Legal, cheap hit-music sync licenseing via "Zoom Music Lic."...anyone tried them?

[Gregory Alexander]

I figured I should ask this in a seperate thread as the related thread is 4 pages long now and few will see it (scroll down for the link/info: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/taking-c...ml#post1672162). Recently discovered this Zoom company, thought others here may also want to know, if they don't already.

But what I wanted to know is if anyone here has either successfully tried this service, know of anyone who has or if anyone with related legal background here has any thoughts on this. Seems legit! :)

[Bill Davis]

The devil is in the details.

From their own FAQ...

Am I allowed to resell my video production which has ZOOM Licensed Music in stores or via the Internet, as a mass-market product?
No. ZOOM License covers a custom video production that is for "personal use" only, not retail or broadcast use. It does not cover videos intended as mass-market products for retail sale, nor does it cover broadcast/cable TV usage. If you need these separate coverages, contact ZOOM administrators directly to obtain custom clearances.

These appear to be precisely the same "rights" you get when buying a song on iTunes.

[Robert Turchick]

I have to chuckle at the amount of effort put into finding a way around a pretty simple law. Countless threads and still no way around it...Hmmmmmmm.

Face it, you aren't going to legally use a commercially released tune in your production that gets distributed in any way without paying for it. And paying for it means paying the publisher which requires research and money. Sometimes a little money, sometimes a lot of money and thats IF the publisher give you permission.

This Zoom thing is interesting but as Bill pointed out doesn't really solve the underlying law. You can't make money from selling other people's music or distributing it in your production.

As a musician, I really wish people would understand that the music we create is property. It's mine and you can't have it. If I choose to let you borrow it, I can charge whatever the heck I want...cause it's mine! If you choose not to pay for it and still use it, you have stolen my property. I will come after you with the full weight of the law behind me and I will win.

In 23 years of doing production work, I have placed several commercially released tunes in productions and lost count of how many more I have done the research but either couldn't get permission or couldn't afford the asking price and found another solution.

Sorry for the rant but this is just such a tired subject for me with the perspective I have.

[Bill Ward]

There is a possible work around. The ASCAP folks have cut a deal with You-tube, and as of a couple months ago, were working on a similar deal with Vimeo. If you create a video with ASCAP music and want it accessed through the internet, if the end user imbeds it on their website through YouTube, then that action bypasses licensing requirements.

Obviously, this doesn't help much if you are doing, say, DVDs or feature films type work.

This indicates to me that the ASCAP/BMI folks just got tired of trying to chase down every 14 year old who laid a Beyonce track underneath their skateboard pratfall videos on YouTube.

[Robert Turchick]

That's interesting. The keyword for me is "imbed" which means YouTube controls it and can very easily track it and it's probably not going to be public on YouTube. Much less traffic on the 14year olds website! I'll have to look up the agreement.

[Bill Ward]

As I understood it from the ASCAP e-mail, the size of the website didn't matter, nor how big or little the business was. Only that the video window website visitors click on is linked to YouTube.

[Bill Davis]

Originally Posted by Bill Ward

There is a possible work around. The ASCAP folks have cut a deal with You-tube, and as of a couple months ago, were working on a similar deal with Vimeo. If you create a video with ASCAP music and want it accessed through the internet, if the end user imbeds it on their website through YouTube, then that action bypasses licensing requirements.

Obviously, this doesn't help much if you are doing, say, DVDs or feature films type work.

This indicates to me that the ASCAP/BMI folks just got tired of trying to chase down every 14 year old who laid a Beyonce track underneath their skateboard pratfall videos on YouTube.

And this implies that ASCAP even controls all the rights to a particular work including the music composition, any lyrics and 100% of the performances embedded in the particular recording in question.

And they may hold all of these - but NOT the syncronization rights that permit someone to legally use one copyright work within another copyright work.

I get that people want simple answers to this. But the truth is that simple is rarely the way rights management works in the real world.

[Gregory Alexander]

Yes I read the FAQ Bill, and I don't think you read the latter half of that FAQ question fully. It's referring to MASS-market reselling (after production is finished), not the same as selling your production services which includes a DVD such as for weddings for clients, which, if you read here, you will see is covered under this license:

What is meant by "Personal Use?"
"Personal use" refers to the end use of the video production once it leaves your hands. In other words if a corporation is using a DVD that you produced internally, then you are covered. Special events, such as wedding videos given to the bride & groom, and photo montages, for example, are covered. Television broadcast use of any kind is NOT covered (to obtain TV clearances contact ZOOM administrators directly.) Use of copyrighted music licensed through ZOOM is not permitted beyond the scope of the specific use allowed by the Standard Videographer License (i.e. mass retail sale of the particular production as a store item, for example, is not permitted, but single purpose, work-for-hire is permitted).

[Bill Davis]

Look, I absolutely HOPE that this is a viable alternative to the current mess of copyright.

But I'm skeptical.

Your cite mentions a "Standard Videographer License" - something I've never heard of. And something that can only be legally given, if the originating party has the contractual right to do so.

