Copyright and video production

[Liam Carlin]

Hey Guys,

I recently shot a night at a well known nightclub. its a chain of clubs and they have one in every major city.

So I'm in the production stage where i have captured the footage and i am ready to edit.

this is where the problem lies... when i asked which song i was to use they replied "its your choice just make it current and catchy"

when i mentioned who would be clearing the copyright and paying for it they have not responded for some time now.

so here are my 2 scenarios where copyright hasn't been cleared....

1) i pick a song then edit i get caught who is to blame? im under the impression it would be me? am i right in thinking this?

2) they pick a song and i then edit i end up getting caught im i still to blame for this or would it be the club/company?

i know this sound like very dumb questions but im a little unsure.

if they don't clear copyright what would you suggest? as for a percentage of what i have done and be gone with it?

ive been advised to get the client to sign a disclaimer to say they are responsible for the music for this video.

can you guys help?

Thanks

Liam

[Chris Davis]

No, it's not enough for you to get them to sign a disclaimer. Your butt is on the line with this, it doesn't matter if it's 5% or 99.9%, you couldn't afford the legal problems either way.

If I were you, I'd find some sort of "sound alike" style from a company that provides more affordable licensing terms (such as www.freeplaymusic.com).

[Rick L. Allen]

Chris is right. If it isn't yours and you don't have permission from the artist to use the song then it's copyright infringement and you are in deep kimchi. Get a comparable song from a buyout music source.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Rick L. Allen

Chris is right. If it isn't yours and you don't have permission from the artist to use the song then it's copyright infringement and you are in deep kimchi. Get a comparable song from a buyout music source.

not only the artist, but most artists don't even own the copyright to the recordings they make. THe record label does. So you need permission from the song writer and you need permission from the label for the sync & dup licenses.

And tell them that if they are so well know and nation wide, then they will have to pony up for the clearance. Otherwise, another possible source is Magnatune.com

[Colin Zhang]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

Otherwise, another possible source is Magnatune.com

I've found Incompetech.com to be of use as well.

[Steve House]

You might want to investigate Smartsound's buyout library and Sonicfire Pro softsware. Great tools if you need to edit to length and the library music represents many genres and sounds surprisingly good. If you buy one CD after auditioning online you currently get the editing software free.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Steve House

You might want to investigate Smartsound's buyout library and Sonicfire Pro softsware. Great tools if you need to edit to length and the library music represents many genres and sounds surprisingly good. If you buy one CD after auditioning online you currently get the editing software free.

Back when I was trying to decided what to use (Sonicfire vs Cinescore) I looked at the prices of each and while I consider Cinescore's far inferior in terms of musical production values, the amazingly high cost per song from Sonicfire pretty much eliminated them from contention.

I looked all over their site and could not find a "buyout library" option, not like I could afford the $3K or whatever they would probably charge for it.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Jason Robinson

Back when I was trying to decided what to use (Sonicfire vs Cinescore) I looked at the prices of each and while I consider Cinescore's far inferior in terms of musical production values, the amazingly high cost per song from Sonicfire pretty much eliminated them from contention.

I looked all over their site and could not find a "buyout library" option, not like I could afford the $3K or whatever they would probably charge for it.

"Buy-out library" is the type of licensing arrangement. There are two basic types for stock production music - needle-drop and buy-out. With needle drop you pay per use and sometimes by length as well. Use a 30-second cut at 3 different places in one video plus once in another, you pay 4 fees. Buy-out you buy the cut and can use it as much as you want in as many productions as you want without additional fees. For one-shot uses, needle drop is usually cheaper. For something reused in different productions, buy-out is usually cheaper.

You buy Sonicfire cuts either a CD or a track at a time. A CD has about 10 or so tracks and runs between $50 and $100, some in their "backstage line" run $200. The software lets you preview all of the available tracks in the full library online at no charge so if you don't think you'll use more than one track off of a given CD, you can buy and download just that one track instead of springing for the full disk - I think most of them are about $20 per track when purchased individually by download. Purchase of the track gives you a license to use it in all your productions in perpetuity. Their new multi-layer disks have good quality music and the software makes it easy to edit to fit to time, change tempo, change the "feel" of a piece and even remix the instruments.

[Liam Carlin]

Hey Guys

Thanks for the reply's and the advice. this is what i was afraid was going to be the case...

Originally Posted by Chris Davis

No, it's not enough for you to get them to sign a disclaimer. Your butt is on the line with this, it doesn't matter if it's 5% or 99.9%, you couldn't afford the legal problems either way.

also from what I've read and heard its a long process to get copyright clearance and is expensive. the company i am working for could in all reality afford to pay the fee but i think they will take into consideration that the actual rights to the music will cost more!

also this was mentioned to me on a different forum...

You need them to sign a disclaimer saying that it is their responsibility to get the clearance for the music in the promo video (or whatever it is). IF you want you can even tell them the artist, track and label to help them out.

That way you are generally cleared of any responsibility of what they do with it.

If you give the impression (or fail to mention that) you have clearance then any legal action could be back to you.

Thanks

Liam

[Chris Davis]

The fact remains that if your client gets into legal trouble for using copyright material, you can be assured that as the producer you will be named in the lawsuit. You'll show your signed disclaimer and any lawyer worth his salt will find more holes in it than swiss cheese. It literally won't be worth the paper it's written on.

A signed disclaimer is not enough for me. I'd need to see a hard copy of the music license agreement from the artist/publisher.

[Peter Wiley]

Copyright law in the UK is different than in the US. Throw all the advice from yanks out the window and get the advice of a solicitor who works in this area of British law.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Peter Wiley

Copyright law in the UK is different than in the US. Throw all the advice from yanks out the window and get the advice of a solicitor who works in this area of British law.

Doh! I would have said somethign like that if I had noticed the country!

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Peter Wiley

Copyright law in the UK is different than in the US. Throw all the advice from yanks out the window and get the advice of a solicitor who works in this area of British law.

True, it's different in the details, but I believe it's the Berne Convention that established an international standard so the general principles are the same.