Question about 33 1/3 LP albums.

[John Rofrano]

WARNING: This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice you should contact a lawyer. I am not a lawyer and I don’t even play one on TV. 😉

Now that I got that out of the way…

If this was just for your own personal videos to use in the comfort of your own home then it is legal for you to use the music. Unfortunately, you want to use it on videos that you give to friends and it doesn’t matter that this is a hobby and you make not money from it, you are still stealing because you are giving away something which is not yours to give. (i.e., if you give me a song then I don’t have to buy the song so while you didn’t make any money on the deal, neither did the song writer, musicians, or publisher because you stole a sale from them)

The other problem is that you cannot synchronize music to video without a sync license. This is because you are creating a new derivative work and when you purchase a song, you are purchasing the right to listen to it. Nothing more. Certainly not the right to make a derivative work from it. So you currently have no rights to use those LP’s in the manner in which you intend.

It is possible that some of the music is public domain, but even then, you still need to get performance rights from the musicians to use their performance of the song, and then mechanical rights to reproduce and distribute the the song on media. If the song is not in the public domain, you also need to get sync rights I mentioned above which are almost impossible for a single person to get (the publishers simple have no time to deal with you). If you are interested, contact BMI (https://www.bmi.com), or ASCAP (https://www.ascap.com) or SESAC (https://www.sesac.com) to find out which publishers own the rights to the songs (many times there are more than one publisher and you need to get all of them to agree or no deal). Then try and contact them to request a sync license.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Sam Rosenthal]

I am a musician and I run a record label. What John is telling you is technically correct. You don’t have the rights to make a duplicate of the songs, without the permission of whomever holds the rights. However, as a musician and a guy who runs a record label, would I *care* if somebody made a video of their cat playing with a piece of string, and put my song on as the soundtrack, and then gave it to their buddy? No, I wouldn’t. Would your buddy have bought my album, if it weren’t for the fact that you gave him my song? Probably not. Is there some small chance that he’ll like the song enough to go out and buy my album? Maybe. Will the earth grind to a halt if you illegally dupe this song? No! Us record label guys are concerned about the jokers who upload entire albums to torrents, so that anyone can download the whole album for free.

I am not a lawyer,

Sam

[Stephen Mann]

See https://www.copyright.gov/ for ore information.

Every record you have is likely copyrighted. Notice of copyright is not required.

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

[John Rofrano]

> However, as a musician and a guy who runs a record label, would I *care* if somebody made a video of their cat playing with a piece of string, and put my song on as the soundtrack, and then gave it to their buddy? No

Point taken… BUT… I’d bet if the person was making child pornography videos and using your music as the soundtrack and handing them out to their friends or selling them you would probably care A LOT! That’s the whole purpose of requiring a license. You have the right to say who can make a derivative work and you should not give up that right so easily (I’m a musician too). 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Nice to see the concern for copyright, it’s becoming more, rather than less prevalent in recent months in the video world.
To clarify one point; if you want to digitize your LPs for personal use, it’s legal.
It falls under personal use
It falls under portions of Fair Use
Even if it were prosecutable, it would still fall under DeMinimis.

The intent is that you cannot play, nor is it “convenient to play” both copies simultaneously. Digitize your LP to your iPod, put the record on the shelf in a plastic sleeve…you’ve met the restrictions.

Ripping a copy protected CD is a different tale, but most CDs aren’t copy protected.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Sam Rosenthal]

John — The two things in your example that are trouble are the illegality of child porn, and the illegality of selling videos containing music to which you don’t hold the rights. The OP didn’t mention either of those two illegal activities, thus my feeling that his use was not a big deal.

There is the letter of the law, and reality of the usage…..
; )

Sam

[Donald Gibson]

I wish to thank all of you.

No where can an old fellow like me go and get good advise like I do here.
It is kind of nice to know that there is a good place where you can go and get the kind of knowledge that you guys have.

Makes owning the program worth while..

Thanks again
Don

[John Rofrano]

Sam, I agree that this is not relevant to the OP. I used child porn as an example because it is clearly objectionable to everyone without regard to the legality of it. OK, so let’s say you were a big “pro-life” advocate and someone who was “pro-choice” used your music for their video about abortion. Or you are a Christian and some atheist propaganda video used your music. Or someone used your music in a pro-fur video where they were killing baby seals (c’mon everybody loves baby seals) The point I was making was an artist has the right to say, no you cannot use my music for that purpose. Granted, no artist would object to their music being used in a video with a cat and a ball of string… unless of course… they were a dog lover who hates cats. 😉

Your point is well taken about the law and the reality of usage. They quite often are worlds apart.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com