Using copyrighted music for weddings

[Kevin Saitta]

Originally Posted by Steve House

What is especially interesting to me is that most still photographers who cover weddings follow the law with regard to respecting the copyrights of other photographers - try taking prints you purchased from wedding studio A over to wedding studio B and see if they'll make copies for you, fat chance! - and surely the demands from the wedding party on them to bend the law are just as strong as they are on videographers. As I said before, it's no wonder the wedding still shooters look down their noses at video people as not being fellow "true professionals" when they're on the scene - look at all the threads here about how often video people get no respect and little cooperation from the wedding planners, the still photographers, even sometimes even the officiants and the venues - threads such as prohibitions against wireless mics indicates the venue doesn't really care about the quality of sound in something they think of as a trivial product, compared to the way they'll often go out of their way to help the still shooter get good coverage. Look at the threads talking about how much more the still shooters get away with charging. I think it's at least partially because all too often the wedding videographer really does act more like a hobbyist than a business and media professional in the conduct of his business and certainly in the handling of requests to use music illegally, something filmmakers and working videographers in other specialties wouldn't even THINK of doing, it's too often true.

The problem with this is that the wedding party B&G now, especially with digital, scan the prints given to them and make ink jet copies by themselves. So for wedding still photographers it is becoming harder and harder to turn a profit. Also the fact that most BG now what a DVD of all the image in Hi-Res to make all the copies they want after the fact. Making resale of images almost obsolete. Actually I never looked down at videographers as I always assumed they were professional and had to acquire skills to produce a video, whereas these days, anyone with a digital camera that can push a button is now a photographer, and I have photographed hundreds of weddings. What I do look down on is the guys getting into the still photography game undercutting you every which way possible and in the end giving poor quality. You get what you pay for but it seems these days the clients could care less abotu quality and are all about qunatity.

This is the reason I am leaving the commercial side of photography all together.

[Kevin Saitta]

Let me see if I understand this;

What about the music teacher and a student, are the now criminals also because they sit down together and the teacher places the students CD into his radio to listen to one of Eric Clapton song that the student wants to learn. Now the teacher is listening to a CD he did not purchase therefore breaking the law as the CD was bought by the student for personal use only. Then the teacher shows the student how to play the song that the teacher did not write or create and the teacher MAKES money form giving the student a lesson how to play a song that is not his. The student then goes home with the sheet music that the teacher created and learns the song as well as plays the guitar along with the song on the radio , now that the student is an expert the student now plays the song for his friends and family.

All of a sudden the teacher hears how good the student is and now wants him to play the song at a recital. And now a full audience of people hears the student play the song that is not the student to being with. The family of the students hires a videoagrapher to video the event with the music being played by the student.

So under the rules outlined in this thread wouldn’t this make every single person in the scenario criminals, breaking the law where now all can be sued for infringement?

Where does this lunacy end?

I am all for paying fees but not everyone can afford a $50,000 fee to put a minute or two worth music of the bride’s favorite song from a current popular artist for their highlights in their DVD. I do not do wedding with video and I tell you this is definitely discouraging to say the least as I had no idea.

I can see how a lot of people will lose a lot of business if they do not use the BG music that they want. You ever try telling a bride no? I can just imagine what the bride will say when you tell her, listen you can’t use that song from the CD you just bought fro your wedding to because it is illegal and I wont do it. She replies with what! I bought the CD, I own it, get out of here I am going to find some else.

What I do not understand if that if the BG and even the videoagrapher buys a copy of that song ( 2 sales ) and makes 1 DVD for the couple how it is illegal. Yes I read the thread but it makes no sense as everyone bought a copy of the music and the artist is being compensated not once but twice.

[Tim Polster]

Your sentiment about photography can apply to video as well in this case.

The whole crux of the matter is that the people when produced & published the music want to have full control over their product, after all they created and paid for it.

Wedding videography is an industry that gets caught in the middle.

The music producers do not want unauthorized use of the content and a wedding video in not important to anybody but those involved.

So this will perpetually go on deaf ears.

The music folks spend a lot of money to create an image ect... associated with their hits, and wedding video is not one of their end goals, due to its varied quality and small demographic.

I must say, I can not fault them on wanting to guide their product with their vision, not anybody elses.

[Rick Steele]

Originally Posted by Kevin Saitta

So for wedding still photographers it is becoming harder and harder to turn a profit.

