Legally use of music for online videos?

[Steve Rhoden]

There are tons of legal (Royalty free) music out
there you can purchase or even freely download,
So that worrying for such matters isnt necessary.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
1-876-832-4956

[Paul Gilmore]

Well the reason in asking is I’m editing 3-4 online videos for a charter bus company and they want certain music for the videos.

[Dave Haynie]

Legally, they have to license the music. Particularly if these are commercial videos, not just something a kid made in their bedroom. You’ll find there’s some tolerance for this on YouTube, but it depends very much on the music and on its use. And that’s pretty much only because of the nature of YouTube… they’re not responsible for the content. Put copyrighted music up on the bus company’s own web site without licensing, and they very well might get sued.

I did a video for a company last year, they wanted music that was “something like” a few songs mentioned, plus the “Happy Birthday” song. I wrote them up something that worked — they liked it, it didn’t steal heavily from any copyrighted material (the “Happy Birthday” part is pretty close, but they was kind of non-negotiable).

My understanding of the fair use laws is that any use directly for commercial purposes (ad, film) needs a license, probably the one known as a synchronization license. The fair use exceptions are things like use of a song or film clip as part of a review, certain background music in a new story or documentary, that kind of thing. The idea of 15 or 30 seconds being “Fair Use” for anything is a myth. This is a good resource: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/

-Dave

[Steve Rhoden]

There is some tolerance for this on YouTube, if thats the case….

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
1-876-832-4956

[Angelo Mike]

Yeah, there’s some tolerance on Youtube because they can’t police everything. But there’s nothing stopping someone who holds the copyright from finding your video and flagging it for a copyright violation in the future, which could get the video taken down. And you wouldn’t want to have put your client through that.

Also, Youtube has automated functions that will detect some copyrighted music and remove it from the video immediately upon upload. There’s plenty of copyright, royalty free music that you can use. And there’s more that you can pay for to license that’s nowhere near the cost of licensing whatever music they’re trying to use.

http://www.scenethroughglass.com

[Stephen Mann]

“I have heard that under the 2006 fair use statue
if only a percentage of copyrighted material is used it is legal, but you can not use the entire song.”

You heard wrong. Very wrong.

“There is also a rumour going around that you can use four notes of any song under the “fair use” doctrine. There is no “four note” rule in the copyright law. One note from a sound recording is a copyright violation. Saturday Night Live was sued for using the jingle, “I Love New York” which is only four notes. The test for infringement is whether the sample is “substantially similar” to the original. Remember, a judge or jury is the one who determines this and these people may be much less receptive to your music than your fans. My point is you cannot rely on fair use as a defense”

The complete article is here: https://www.songrite.com/information/Pages/Music%20sampling.htm

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Steve Rhoden]

My advice Paul…just get some royalty free music
for the video, and advise your clients accordingly.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
1-876-832-4956

[Paul Gilmore]

I did go to the US Copyright Office website and this is what it says:

How much of someone else’s work can I use without getting permission?

Under the fair use doctrine of the U.S. copyright statute, it is permissible to use limited portions of a work including quotes, for purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports. There are no legal rules permitting the use of a specific number of words, a certain number of musical notes, or percentage of a work. Whether a particular use qualifies as fair use depends on all the circumstances.
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-fairuse.html#obtain

So to me this is saying you are allowed to use portions of copyrighted material but not the entirety…??

I did go ahead and email them just to get more clarification on it.. maybe they’ll email me back.. ?

[Paul Gilmore]

“or purposes such as commentary, criticism, news reporting, and scholarly reports”

looks like only if it’s used for say student films, or educational purposes..

[Christopher Key]

I sometimes use commercial music for personal travel videos and I have a few online – but if I’m doing a commercial project for a client I either use royalty free music or create my own. I’ve had youtube restrict videos or remove the soundtrack completely when I’ve tried to post some, even when it was a kiddie movie I made when I was 12.

Christopher Key