-
Music copyright and show copyright Q’s
This is a 2 part question that i was hoping to get a little bit of advice about.
1. I’m starting a local web show and was wondering what I had to do to make a copyright of the show. Is having it made with a title simply enough?
2. Secondly, does anyone have any insight on the use of copyrighted music? Can i usei tracks for a certain length of time without crossing any boundaries?
-
12 Replies
-
Dunno about #1, but I can take on #2.
You need to license music. You cannot use ANY music for ANY length of time unless you paid for it. Either from composers, or music libraries, or license popular music (which will cost more than your annual salary). This means that if you want to use any Lady Gaga music, you must pay the music company $50,000…even if you use 10 seconds….and they must first give the OK that you can do that. Doesn’t matter if this is a web show or not. YouTube videos of kids singing to popular songs are yanked down daily.
Places like Extreme Music and MegaTraxx will require you to pay for songs, and on a sliding scale, depending on where the show airs, and how. And there are sites where you can buy music and use them anywhere you like, but those songs more often than not….suck.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
In law you automatically have copyright in your work, but you should use the (c) symbol and put your conditions somewhere (otherwise it would be hard to take legal action to defend it). Creative Commons offers an alternative path to the strictly legal position, which may or may not be appropriate for you.
Music has to be licensed for each territory that you make it available in – check out the BMI website for information https://www.bmi.com/licensing/website/
[I don’t know your location – the BMI is the main US organisation. It would be the PRS in the UK, SACEM in France, GEMA in Germany, etc.]
-
Instead of using copyright music, why not give some exposure to some local muscic artists? They might appreciate having their songs on your webcast with some credit….obviously not some terrible garage band….
-
[Andy Morin] “1. I’m starting a local web show and was wondering what I had to do to make a copyright of the show. Is having it made with a title simply enough?”
Yes and no.
Yes, because the minute you put it down in a tangible form it’s covered.
No, because if you want to bring an action against someone for violating your copyright, it has to be registered.[Andy Morin] “2. Secondly, does anyone have any insight on the use of copyrighted music? Can i usei tracks for a certain length of time without crossing any boundaries?”
No, they have a copyright too. You have to pay, to play. And if you get a local artist to do music for you, it would have to be 100% original. Any covers done by a local band would be under the copyright of the songs composer, and that is where most of the money in music licensing is spent. Relationships with local artists can be troublesome do to the nature of ‘who owns the rights’. Anything you set up with a local artist should have a contract in place with everyone involved with composing, performance, use and rights explicitly laid out.
If your on a budget, you can use Garage Band loops or Soundtrack Pro cuts without further payment. Those are royalty free once you own the software. If you spend some time with them, this can be OK depending on the genre of the music, and how much talent you have. There is also Tune Presto on the web.
Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
-
1. Copyright is instant upon the creation of the show, you don’t have to do anything else.
2. That idea of using just short clips of copyrighted music is a folk tale, if it’s for commercial use like the intro of your show you are violating copyright. Save yourself the trouble and get royalty free stuff.
http://www.MediaCircus.TV
Media Production Services
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada -
Thanks for the advice everybody. My original intent was to use local artists and the communication started to become a little fuzzy with the guy i was going to work with. I would only resort to online samples in case of an emergency. Thanks again for the advice with both Q’s!
-
” if you want to bring an action against someone for violating your copyright, it has to be registered.”
I don’t know if that’s true, it certainly makes it easier to prove your claim thought.
http://www.MediaCircus.TV
Media Production Services
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada -
Another thing to remember when you are planning your project, is that music rights for web usage are among the most expensive of the various usage types, in many if not most cases.
We produce television commercials and secure music rights for them all the time. Very often, after the fact, a client will say something like “Oh, and gimme a little web file that we can embed on our site.” They are often surprised to find out that to do that we need to secure additional and completely different music rights for the web. And they are even more surprised to learn that those web rights are often more expensive (sometimes three or four times as much) than the broadcast rights.
We’ll hear “You mean it’s actually cheaper for the rights to put it on a real TV commercial than it is for just our own little local website?” Which is a valid argument, until you consider that any television usage (even a national commercial) has its audience restricted in some way… whereas there is no such thing as a “local” website, put it on the net and it can go anywhere and everywhere.
T2
__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
-
Andy –
Be very careful working with local artists. They sometimes get stars in their eyes and the gleam of your money in their head. We once licensed (in writing) a local acoustic guitarist to use his music cut for the open of a show on local cable.
Within weeks of the music bed being used, and signed off on by the guitarist, he instituted a frivolous 100 thousand dollar lawsuit against us, which cost us thousand of dollars to have thrown out of court.
Your best bet is licensed music. I regularly use Stock20 (20 bucks a cut – quite a bit of good music) and Pond5 (price varies, but mostly under 50 to 100 bucks) which has a wide array of music.
Joe Bourke
Owner/Creative Director
Bourke Media
http://www.bourkemedia.com -
[Scott Carnegie] “I don’t know if that’s true, it certainly makes it easier to prove your claim thought.”
That info is straight from the US copyright registration office.
I would assume a lawsuit brought into court without having an accompanying documentation from the copyright office would get dismissed in pretty short order for lack of standing. It’s a gray area for sure, but it would probably take a high power entertainment industry lawyer to get past the lack of registration with the copyright office.Scott Sheriff
Director
https://www.sstdigitalmedia.com“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” —Red Adair
Where were you on 6/21?
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up