Poll - How many requests for this song
 

I'm curious to know how many of your clients have asked for their recap song to be "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol?

I think this is going to be a popular (i.e. overused) recap song by client request.

Let me know.

Ben

Wow, not once for me.

I have had it on one or two lists, which is pretty low, but never for a recap or highlights. We always suggest they leave the highlights music to us and 90% do, which is great as we don't get stuck using songs like Snow Patrol for every other one.

Far more common for us is "Better Together", that seems to be somewhere on over half of the song lists lately. I made the mistake of putting some clips on my blog with some cool songs too, and now nearly every song list has them and they have quickly become much less cool.

I've used it once so far...

Music publishing
 

Great idea! I do very few weddings so I suppose I'm out of the loop with regard to licensing so I must ask: Is there now a clearing house for not for broadcast syncronization rights or a royalty payment system in place for such use of musical works?

Is it still free if nobody says anything?

No, and for great entertainment you should check out the other thread that is probably still very near to this one in the list.

There's no easy access clearing house for sync rights unfortunately so virtually all the usage of popular songs in wedding videos is illegal and in my opinion constitutes a highly questionable business practice even though it is commonplace. For the retail wedding/event portion of the videography profession to thumb its nose at the law like is often done, a law that the majority of the media professionals in broadcasting, feature films, and the music, photography, and publishing industries treats with great respect, and exploiting their fellow creative professionals from the music industry apparently without even a pang of consience is just plain embarrassing. While some people in the industry are doing beautiful work, IMHO their attitude towards copyright and the wink-wink-nudge-nudge acceptance of breaking the law as being just a part of the normal course of business, really tarnishes the whole concept of their being true professionals on a par with the creative people in filmmaking and broadcasting, and I suspect it's one of the reasons that the wedding still photographers, who are very much aware of copyright issues regarding their own work, often look down their collective noses at the videographers.

yep, used it once

the requests that are doing my head in are James Blunt - Beautiful, and Jack Johnson - Better Together!

same as Patrick, in that once people hear the songs on your examples, they want it too!

I don't mean to be rude Steve, so I hope it doesn't come across that way. Would you mind sharing with us what music you use for your work?

I do almost no work directly for "consumers" Majority of my clients are wedding studios and most of those are affiliated with DJ companies. Officially, the final wedding vid is their product.

This is not a cop out (OK, maybe a little one) but these companies buy music for use in their live event productions; its all licensed and legal and they tell me that these rights extend to using the music in the videos. I don't know if that is totally true but music is their business so I leave it to them

If I need a particular song, say for a client request, the studios use legal, paid download services to aquire them. In their biz, that expense is pretty neligable.

For my corporate work, I have about 20 "buy out" CDs of canned industrial music. I haven't updated that in years cause lately I have been creating my own background music in programs like Soundtrack and Garage Band


This whole copyright thing is an interesting discussion .. I know that my work has been ripped off by other editors in the past and that clearly pisses me off On the other hand, in the few instances I do my own wedding productions, working directly with consumers, I could never do the job without including popular music. In my contract I inform the client of the legal risk. Nobody has never not signed it..

OK, so call me the cop out king. I been called worse

I believe there is another thread discussing the use of copyrighted music, so perhaps questions and concerns related to that should be directed to that thread. The posters original questions seem to have been lost pretty quickly.

I don't do weddings so its not an issue. Moving back into the industry now after a number of years doing other things. When I was active it was in the corporate and training markets. Then I only used buyout music and today still no reason to change. There are ample libraries of legally available music to use and nowdays with tools such as Cinescore (Sony) and SonicFire (Smartsound) you can create customized tracks that are legal and yet don't sound like elevator music.

Unfortunately that contract doesn't protect you in the slightest. Any provision in a contract that is in violation of the law is automatically null and void. Sort of like the brainiacs that go up in front of Judge Mathis trying to argue they're owed money because the defendent didn't make good on the payments for the marijuana they bought - it ain't gonna fly in front of a judge. Since as the producer you are the one performing the act of synchronizing the music to the video, you are the one liable regardless of the contract your customer signed. If you take copyright materials to Kinkos and they copy it for you, they are liable, not you. Same situation when your customer brings you a song and asks you to copy it into the video you're making for them.

I highly doubt that, seeing as most photographers now include slideshows in their packages . . which are nearly always set to popular, copyrighted music.

