system.
-
There is a company that is licensing a lot of popular music to re-license for small projects. Let’s do some research on this because I saw it a year or two ago and they were compiling a good sized list.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD . -
never mind. I got it.
Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD . -
I think a system for licensing music for event type video has been around a while. Back in 2002 our company looked into starting a sister company that did stuff like weddings, golf outings, sports videos, graduation videos etc. And I recall in our research that there was a way to legally use popular music for very affordable fees.
I don’t remember it being called Zoom, but I remember it was a central issue in our early discussions because the people we talked to about doing these vidoes always wanted to use popular music, and we were skeptical about getting into that.
I believe we found the info back then on the WEVA website.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up