I agree fully with you John.

Royalty free music or self generated Acid/Loop based music is fine but sometimes recorded music fits perfectly into a project and it just has to be used.

Do we need to worry about 4 or 5 family videos coming up with a copyright violation suit? Probably not but it would be nice to pay some small amount so that the artist and everyone who shares gets their piece and our productions are Legal.

Good Post

...yoiu should have figured it out by now ... they make it complicated because they DON'T want the burden of dealing with thousands of requests for peanut dollars ... they also DON'T want to deal with the public one on one .... I feel as you do ... screw them ...

A possibility for the music industry to consider is music that costs more, but the extra fee gives rights for small distribution. I would think it would be a good deal for the industry. Most of the small time wedding and sports videos end up in a drawer. As such, they are no threat to the industry and any extra income the industry gets for this kind of stuff has got to be gravy. Many people would buy the high price version with limited distribution rights just to avoid any suspicion of impropriety. I agree that a choice between hiring a lawyer and being sued is way over the top if all you want to do is take pictures of the neighbor kids. The music industry is building a very bad reputation for themselves.

John, well said. I must say you've not only expressed yourself, but a situation that needs addressing, in a very well thought out, succinct, clear manner.

Have you considered sending your query to those "powers that be"? I know, I know, but it couldn't hurt.

Jay

I have on two occasions recently turned down jobs because the client wanted to use "that song that fits perfectly".

I just ask them to attest in writing that they have obtained all necessary permissions and to post a $1 Million bond in perpetuity that defends me against all legal actions.

No takers yet. Strange.....

There is some pretty good music available for license on magnatunes.com

So far, I don't find it advantageous for quantities of say 25 - 50, bu tthere is some good stuff there if the client is willing to preview and understands the license fees.

For the most part, I use freshmusic.com and Tracks Now

... also, put yourself in their shoes .... can you imagine hundreds of thousands of video productions from home movies to hot porno flics using the Beatle's "I Want To Hold Your Hand" ...? ...the value for the copyright holder is in HOW the music is used .... if you were a movie mogul you could pick up a phone and with a measley few hundred grand, get any pop music you want within minutes ... they're not set up to handle the zillion requests from the public and the cost to do so would be prohibitive because they would never make back the money from small peons like us ... that's the nature of the music business .... it's not the tune, it's who owns the rights and controls it ... I know all this because I asked ... they'll NEVER dish out copyright royalty permission or payments over the net ....

Other than your previous post, which suggests that it's acceptable to use the music because they won't work with you to allow it to be used, this is a very well said post. People just simply don't get the cost of admin involved here. It will take a change of an act of Congress alone just to do this. But I'm too damn tired of hearing about people unhappy because they can't afford to use Celine Dion in their wedding video. Even more tired of hearing people say "Fu** it, if they're not gonna work with me, I'll steal it. They deserve to lose the money if they can't make it easier to buy."

JUST ONCE!! I'd like to hear someone say "I can't afford a Porsche, and they won't finance it for me the way I'd like to pay for it, so I'm gonna just take it anyway. Screw em'. They make too much money on Porsche's anyway, it's all a big rip off. After, Porsche's are just glorified VW's anyway."
See how many people can support THAT concept, because it's the same damn thing, except that with a stolen Porsche, you can't "clone" the car and give a few dozen to your friends, so the owner of the Porsche only gets hurt once, instead of hundreds of thousands of times.

Spot .... @ "which suggests that it's acceptable to use the music"

...didn't mean that at all ... the term "screw them" meant "leave them alone and don't bother with them, you're wasting your time" .... anyway, sonic fire will make a killing and so will Acid and so will the royalty free houses .... or maybe I'll come up with a hit song and make sure it's heard nowhere....

Douglas, I understand fully what you're saying. I would do not, nor would I ever encourage anyone to steal anything. However, I do understand the frustration so many of us here have expressed. I'm trying to get music for a doc I've been working on for years. It's like pulling teeth!

What really ticks me off, and I think this is what drives so many of us crazy, is the obvious GREED of the music industry (not the artists). For example, the fact that they can and have gone back and gained copyrights to music that should, by all rights, now, be in the public domain. The only people making money on this are the greedy few son-of-a-guns at the top of this artistic food chain. They refer to it as "Restoration of Copyright Protection." Protection my butt! Protecting who? The music of Shostakovich and Stravinsky, for example. To whom do the royalties go? Guess! Give me a break! This is totally uncalled for and unnecessary.

Okay, I've vented. I'm done.

Jay

The royalties go to Stravinski's family, same with Shostakovich. By act of Congress, the mechanicals CANNOT go to the record company, they go to the artist or his deemed successors.
Why SHOULD the rights be public domain? Where is the right? So, because the inventor of cocacola died, should the recipe be in pub domain? Granted, that's a patent, but that's neither here nor there. Should Mickey Mouse have become public domain? If so, I can only see the number of porn movies starring Mickey Mouse, destroying the wholesome family image that Mickey Mouse as a social icon has become. I'm sorry, I cannot agree with you. In fact, based on a religion you and I have discussed, just TRY to do your own recording of most songs found in their hymnal. You can't, and they'll sue you like you wouldn't believe if you did. They are VERY well known for prosecuting this, and also protecting themselves from being sued for improper use. The heirs, if the artist wants, should receive royalties. Imagine if Roy Orbison's family or John Lennon's family couldn't receive royalties for their parent's work. On the other hand, some artists like Garth Brooks (and myself on a couple songs) can designate that the publishing be relieved, so anyone can use the songs. But it needs to be the artists choice.

That said, i understand the frustration. I can't even use my own songs in some instances without severe headache. But as Clipman so well said, the cost of admin makes it NOT worth the time for the label to deal with the pennies that people are wanting to pay.

Well, I got my answer.

Bummer.

I understand the artist’s desire to control the copyright and not have their work sullied in some undesired way. For instance, I remember that the Pretenders tried to stop Rush Limbuagh from using their song, "Ohio" as his bumper music.

However, it is amazing how money will cut through most of this.

In this case, the thing to do is to license the music, over the Internet, for a small fee, but only for use below a certain threshold. The obvious point that is being missed is that neither the artist nor the recording companies have anything to lose by doing this.

Why?

Because they will be collecting money for something that is going on already.

Earth to the entertainment industry: Wake up and smell the coffee!! Your works are already being stolen, butchered, re-used, re-purposed, morphed, and mangled. Why not collect some money to compensate yourself for this insult?

This much I know for absolute certain: If you don't provide a mechanism for people to give you money, you will not get any money.

I learned that in business school. It’s true. Honest.

In addition, if BMI/ASCAP etc. were smart, they would create a small piece of software that I would download and which would scan my kids’ computer hard drives for all the MP3 files they have downloaded. I would then voluntarily pay these agencies a royalty for each song, and would then be instantly legal. (This, of course, is hypothetical, since my kids do not download music files.)

Would everyone do this? Absolutely not. Would some people do this? Definitely. How many are doing it now? No one.

Such a system (collecting small royalty payments for small uses) would not encourage anything that isn't going on already (in case you hadn’t heard, some people occasionally download music without paying for it), and would give people that want to "get legal" a way to do so.

As far as my upcoming project (the senior class video tribute for the class of 2005), they will get absolutely no music, other than ACID loops, which are great for corporate stuff, but not very appropriate for what I want to do. At this point, I am not sure I am going to proceed, because the result is going to have zero emotional impact (imagine a video tribute to your high school class without any of the music you listened to during your senior year — oh, yeah, that would be a real winner).

Speaking of winners, exactly who is the winner when we have this kind of system? I guess all the artists who value their artistic integrity over their pocketbook may gain some psychic satisfaction in knowing they have maintained "control" over their work (whatever the hell that really means). By maintaining this control, they also get the side benefit of not having to spend a lot of time counting money, In fact, the music industry and artists have created an almost perfect scheme that absolutely protects themselves against any sort of cash windfall. Thus, with less money to count, artists will have far more time to concentrate on their work and unleash all of that creative energy. Since most great art is the product of hunger, strife, and deprivation (I refer you to the amazing Orson Wells Ferris wheel speech in “The Third Man”), we are doubtless on the threshold of a new Renaissance.

Douglas, like everyone else here, I am only voicing my opinion and thoughts. On this issue, I was hoping we could agree to disagree agreeably. However, I don't see that dragging religion into and alleging this and that about the Church has anything to do with it.

To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement, and I'll leave it at that, along with this discussion and this topic.

Jay

If this all gets so frustrating you could just move to Australia, down here at least we seem to have gotten it partly right and so have a few European countries.
This may not apply in this circumstances but for event videographers APRA will give you either an annual or per event licence to sync music already owned by the client into upto 35 copies of a video. These videos are NOT for sale, only to be distirbuted to those taking part in the event etc.
This seems a highly sensible approach although even I do have some reservations about it. I agree with SPOTs sentiments that an artist should ALWAYS have the right to control how his work is used.

Now under this agreement I can legally sync SPOTs music into a clients wedding video, SPOT will perhaps if he's real lucky get .00001 cents out of this, Madonna probably .001 cents (even though we didn't use any of her work!). Well that's always going to be an issue with this kind of scheme but that's only a financial issue.
However what worries me slightly is that there's no way SPOT can say he don't want his music used in anybodies wedding video. Certainly even though I'm under no obligation to do so if I felt there was any culterally sensitive issues involved I'd ask first, others I know wouldn't be so thoughtful.
The same goes for a number of licencing schemes that already exist, how do artists feel about their works ending up as instore 'Muzak' or being used as music on hold? Well guess what, they can't stop it. Once it's released on a public medium such as CD that I can legally buy in this country, so long as I have the licence and have bought a legal copy I can use anyones work as music on hold.
But there's another side to this coin, if we grant absolute rights to artists, should they have the right to restrict who can hear their works, should they be able to specify that a CD of their music is only for sale to women?
I'd be interested to hear what someone like SPOT has to say about this.

Point: go to acidplanet.com, search for Paul B (copy 2)
Click: on any tune in there
Pay: a "thank you" would be more than enough...

Caveat: there's no way anyone would even dream of using any of those tunes in any serious production...:-) I know coz no-one is paying me billions for them!!!!

farss,

Your system down there sounds quite sensible.

The "artistic control" is way overblown. It's all about hurting the artist's "sensibilities" or "feelings."

Oh, please!

That is way too "new age" for me. Also, where does it stop? Should Michael Moore or Woody Allen be able to stop people they don't like from seeing their movies? Should they be able to dictate that that the print be destroyed after one viewing because it is too contaminated with dust to fully reveal their vision? I could go on for pages about all the nuances of control that an artist has a "right" to control. The whole concept is utter nonsense.

The central issue is now, has always been, and definitely should be, financial. People should get paid for what they created and the control they should be able to exercise is over that payment stream.

The key thing that has changed -- that the entertainment industry truly doesn't understand -- is that we have moved to an entirely different point on the price-volume curve. Software companies understand it. This is why you can buy Movie Studio or Pinnacle, or Premiere lite (whatever they call it) for $90, yet get more editing power than anyone would have dreamed about ten years ago, even for $50,000. eBay understands it. eBay is one of the purest Internet success stories: It absolutely requires the Internet to succeed. Yet, they don't make much money on each transaction. A dollar here, five dollars there. Forget about their stock price (which is spectacular) and look at their financials. Wow! They are an absolute money machine.

The old joke used to be: We lose a little on each thing we sell, but we make it up in volume. Someday, the entertainment industry will wake up and realize that this is no longer a joke: There really is enough volume to let you sell things at low prices. When they do, "artistic control" issues will (except for the inevitable prima donnas) be totally forgotten.

My point Jay, is that these songs have been around for LONGER than the period of copyright extension. But it's STILL protected vigorously, and the songs have been renewed with minute changes and added subheads, so that they can be kept protected. I pointed at the religion we'd discussed, because I knew you'd see it personally. And THAT is how artists see it. Very personally. I'd hoped by bringing it to a personal level, you'd see what I was trying to say. Apparently I was wrong. FWIW, most institutions are like this. Anywhere a religion, corporation, or other organization can protect their copyrights, trademarks, or patents, they'll do it. For as long as they can do it. It's part of their identity, their power, their value, and their infrastructure. I fail to see why it's bad that an artist protects their rights and who uses it, but it's not bad when a religion protects their copyrights.

Spot, some follow-up questions (not asked in a hostile manner!):

>Should Mickey Mouse have become public domain? <

Should Mickey be protected in perpetuity?

