Copyrighted material problem

[John Davidson]

As the editor, you are the person that puts stuff together on tape (or dvd, or whatever). Your expertise is in the technical realm with a strong understanding of flow, delivery, and style. It is not your place to question the legal ramifications of some silly in-house video. This is a non-issue. Where will it stop? When your company uses pop music for a production, will you need to get copies of the clearance forms from all the copyright holders so you can sleep at night? You’ll need to hire your very own legal department to deal with the paperwork you get from the inhouse lawyer’s copy machines. You are a part of a wheel, and were hired to edit productions, not for your legal expertise.

Googling your post will do nothing. You will never get caught, because there are bigger fish to fry. This stuff happens all the time. You were told this was ok, so assume this is ok’d by the lawyers and copyright holders and do your job.

The BEST part of being an inhouse editor is that 90% of the time your job is over at 6pm. You don’t want to change that.

John Davidson____ writer | producer | director____https://www.magicfeather.tv

[Chris Gomersall]

I am the producer and, sometimes, editor so I am slighly more culpable then an editor alone. However, the replies, which were various and numerous, have given me much to consider. Thank you all for your time. I’ve been away from the COW for quite awhile and forgot how generous all you bovine can be in a crunch.
Cheers!

[Brendan Coots]

I AGREE. There are some awfully paranoid people here who don’t seem to understand copyright law. The editors of an internal use video are NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER going to wind up in a copyright infringement lawsuit. EVER. EVER!

One must prove damages as part of a copyright lawsuit. In an internal use video, no money was made, no market value was diluted, and since copyright lawsuits are federal they are extremely expensive to pursue. They will, worst case scenario, send your company a cease and desist. The sky, contrary to popular opinion, is not falling.

Brendan Coots
Splitvision Digital
http://www.splitvisiondigital.com

[Emre Tufekci s.o.a.]

Just one addtions to the posting; there is always the fair share use which applies for educational and news/reporting catagories. It is a gray are but here is my interpitation of it:

If you were doing a study of “metallica’s music effects on youth today” you can use thier music with out permission under the fair share use law. But they have to be the focus or a part of the study (or news story)

If you are doing a study on “migration patterns of europian unladen swallow” you cannot use metallica’s music just because you think it makes a great opening.

I may be way off on this but this is what I was explained by an attorney. (Who at the time was trying o tie a coconut to a bird……but thats another story)

Cheers,

Emre
http://www.productionpit.com
Boxx Tech PC, dual-dual AMD 2.0,4BG ram,Avidexpress HD w/Mojo,UVW-1800,DSR-25, Adobe production studio.

“Creative cow is udder madness.”

[Walter Biscardi]

[John Davidson] ”
Have you guys ever watched an upfront for a network? They fill an auditorium, pump trailers for next years shows full of unlicensed music, and rake in billions in upcoming year ad sales.
Every network does this. Nobody pays a dime.”

Networks pay a blanket ASCAP and BMI licenses so they can use whatever they want, however they want.

[John Davidson] ”
Editors are the last people to get sued for copyright infringement. It never happens. Never.”

This is very true, so long as the editor does not own the company performing the Post Production. Even there it would be rare. It would be the Producer and the Client that the lawyers would most likely go after.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Walter Biscardi]

[Emre Tufekci] “It is a gray are but here is my interpitation of it:

If you were doing a study of “metallica’s music effects on youth today” you can use thier music with out permission under the fair share use law. But they have to be the focus or a part of the study (or news story)”

At CNN we would not do this because it still did not apply under fair use. At least at the time I worked there in ’90-’95. We would do stories on Michael Jackson and his music, but never played his music in the story because we could not use it.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Timothy J. allen]

Good advice, Walter, but I have to nitpick one thing…

You said “Networks pay a blanket ASCAP and BMI licenses so they can use whatever they want, however they want.

While it’s true the networks (and affiliates) pay blanket licenses to BMI and ASCAP, they still can’t use “whatever they want, when ever they want”. While the agreements do give them more leeway, they actual rights they are afforded are listed all in the fine print of the license(s).

For instance, when I worked for an ABC affiliate, I was still not allowed to use a Red Hot Chili Pepper’s song for a client’s used car spot. The client thought that I could, since the station paid the blanket license, but the short story is that the publisher of the song would not agree with that specific use. (I didn’t use it, and the station’s legal team backed me up on that decision.)

There are also still cases of songs that are not under the umbrella of BMI or ASCAP anyway. To use a song in a spot, you still need to get permission from the creator/publisher of the music.

Now the rest of this post is not directed to Walter, but to those on the thread who say “don’t worry about it”…

As someone who entered the TV Production industry first as a studio musician, it pains me to see so many people ignore the law if they think that they can. They seem to forget that there are people out there who’s dinner depends on if people actually follow licensing agreements. Yes, it can be complicated to secure rights, but IT’S WORTH IT TO DO THE RIGHT THING. In my experience getting permission on the front-end is not nearly as difficult as navigating a lawsuit would be. When I’ve used licensed music (other than stock libraries) I’d venture to say that half the time, I don’t end up paying any substantial additional fees other than the ASCAP or BMI ones.

I do not use music that I don’t have permission to use. If someone wants custom music, there are plenty of options to give them what they want legally.

-Tim

[Mark Raudonis]

[Emre Tufekci] “It is a gray are but here is my interpitation of it:”

emre,

Your interpretation is JUST PLAIN WRONG!

I’d caution anyone even remotely interested in trying to use the “fair use” defense to research it thoroughly. Plenty of documentarians point to the it as a “shield” for their project. You can wish it… but it just ain’t true.

Mark

[John Davidson]

The rule when I was at CNN was that you could use music, but only if it was in the background as natsound (ie. if a radio was on playing “Carry on my wayward son” while a live shot was on location during a standup or some newsworthy event, it was ok). That was the only time fair use was allowed.

For Walter’s note on the blanket fee, no network I’ve been at does that. Each song we use requires we send in a request through the music clearance folks (they have people just for that) and they send in requests that go through each copyright holder and determine a price for each use of the song. Sometimes it’s almost impossible to get clearance for certain songs because the artists just don’t respond. For example, I really wanted to use “don’t bring me down” by ELO, but ELO wouldn’t respond. Some artists just flat refuse to allow any music, or charge an exorbitant fee (like 80k for one week’s use of Kid Rock’s “cowboy” – we found a substitute).

I put in probably 150 requests for clearance last year, so boy do I wish that we could get unlimited blanket use! To clarify though, my knowledge is primarily promos, so perhaps program production departments have their own clearance setups. I do think that some stock libraries do occasionally include a few popular songs, but it would be misleading to say that all pop music can be cleared through a blanket payment. Man do I wish!

[Emre Tufekci s.o.a.]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the response, When I was talking about “fair use” I was only reffering to educational and reporting categories. Not documentaries.

From Copyright.gov:

Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered