If you are doing the video for yourself, friends or family, I wouldn't worry about royalties. However, if you are doing is for money, then every copy of the tape you are required by law to pay royalties to the holder of the song copyright. This may be the record label, the artist, someone who bought the rights, etc... Sometimes the CD jacket will give some information on who to contact. If not, then write the record label to get the info.

Control_Z is right about recording the music played at the wedding, but again, I wouldn't worry about it if you are not charging for the video.

ASCAP, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers
BMI, Broadcast Music International

Between these two organizations, they manage the licenses and copyrights for almost all popular music. They have license agreements you can purchase that may cover these video situations. My personal advice: contact BMI first and use what they license. I've dealt with ASCAP and they can be nasty. BMI is very friendly and cooperative.

Several people have told me that they simply purchase a copy of the CD to include with any tape that they reproduce and add that to the cost of the tape. That way the royalty is being paid for each copy. I'm not sure this is totally on the up and up, but it seems fair. Most of the time, when doing things for vents and wedding, it's easy enough to require the final recipient to provide the music to syncronize.

Harry Fox stopped doing sync licenses in June. They direct you to the owner which is often a difficult thing to discern. I would think that some savvy outfit would figure out that lots of us would be willing to pay $5 for a one time use of a song (per tape) and they could make a little extra cash from the use. As it is, most people simply use it and don't pay because it is just too difficult to figure out. if you're going on network television, that's one thing, but for a simple video to give your parents for Christmas...

If you are doing video with sync'd music for a school or church simply to be "played" there is a small loop-hole in the copyright law that allows educational and religious outfits to "display" any copyrighted materials. Many people consider playing the music from a CD, or sync'ing it onto a video to fall under this sort of "display" use. It's a gray area, but I understand that it's been challenged and it's held up thus far. You still can't make copies for distribution, you can simply perform the video.

Tom

Tom

Disclaimer: I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

That said. Of course for the small number of copies, I doubt you would have problems, but then there is the undeniable Murphy's Law. So in that case, for photo montages, I really like some of the Smartsound Mood packages, they are royalty free.

Now I may be talking out of my butt, but a few years ago I recall having a conversation with and Independant Film Studio's Press agent, after seeing a screening of a preview of their new movie. When I inquired into some of the soundtrack in the movie, she said, oh, that's just for the preview. We will use different music in the actual movie.

She indicated that you can use any copyrighted music for the purpose of a "Preview" or "Promotional" use, to a limited audience, WITHOUT HAVING TO GET COPYRIGHT APPROVAL. Now PLEASE do not take my word for it, laws may have changed, but it may be worth looking into. I can picture 2 versions of the Photo Montage, One marked "Final" without the music, and one marked "Preview or Promotional Use Only" in small print, with the music. Hey it's a shot.

In some circumstances, it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

**And about PhotoMontages, I just had to do one with 100 Pictures. Took 4 hours to figure out how to automate the Resize, add safezone boarder, while keeping Aspect Ratio, so that they could be dropped on a timeline, to then be rendered later.
"I miss Kais Powershow", though seriously in need of Export Format updates, this program has yet to be outdone for shear ease, excellent realtime full screen transitions, PC/MAC XPlatform, etc.
But, I guess, Xerox (Parent corp of Scansoft) just has to control everything, doesn't it.
I do have hope for Showbiz from Arcsoft, but not sure if I want to waste the money. Anyone try it yet?

Jeffy82@aol.com

ASCAP and BMI handle performance rights but not the Master Recording License or the Sync rights. Now that Fox is out of putting you in touch with the producers and the writers, you have a lot of leg work to do.

To use a recording in a video that will be sold in any form, you must have both a license for the Master recording from the producer and a sync license from the author.

To record your own version of the song by your own artists, you must have a Mechanical license from the author, Fox does still handle the statutory version of this for many songs, and a sync license from the authors.

Becuase of all of this, unless I am working with very large budgets I tend to stick with needle drop or buyout libs. The next step with moderate budgets is I have original music composed as a work for hire. That way I can be the author of record and the producer of the recording and grant myself all rights needed.

For feature film work, licensing the recordings can be cheaper than original music, but for special venue, corporate and event stuff they do not want to talk to you and you could chase tail for months. Original composers are much less expensive for this kind of work then they are for a feature. Then again I am an experienced producer of music soundtracks for special venue so for me that makes it easy.

BTW 40 minutes (about what is in a feature) of original orchestral music (60-90 pieces with choir) runs about $160,000- $200,000, non-union. 10 minutes of small ensemble with midi runs about $8,000-10,000. 5 minutes of midi can run as low as $4,000.

Needle drop and buyout stuff looking good yet?

K

my two cents..

i live and work in the nashville, tn area. i'm literally about two blocks from "music row". i recently did a wedding montage on dvd. the family wanted to use a song from a cd. i wanted to do the right thing, so i started calling the publishing companies here in town. i found that i had to get permission from two different places. since the video wasn't for sale, and there were only about two copies that would exist, both companies said that i could use the song for free (gratis). i asked them both to fax me a letter of approval (just to cover my backside). in the end, only one company acutally sent a fax, and the person that composed it had everything wrong from what i had actually been told verbally. the fax even said i had to destroy the copies when the wedding was over (ain't gonna happen). if they would have charged me, it was only going to be around fifteen cents (or less) for each copy that was made.

so in the end, i learned this. if i'm not selling it, i'm using it. i tried to play by the rules, but they wouldn't play. if i'm going to sell it, then i'll get permission and build the cost into the price of each copy.

-craig

The fact is most non-commercial wedding videos and montages use copyrighted music without permission, and they get away with it. The legal fees are simply more expensive than any money the recording industry would recoup. This is not legal, but it happens because royalty-free music (pardon me Acid users) is generally crap.

One detriment to the videographer to keep in mind (besides being liable) is he forfeits his own copyright to the production as soon as the music is included. You can't even claim a partial copyright to parts of the production without music. One underhanded but effective solution some videographers use is to include a line in the contract forcing the client to take responsibility for any copyright infringements.

If you're cool with those risks, use Dave Matthews and Enya to your (client's) heart's content.

Luxo