>The heirs, if the artist wants, should receive royalties. Imagine if Roy Orbison's family or John Lennon's family couldn't receive royalties for their parent's work. <

In perpetuity?

I think what I'm getting at is, as in so many areas, the Constitution's original enumeration of powers -- "to promote the Progess of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" -- seems to have been interpreted, stretched, and applied beyond its plain meaning.

This is not a prelude to me an in any way rationalizing the unauthorized use of any intellectual property. I think that's an open/shut case (agreeing with you). But, it still leaves the legimitate public policy question of how to treat copyright.

Do you think the current US copyright policies are in sync with the intent of the Constitution? Part of the frustration out there is a sense that copyright laws now serve a different or additional purpose than that specified.

Greg

<I?>Should Mickey Mouse have become public domain? <

Should Mickey be protected in perpetuity?
In my opinion, yes. Mickey Mouse has come to embody more than just Disneyland, the icon embodies a number of things, particularly family values. So on the other hand, who is to say that we couldn't (and I know we would) see films of Mickey Mouse in a porn flick with Goofy and Daffy Duck? How do you explain that to your children? Moreover, it's Disney's property, as long as they exist, it should be their property. If you REALLY want to use Mickey Mouse in your project, distribute it only in Russia and a few smaller countries where the Berne Act didn't go retroactive. Mickey is public domain in those countries. Europe already had these protections, the US simply joined in.

>The heirs, if the artist wants, should receive royalties. Imagine if Roy Orbison's family or John Lennon's family couldn't receive royalties for their parent's work. <
Different question, different answer. It's not theirs in perpetuity. It's theirs for the life of the author plus 70 years. So, his great-great grandchildren will be the last to enjoy royalties.Then it becomes public domain. Then you can have "pretty woman" on your DVD if you want it. I certainly want my child to enjoy royalties after I'm gone, and most artists likely feel the same. If they don't, they are free to specify otherwise in their will. As I mentioned before, I've got a couple songs that the performance royalties are in the pubdomain now, because I specified them as such.

John,
you're pretty much echoing my sentiments. Whilst I can see a good case for artistic control, as the material may have religious / cultural sensitivity, the question that came into my head was, as you said, where does it stop. It's all too easy for a right given to one section of the community to be turned into an abuse by another.
The financial issue is for me a no brainer, these issues have and always will be ultimately determined by the marketplace. Whether it was two guys bargaining over the price of salt in a pre biblical village market or in todays digital stock exchanges ultimately it'll be determined by the marketplace.
What I find frustrating is this discussion always centres on music and money. Firstly music isn't the only form of artistic pursuit. Certainly it's the first to be hit by the digital revolution although one could argue that the written word was impacted well before music.
But the issues now extend to sculpture and way, way beyond that.
Recent advances in imaging mean sculpture can be reproduced in any scale and in such detail as to be considered as perfect a copy any copy of music is.
But I now see that this same technology now extends to the human form itself, combine that with advances in speech synthesis and we face a very interesting situation. Julia Roberts movies my well be copyright but how about Julia Roberts? Is a LIDAR scan of her body thats able to render detail down to the pores on her skin hers to control? Is the precise detail of her vocal tract hers to control? I'm pretty certain that within our lifetime I'll be able to make a movie starring Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise and Buster Keaton without either paying any of them a penny or staging a resurrection.
Now this is over the horizon stuff, it's certainly not science fiction though, so why do I think it's important? Well as the current debacle over music shows, once it happens unless we're prepared for it then it will be solely the marketplace that determines how it pans out. The current sorry state of affairs regarding music theft was entirely predictable the day someone thought up the idea of digital audio, the internet just greased the wheels, these issues were predictable at least 30 years ago and yet only in the last few years has any noise been made about them. Is there a moral in this, well I guess if you ignore an issue until it hurts your bottom line you're always going to be fighting a rear guard action.
As someone once told me, don't think about the next big thing, it's already going to happen, think about what comes after it.
Bob.

I'm pretty certain that within our lifetime I'll be able to make a movie starring Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise and Buster Keaton without either paying any of them a penny
I doubt it. Most of them have trademarked their image.

That would be, . . . purchasing an annual ASCAP or BMI membership?

Having an ASCAP or BMI membership does NOT license you to synchronize video to music. ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are performance rights organizations, not sync license capable