I think photographers did it to themselves. It's called pricing yourself out of business. Charging $19 for a 3x5 print is a tad bit on the greedy side if you ask me.

This past year I've been working with a lot of photographers that don't even bother with proofs or an album. They might touch a few photos up but they all end up on a CD and handed over complete with full copyright.

[Kevin Saitta]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

I think photographers did it to themselves. It's called pricing yourself out of business. Charging $19 for a 3x5 print is a tad bit on the greedy side if you ask me.

This past year I've been working with a lot of photographers that don't even bother with proofs or an album. They might touch a few photos up but they all end up on a CD and handed over complete with full copyright.

I shoot all my weddings with film using MF and LF (8x10) cameras ( i guess you an say I am old school ). I then make prints by hand for my clients from the proof they select. When I charged my clients I charged for an entire package and if after they paid in full and were delivered the final package, I would give them the negatives and let them go at it, if they wanted me to make another 8x10 print for example I would charge $25-50 depending on how much work went into making the first one. I always tried to be fair and still make a fair profit. Now people are just getting greedier and putting out bad quality. What has really hurt the still photography market in my humble opinion is digital DSLR as now everyone is a photographer.

Just because you own a piano does not make you a pianist ;)

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Kevin Saitta

I shoot all my weddings with film using MF and LF (8x10) cameras ( i guess you an say I am old school ). t ;)

I wonder what all those BG's will do in 25 years when their home printed ink jet stills have faded into yellow and their DVD backups don't play.

They shoulda hired Kevin!

That's digital's dirty secret: Lousy archiving.

Ah well. This the age of instant gratification...

[Chris Luker]

Originally Posted by Kevin Saitta

Let me see if I understand this;

What about the music teacher and a student, are the now criminals also because they sit down together and the teacher places the students CD into his radio to listen to one of Eric Clapton song that the student wants to learn.

This whole thing is not about listening to the music, it's about using the music synced with video. The original copyright holder has final say in who can use their music for anything that is synced with visuals.

There is a compulsory license for covering a song and selling cds or copies of that music -say you want to record an Eric Clapton song to put on your next album... as long as the original has been published before, you can re-record it all you want by paying a statutory rate.

BUT, you could not then use that with your video because you do not own the original copyright. You would have to ask Eric (if he still owns the copyright) to even do a music video of that song.

If you want to use popular music in your wedding/corp videos, lobby your congressman to make a change to the copyright laws that would induce a statutory rate on sync rights. But good luck with that!
my $.02

[Daniel Browning]

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

That's digital's dirty secret: Lousy archiving.

No, that's one of digital's greatest assets: lossless archiving. Cheap HDD backups with weekly rotation to an offsite location is all it takes to insure your photos. Negatives, on the other hand, do suffer with time, and are a much greater hassle to clean and scan.

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

No, that's one of digital's greatest assets: lossless archiving. Cheap HDD backups with weekly rotation to an offsite location is all it takes to insure your photos. Negatives, on the other hand, do suffer with time, and are a much greater hassle to clean and scan.

Okay well I've got a drawer filled with 40 year old negatives. They print out into beautiful stills even today.

Hard drives? my record for longevity is 3 years. A hard drive must be the worst place in the world to archive. They don't last and are currently looking down the barrel of obsolesence.

[Kevin Saitta]

Originally Posted by Daniel Browning

No, that's one of digital's greatest assets: lossless archiving. Cheap HDD backups with weekly rotation to an offsite location is all it takes to insure your photos. Negatives, on the other hand, do suffer with time, and are a much greater hassle to clean and scan.

That is just simply untrue. I don’t not want to hijack this thread or look like a jerk as this is not my intention, but I am tired of these types of untrue statements. I am a photojournalist and have been in still photography since I was a kid, my uncle was doing photography before I was born and all his negatives and mine are in tact, unfortunately, due to the nature of being a journalist, I was forced to go digital or be out of work so I have first hand experience with both sides of the equation. With that said, I have archived all my work for years and if I do not re-make CD every other year I lose images. I have a huge archive of DVDs, CDs, HD, etc. And in the last 6 years ½ of my CD/DVDs are no longer readable. I also have had hard rives that crashed after 3-4 years and most manufactures do not warranty hard drives after 3-4 years, why is that?

I have negatives that are from my great great grandparents generation and they still print as good today as they did when they were created. I have negatives that are over 40 years old and they print just as good toady as they did when my grandparents took them, I have negatives from my high school days they also print as good today as they did when I shot them over 25 years ago.

