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Recording and selling DVDs of dance recital – music rights
Hi, I’ve been asked (and agreed to) videotape a dance recital and put it on DVD which would be sold to parents. The dances are to current, copyrighted songs.
I understand music rights pretty well and I know you can’t use music w/o obtaining permission. What about the case where the songs are recorded through a consumer video camera – would it be illegal to distribute copies when the audio quality of the songs is severely degraded? This came to mind because I it used to be more acceptable (or at least distributers didn’t worry as much about it) to copy VHS tapes and cassette tapes because every time it was copied it lost a ton of quality. Would this apply in this case of the audio for the recital?
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21 Replies
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Illegal. “Judge, I know it’s a pirate copy, but the quality is bad so it’s okay, right?”.
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i doubt you would ever get in trouble for it since it’s only being distributed localy.
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SO, it’s not piracy if it’s bad quality and you don’t get caught?
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its piracy if you have content in your program that you don’t have the rights too… so the right answer is to either not make the dvds for the parents or put a different song on the audio track.
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Thanks for the input. I’m not interested in what I can get away with (I know I could), I’m interested in what’s legal.
I suppose it wouldn’t make a difference if the DVDs were given away and not sold?
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Patrick, that is a much more interesting and more complex question.
I will say that my rule of thumb question in these situations is: at what point (if any) did money change hands? Who got paid to do what? Breaking the copyright laws for money, you just don’t get too many escapes from that. Even Fair Use is not a magic shield. Fair Use is the excuse you give the judge AFTER you’ve been dragged into court in an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit and found guilty of the factual matter of making something using copyrighted materials without consent. Then, at that point, the judge decides if your situation fits one of the narrowly defined areas where Fair Use is allowed.
If the whole thing was done for free, the case is harder to move forward, but don’t take that as professional legal advice. Moreover, what is “free”, anyhow? Are they taking tickets at the door of the school? is *somebody” getting money? Even if it’s just a little? And did you enable it? It’s a big ball of yarn to untangle. Best not to try.
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Crisis averted; thanks all for your help.
20″ Intel iMac, 2.66 GHz, 4GB ram
View my reel – http://www.youtube.com/patrickdsimpson -
So what if you were paid to record the recital and then gave away the DVD’s? You’re being paid for one service but not the distribution service?
I’m guessing it would be splitting hairs, but I thought it might be an interesting question.
Jason Mechelke
Midnight Sun Productions – Marathon WI
jason@midnightsunprod.com -
[Jason Mechelke] “So what if you were paid to record the recital and then gave away the DVD’s? You’re being paid for one service but not the distribution service?
I’m guessing it would be splitting hairs, but I thought it might be an interesting question.
“The fact is, the “damage is done” when you edit and/or otherwise “prepare” the DVD material, and then issue (paid or not) a DVD with the audio on it.
The production that you do (shooting the video, recording the audio and “combining them” for playback) involves “synchronization rights.”
It means that you owe a copyright fee for “syncing” the copyrighted audio to your video.That is a separate and distinct issue from the “duplication rights” of the music (which will ALSO be involved when you make copies.)
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