For instance, in the language you post from their definition of "Personal Use" you post "if a corporation is using a DVD that you produced internally, then they are covered."

That seems extremely suspect to me. Why? Because I've spent many a long hour trying to track down and clear a piece of popular music for one of my large corporate clients for use in something like a trade show for a couple of thousand employees, or a training video that will go out to perhaps 25,000 viewers. In each case, the idea that someone has managed to get the parties to charge a few cents - rather than the THOUSANDS of dollars that my clients have had to pay in the past would be a dream come true.

But I'm just wary of the idea that they would sign away their right to get those thousands of bucks with a single transaction and instead, tie it to YouTube clicks.

Apple was able to do this with iTunes (re-invent licensing) because they had the massive clout to work directly with, not the clearing houses like ASCAP, but rather the original rights holders like WEA, or DG. And in that model, many, many companies opted OUT for years as the service grew. If ZOOM or anyone else can make this work, it will be a great thing. Until I hear the industry say that this is a working business model that it legal AND reliable, I'm just going to be skeptical. Particularly because of an issue I've brought up in other threads where if you agree to make your music available with blanket "pay per click" licenses for sync to visuals - you run a terrible risk that someone will take your lovely song - use it as background for their childish "satan the one true lord" video - which goes viral on the web - and links forever your copyright music with content you DON'T approve of.

I truly hope I'm wrong on this. But I'm reserving judgement.

[Robert Turchick]

Totally with Bill on this one. Been doing this for a very long time and when something sounds too good to be true....well you know the rest.

Personally, I'd call an entertainment lawyer to read over Zoom's fine print before trusting them to cover my a$$ with an agreement that goes against everything I've learned from dealing with licensing and copyright.

As Bill said, if this is legit, what a wonderful thing and hopefully the whole music industry can jump on the bandwagon to make the whole process easy. I just don't see this as being anything of the sort.

And to further agree with Bill, his example of the mis-use of music is a legitimate argument that I've dealt with. Not quite as extreme as that but I have run in to a couple of artists who didn't want their song associated with the project I was producing. They actually gave me reasons which they weren't required to do and I have to abide by their decision no matter what. Game over and move on.

No matter what, you have to have permission to use the music and that permission can only come from one source...the publisher which most of the time is the artist.

[Gregory Alexander]

Bill: thanks for helping me to understand your stance on this better. I do agree with you a a few points.

Though in response to both you and Robert, if the producer/artist of a particular track /album had been released and pre-cleared for producers to get a sync-license for, they've already signed over the rights to that company (Zoom), haven't they?

Btw, here's a little industry article from 2007 on Zoom:
WEVA.com - Warner Chapell and Philly International Records Sign On with ZOOM

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Bill Ward

There is a possible work around. The ASCAP folks have cut a deal with You-tube, and as of a couple months ago, were working on a similar deal with Vimeo. If you create a video with ASCAP music and want it accessed through the internet, if the end user imbeds it on their website through YouTube, then that action bypasses licensing requirements.

Obviously, this doesn't help much if you are doing, say, DVDs or feature films type work.

This indicates to me that the ASCAP/BMI folks just got tired of trying to chase down every 14 year old who laid a Beyonce track underneath their skateboard pratfall videos on YouTube.

Not to resurrect an old thread but just noticed this one. Your post got me to thinking that we need to be careful about the different licenes in these discussions and I'm wondering if there's some confusion between them going on here. We need to remember there's synchronization licenses and then there's performance licenses, two separate licenses covering different aspects of music usage and BOTH licenses must be taken into account when one distributes a production. In order to juxtapose a piece of music alongside images in a film or video, ie, incorporate music into the soundtrack, one needs the sync license. Then when one performs the music in public, including a "performance" that consists of broadcasting or otherwise showing the video, performance royalties on that music comes due to the owner of the copyright. ASCAP et al collects and adminsters performance royalties but doesn't get involved with sync licenses in any way.

When you make a video program that is subsequently broadcast, you first obtain the sync license that allows you to use the music in the first place and pay any fees requested. That part is the responsibility of the program's producer. As part of the program's deliverables, you prepare a cue sheet that lists all music cuts, their position in the program and duration, the name of the copyright owner, and the rights society - ASCAP, BMI, etc - the copyright owner is affiliated with. When the program actually is broadcast, the TV station reports the usage to the applicable rights society under the provisions of its blanket license and the rights society in turn disburse the royalty payments to the copyright owner. Note that the copyrght owner get's two bites of the apple - the fee for the sync license and the royalty for each specific individual performance.

I'm suspecting that the agreements between ASCAP and YouTube or Vimeo that have been mentioned here deal with the performance licensing and royalty aspects of this system, perhaps covering the royalty that would otherwise be due for each viewing of the video under some sort of blanket agreement. But since ASCAP, etc, aren't involved in sync licensing to begin with, I would be very surprised if they negated the obligation of the person making and uploading the video to obtain a sync license on any music they use so that it's legal for them to put it in their video in the first place.