No offense, but if you don't do weddings you don't really understand the difficulty of the situation for videographers.

I really do understand and sympathize ... but the difficulty you face isn't an excuse to ignore both the letter and the spirit of the law. The difficulty comes in large part not rfrom the licensing system but from your fellow videographers who also use the same excuses to ignore the law - if no one did it, the B&G out there would quickly discover it just ain't gonna happen and the issue of being a competitive disadvantage would disappear in no time at all. And for that to happen requires self-policing within the wedding video industry lead by a cadre of ethical producers who have the courage to just say "no" and demand that their peers follow suite. It'll never get better if everyone just winks at it.

And I'll venture to say the music industry isn't going to be motivated to cooperate in establishing a licensing system until they can feel they're dealing with a group who is as professional as they view themselves to be, something I don't think is happening now. Until you demonstrate a willingness to play by the same rules they follow when they play with each other, they ain't gonna be interested in playing on the same court with you.

I think it is a safe bet to say you would be very angry if another videographer copied a clip of your work and used it in a production of their own without your permission - lets say they use it as a wedding scene in an indy feature they were doing or as part of a documentary on the wedding video industry. Unless you are honestly willing to say that it would be perfectly legitimate for them to do that and it's okay with you, IMO a sense of fairness requires you to apply the same attention to other's music rights in the conduct of your video business as you would expect others to apply to your video rights in their conduct of their business. If it's not okay for someone to use your creative work without permission , it's not okay for you to use someone else's - end of story. The fact it's hard not to because of customer demands, doesn't excuse it.

The problem with that logic is that someone WILL always provide that service, and those that don't will just go out of business. It's "pie in the sky" logic.


I guess honestly that wouldn't bother me, as long as my footage was credited somehow. Having someone else use my work (as long as they don't represent it as their own work) only benefits me by giving me more exposure. Now, if someone takes a clip, and represents it as their own work and doesn't credit me, then yeah, I'd be angry.

The thing is, in my situation, I'm not only NOT representing the song as my own work (everyone in the world already knows it's not), I'm also crediting the artist on the DVD. BUT, that's not all. I'm also purchasing the song for the project, so the artist is gaining exposure AND making money. It's pretty much win-win for the artist.

In your example, I'm only getting exposure, and I'd honestly be fine with that.

That's just it - you haven't purchased the song. The only thing you purchased is a license to listen to it plus (perhaps) a piece of CD substrate plastic.

I have never been approached about that song.

"The letter of the law". Give me a break! If somebody else used my work to enhance their art I would be so flattered I wouldn't know what to do. It would be the ultimate compliment! Don't assume that all people are like you, and would be offended.

Besides, the record companies rip off the artists infinity times the impact of some old wedding videographer. They try to squeeze them for every ounce of money they can. They(artists) mostly make their riches on concessions of merchandise and ticket sales. I have many friends who are involved in the music business as their sole source of income. I asked them about this once. They could give a shi*t! They are worried about their nasty and tricky contract.

I never claimed to have purchased the song. As you seem to keep ignoring the other points I make, I'm going to assume that you have no argument against them. I'm finished discussing this topic in this thread.

Apologies to the original poster.

Message 17, 8:31pm, 14 Jun

When you spoke of "purchasing" a song you were referring to purchasing it with the rights to use it, and I never claimed that. Sorry, I thought that was obvious.

Just as a point of interest, it's not the recording artists rights or publicity that are really involved to any great extent here. There are two or three licenses required in order to legally use a particular recording in your production. The first is the synchronization license which typically comes from the owner of the publishing rights to the lyrics and score and which gives you permission to use the words and music in conjunction with your images, another is the mechanical license allowing you make and distribute copies of the product, and another is the master license which is typically granted by the record label that released the CD you're using and gives you permission to reproduce copies of a specific recorded performance. So if you want to use a recording of "Happy Birthday" sung by Neil Diamond you have to get the first license from Summy-Birchard Music (AOL/Time-Warner) and the other from the record label that released the CD or whoever now owns the rights to that CD that you're using. Even if you record yourself performing it so master rights aren't an issue, you would still need the sync license if the recording is going to be used in a commerical video, which a wedding or event video you're getting paid to produce for a client certainly would be. (And those sync and performance licenses for "Happy Birthday" alone bring in about $2 million a year to AOL/TW according to what I've recently read).