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Music for Weddings
To all who are interested,
I am cutting my first wedding video and I am curious of what you guys and gals are doing for music. I know that it is illegal to use an artists songs in a video for profit. I know that. But does that mean that people are actually paying royalty rights to popular love songs? Which I doubt. Or is it just a “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it” kind of thing.
I had told my client originally that they could pick out their own music for their video. But now I am thinking that I might not be able to do that. I also have been doing research on Sonicfire, but it seems that these songs are generic and boring.
So, what is everybody that has been doing this for a while do for music. Do you purchase the right? Or do you just say, whatever?
I would appreciate your thoughts.
Best,
Beau -
9 Replies
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You’ve got 2 options:
A) Pay any one of those “license a bunch of generic songs for a reasonable price” kind of companies to get a few CDs.
B) Cheat and hope no one catches you.
Those are really the only 2 options. Things like using the client’s own music or other workarounds just fall into category “B” no matter how much they might SOUND like they’re ok.
This is a good time to ask everyone here, though. What companies are everyone around here using who work in category “A?” I’ve been looking to update to something newer as well.
Any suggestions?
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I am not sure what body of licencing you have in America, but in Australia, I can use any artist legally on a DVD for personal events, (weddings, birthday parties, christenings, etc) up to 25 copies. I felt the need to be legal so I went and got a licence from Aria (Australian Recording Industry Association) which is around the $400 mark per year. I also have a questionnaire form that I give to couples to stipulate what music they would like to add to the DVD. I can even have videos on my website with commercial music and there isn’t a damn thing that anyone can do about it. I am completely legit. See your local recording body and see if they have a similar licencing aggreement. If you are stuck for choice, stick to classics and a bit of guitar and classical music, most people (99%) like this as background music, hence the reason why films are scored with classical music.
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I’m not sure what the licensing deal in America is either, but the Australian method sounds great! If something similar is not in place here, I think it definitely should be.
I would probably fall more into the ‘whatever’ category mentioned by beb850. I don’t know…I’m involved in music as well, and I totally understand the whole copyright situation and believe that artists should be compensated, etc. But for a wedding video? That’s where I have a hard time understanding. I’ve purchased the CD, more than likely the wedding participants have also purchased the CD, so in my simple way of thinking, I don’t see a problem using a track or two from that CD on a few copies of a wedding video. Now, if I were selling an instructional video or something, with mass public distribution, that’s a totally different story. Then I’d be all for going through the steps to pay for use.
Until then, just call me a crazy outlaw wedding videographer! That’s my favorite part of doing these things…editing highlights to someone’s favorite track(s). If the ‘powers that be’ in the music biz want to come after me and my little operation, fine. I’ll just move to Australia!
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Hi Jeffreaux ,
You can try sounddogs.com for licensed music, stockmusic.com, stock20.com, nonstopmusic.com, videohelper.com, bluefusemusic.com, studiocutz.com, sound-ideas.com, 5alarmmusic.com. I hope this helps you a little.
Good Luck!
Ralph Hajik
Westmont, IL
Happy Editing -
I haven’t downloaded or heard any of the music yet, but musician Moby has just began to allow free download of his music for small and independent projects. I can only assume that a wedding would fall under that heading.
Check it out at https://www.moby.com/
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I know and understand that it concerns a great deal of event videographers, as I said I carry a licence in Australia to use any music I want – including international artists, but I know of a lot of videographers in the local industry that don’t bother to carry this licence at all.
So I guess you just use whatever you can on a wedding (fingers crossed) and if it is for commercial release, as in a corporate production, I usually either have someone score the video, (costly for client) or buy a royalty free track and splice it up or loop it for use. A great source of royalty free tracks is http://www.freeplaymusic.com, I have used a number of their tracks in several productions and haven’t paid a cent other than the time it took to search, listen and download a track.G5 Dual 2.3GHZ
2.5GB DDR SDRAM 400MHZ
Mac OS 10.5.1
2 x 20″ Apple Cinema Display
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[Jamie Kehoe] “A great source of royalty free tracks is http://www.freeplaymusic.com, I have used a number of their tracks in several productions and haven’t paid a cent other than the time it took to search, listen and download a track.”
Uhhhh, you mean you download the track and if you like it you pay the modest fee for non-broadcast which last I checked was about $25-$50USD. Right?!?
If not you might want to keep your decisions to yourself. Scott and the guys at FPM have done business with me in the past and they are good guys and deserve to be paid.
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Rick Dolishny
Discrete Editors COW Leader
http://www.thecreativeprocess.ca
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