I can’t same the same for my digital work.

If negatives are stored properly they are not full of scratches or hard to clean, that is also a fallacy. I have CDs that were stored properly in sleeves; in cases in cool places and they still went bad. Consumer CD and burners are not good and the CD will not last.

Also if you scratch a CD most of the time you are hosed and you lose a large portion of the data on them. If I scratch a negative, a little nose oil or spotting of the negative or print I still have a image.

I also remember reading somewhere and I cant remember who the Military was stating that some of the images form the first Iraq war that was shot digitally is being lost. So much for digital being archival. I wish I could find that link. I will definitely search for it.

I am not anti digital, I just do not like statement that are just not true.

Sorry for the rant but I get tired of hearing this line that is simply not true time and time again.

Please forgive me if I offended anyone.

[Brian Luce]

That's what I say. It's digital's dirtly little secret. I've heard DLT abnd LTO tapes are a decent solution but they aren't cheap.

[Daniel Browning]

Kevin,

Originally Posted by Kevin Saitta

If negatives are stored properly they are not full of scratches or hard to clean, that is also a fallacy.

You are right. I erred in stating that negatives would need cleaning.

Originally Posted by Kevin Saitta

...My uncle was doing photography before I was born and all his negatives and mine are in tact...

If I do not re-make CD every other year I lose images. I have a huge archive of DVDs, CDs, HD, etc. And in the last 6 years ½ of my CD/DVDs are no longer readable. I also have had hard rives that crashed after 3-4 years...

I have negatives that are from [between 25 and 100 years ago] and they still print as good today as they did when they were created.

You are correct in stating that film is less risky to store, untouched, for years or decades at a time. Such a strategy is far too perlilous with digital data, as your experience bears out. Yet there a simple solution to become immune to all the problems you mentioned and more: rotation.

Specifically, one needs to use a second backup drive and push the power button every other day. That simple measure insures against HDD crashes, accidental deletion, malware, etc. by ensuring that there is always at least two separate and unconnected copies of the data at any one time, and furthermore, that each copy is automatically vetted during the normal course of the backup rotation.

For protection against fire, flood, etc., a third hard drive rotated to an off-site location fits the bill perfectly. One may balance the frequency of rotation and its associated inconvenience with the amount of data lost in the event of a fire. I can live with losing a week's worth of data in case my house burned down, so I only rotate drives weekly.

It's a very cheap and easy solution if you have less than two terabytes of images (one half-million photos at eight megapixels). The weight and cost of drive arrays are still reasonable until around ten terabytes, but after that, DAT tapes are the best solution because of their portability.

There are other advantages to online digital backups. It only takes a few seconds to find an image by date or keyword, and a few minutes more to make an exhibition-class print. Finding negatives in a filing system and sending them to the lab would require much greater time. With digital, every pixel of every image is available for critical review in an instant. But with film, one must make do with contact sheets, proofs, or a loupe.

I'm glad that all the film stocks you and your Uncle shot did not suffer from any degradation. However, many film stocks did, even with hermetically sealed, temperature- and humidity-controlled storage; that includes Eastman Ektachrome, LPP, SP, Estar, and Fuji Color.

[Denny Kyser]

Originally Posted by Rick Steele

I think photographers did it to themselves. It's called pricing yourself out of business. Charging $19 for a 3x5 print is a tad bit on the greedy side if you ask me.

This past year I've been working with a lot of photographers that don't even bother with proofs or an album. They might touch a few photos up but they all end up on a CD and handed over complete with full copyright.

How do you figure, do you charge your client based on the price of the DVD you will burn.

Handing over a CD of images is like handing over the unedited footage from a wedding. Don't you feel the end result will suffer.

I am not saying we don't off a cd of images, but only after they purchase a package. I want them to see what the finished project should look like, not what walmart feels it should. I have had many customers who have the CD of Hi Res images still come back to me and say its not the same.

I would be willing to bet that we all break copyright laws all the time, throw in a CD while entertaining, questionable copyright issue.

Most computer programs are one user, which means you can put in on more than one machine, but only one person can use that program.
Take Photoshop for example, I can have it activated on 2 computers, but because my wife and I both work on images we have to have 2 licenses and the second lic is the exact same price of the first, no discount. So if you let anyone sit down to your computer chances are your breaking many lic. issues.