crediting copyrighted music

[David Hart]

I have produced a concert DVD for an up and coming artist who Sony has signed up, The DVD is copyright protected and also encrypted.
Sony is now asking for me to supply them with a master on Digi Beta for commercial use. Does anyone have an Idea what Sony should pay for me to release my copyright? An comments would be appreciated.

Thanks

David

[Steve House]

While you may own the copyright on the DVD, unless you happen to also be the composer someone else owns the copyright to the music (words and melody). There is no copyright on the performance per se (performances are not tangible and so aren't copyrightable) and unless he's the composer/publisher of the music he performed the performer can't give you permission to use it. The copyright on the music is separate from the copyright on the DVD. Unless you have formal license agreements with the music's various copyright owners allowing you to use the music, you can't distribute your DVD anyway and it will languish on the shelf unseen. Consider yourself lucky that Sony likes it well enough to actually be willing to license or buy out the rights from you. As for what you should charge, it's an open market and there's no way anyone can answer that except you - what do you feel it's worth or how much do you think they're willing to pay?

[Chris Davis]

Originally Posted by Paul Tauger

What form did this "permission" take? If you have a license, how credit must be given will be spelled out quite clearly.

That's exactly what I was thinking - if you have "real" permission, the form of the credit would be specifically spelled out. The two times I have been able to secure a license, there was no doubt about it, they told me exactly what to say.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Steve House

Unless you have formal license agreements with the music's various copyright owners allowing you to use the music, you can't distribute your DVD anyway and it will languish on the shelf unseen.

Just as an FYI that as David who asked the question is in the UK this is not 100% true. There is a 'lightweight' Limited Manufacture Licence available in the UK that can be used Limited Manufacture (LM) This licence is ideal for exactly this situation of a concert DVD for an up and coming artist that could e.g. be sold direct by the artist at concerts. The LRM would ensure that any cover versions of songs are properly licensed. It's very affordable too as licensing 1000 DVDs costs just 40p per disc.

[Steve House]

True, but I just read through the information in the site you linked to and from what I read he might qualify for the LM but then again he might not. It sounds like if the musician had hired him to make the recording/DVD (so the musician was the owner of the copyright on the DVD) and it was the musician who was offering copies of the DVDs as gifts or limited direct retail sale, then the musician himself could obtain a LM license that would apply as far as those copies are concerned. But if the videographer had produced the DVD on his own behalf, whether he could distribute copies under the LM isn't really clear. And it seems to say that the rights to do anything else with the video beyond limited run direct retail sales or gifting of copies (such as broadcasting, public exhibition, etc) are not covered under the LM arrangement.

[Nigel Barker]

Yes, there are all sorts of ifs & buts about the LM licence & on reflection if the artist is actually signed to Sony then they are excluded from using this licence.

I thought that it was interesting to highlight that the PRS/MCPS have been pretty progressive in the UK making such a licence available to videographers (& others). It does mean that e.g. wedding videographers in the UK may on purchase of the licence legitimately use almost any live or recorded music when producing a DVD for their clients. I believe that in Australia it is possible to purchase a 'blanket' annual licence for this sort of small scale production & distribution. However as I understand it in most other countries & in particular the US there is simply no such simple licensing mechanism available & if a videographer wants to use anything that isn't 'royalty-free' then they must follow the same route as a network TV station or Hollywood studio plus pay big bucks. The alternative of simply using a commercial track & risk getting sued some time down the line. Music rights holders could well look at how vigorously Getty Images have been pursuing infringing use of images on web sites & see a new pot of gold.

[Steve House]

These discussions do raise all sorts of interesting questions. I find it ironic that so many creators of film and video intellectual property at other than the major studio levels fail to see that the creators and owners of the musical intellectual property they wish to use are in fact their comrades in arms, not their opponents. They often fail to appreciate that the same laws that require them to pay the market rate as set by the copyright owners for the music they use also protects their own intellectual property from being used without their approval and allows them to set the price for what uses they do allow. I wonder how a wedding shooter would feel if one of his client couples bartered the footage he shot of their ceremony to the wedding dress store to use in their TV advertising in exchange for a free wedding dress, without consulting him or compensating him at his going rate for advertising footage. How about mandatory licensing for such usages of his footage, stating that once he has delivered the video to the client couple, the store only needs to pay him a $50 royalty on the footage they obtained from the couple, even though his usual fee to shoot an ad directly for the store would be $5000? How would that sit with the typical videographer?

[Terry Lee]

Its interesting to see so much confusion on how to go about being legal for this particular aspect of film making. I of course have never done any of this stuff and am currently in the same situation. I am trying to use a City and Colour song so I went to their website and shot their manager an email asking him what I had to do to be able to use about a minute of one of their songs.

for some reason I was thinking there is a time limit for the amount of a song you could use without having to ask for anything....but I was never able to find that information again.. probably bogus info. Any how, I would rather not screen a short film without making sure i got the "ok" on paper.

[Steve House]

There is no 'magic length' under which you can use a song without license - that's an urban legend and wishful thinking. If it's recognizable, it has to be licensed, period. Unless you are recording the performance yourself, there are two separate copyrights to contend with so you need two licenses and sometimes it is difficult to track down who you get them from, there's no 'one-stop shopping'. The first is a sync license from the owners of the copyright to the musical melody and lyrics - that would be the composer and lyricist, represented by the song's publisher. But the sync license only lets you use the musical composition - a recording of a performance of the music has its own separate copyright, usually owned by the label that released it and you need to obtain a 'master use' license from them to use any existing recording. In all this, the band often has nothing to do with it and cannot license or give you permission to use it - it is rare that they own either copyright. Unless they're releasing on their own label, as far as their recording is concerned they're just the hired help and don't own the copyright to it. And unless they wrote and published the music, the don't own the copyright to the underlying musical composition either. In the case of City and Colour, it does look like Green is the composer of most of the music he records and according to ASCAP EMI Music is the publisher. The label it appears that he releases on would be Dine Alone Music and that's where you'd start the process for the master use license. Of course, if you wanted to use his recording of "Cowgirl In The Sand" that's a Neil Young song and Broken Arrown Music would be where you'd go for the sync license.

[Terry Lee]

The song I am interested in using is "Im coming home."

I sent an email to Joel Carriere who takes care of the managment & Label...nothing back yet.

I am going to send Dine Alone Records an email also and see what they say about my situation.

I read that its best to include a description of the part that the song will be used, for how much time..etc

Thanks for the help Steve!

[Steve House]

Here's ASCAP's info on who to contact for "Comin' Home"
...
Publishers/Administrators:
BALD HEADED GIRLS INC
C/O EMI APRIL MUSIC INC
C/O EMI MUSIC PUBLISHING ATTN: AUDREY ASHBY
75 9TH AVE FL 4
NEW YORK, NY, 10011
Tel. (212) 492-1200
Email: COPYRIGHTADMIN@EMIMUSICPUB.COM

You need to clear the Sync license from the publisher before you can even think about the Master Use license from the label he recorded it on.

This comes from ACAP's ACE database at www.ascap.com. There and the Songfile database on the Harry Fox Agency website are two of the best places to start tracking down who owns the music you want to use. Even better is to hire a rights clearance agent and have them do the legwork for you.

[Terry Lee]

well the sent me a licensing request form but unfortunately the return time exceeds the due date for the film submission...

Well it was worth a shot.

I guess i could only ask if it would be in some way possible to use the song in the film showcase without having a licens...i've been in some venues where I know for SURE those people didn't get the licens to use the music..

[Steve House]

I guess i could only ask if it would be in some way possible to use the song in the film showcase without having a licens...i've been in some venues where I know for SURE those people didn't get the licens to use the music..

Short answer .... no. And FYI, performance royalties paid by a venue or broadcaster through a performance rights organization such as ASCAP or BMI are a totally different critter from the license YOU need to use music in a film or video.