Copyright permission successes?

dr_stupid

dr_stupid

Active member
There are a billion gajillion threads along the lines of: "I just want to do such and such, and it's only going to be shown to so and so -- is it a copyright violation?" The answer seems to be almost universally 'YES!' What I want to know is, has anyone had any success navigating the legal channels and getting the appropriate permission -- for free or for cheap -- to use copyright material for these "little" productions?

My example -- I'm making a 5 minute recruiting video for a hospital. It will be publicly displayed to a couple hundred people. It may be posted on the hospital's website for download as well. It is not being sold for profit. I was indirectly paid to make it. I'd like to use a real song in it. Let's say, for example, a Simon and Garfunkel song.

Is there a snowball's chance in hell that I could actually figure out who to contact, explain my situation, and have them grant me permission for a nominal fee given the circumstances of this project? Is there any chance that this can this be done without lawyers??

As many people have expressed previously, I have no desire to break the law. But neither do I have the ability to pay a lawyer $10,000 and a recording company $100,000 to use a song in my 5 minute video.
 
From what I hear, Paul Simon doesn't like to let people use his stuff very often. This could be tough.
 
i velicensed music before. you just need to call up the label and useually they have a licensing division and theyll send you the paperwork or tell you where to download it and then work all that jazz out with you.. if the artist isnt into it though you could be in for trouble
 
up and coming artists are often open to permitting the synchronization with their music. a simple document stating what it will be used for has worked for me. i contacted someone via several emails and finally got a phone number and conversation with the artist.

if you can budget $5-$70 you can also buy a licensce to use a great song. it will take a lot of digging to find some good material, but it really is out there, i swear.
 
What Pooh says. There's A LOT of great stuff out there.

While working on an internal corporate video we wanted to use a song by... (can't remember -- getting old). We went through BMG (or maybe Sony), who told us that if it wasn't being broadcast and less than 1000 people would see it, it wasn't worth the energy to create the documents for it -- "just use it and don't tell us about it"! That was in Canada, and about 15 years ago. Times have changed since then.

I can tell you right now that the hospital's legal dept. will have a fit if you did this!

All in all, licensing a song isn't very expensive (depending on the artist), and is a "bonus" you can bill the client for.
 
I've used tons of copyrighted stuff properly by going through ASCAP. You pay the royalties based on what you're doing. Rates vary, but a lot of the stuff was $15 or $25 for each song. It depends a lot on the usage.
 
I've heard of getting "festival rights" that allow you to play your movies at festivals but once you make money off your movie or get a deal or whatever(that does't have to do with festivals) you have to renegotiate. Has anyone done this? Was it expensive?
 
Also: say you want to use a Simon & Garfunkel song...does it have to be Paul & Art doing it? Got some local musicians who can get it close enough?

Sync rights are one thing, use of a song is another.....and should be waaaay cheaper.

Dan
 
So if I went and recorded my own version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," do I need Paul Simon [and/or the appropriate bloodsucking legal entities] to give me the green light as well? I can understand why this would be the case, but I'm curious if anyone knows for sure ...
 
Did Axl Rose call up Bob Dylan to get permission to do Knocking On Heaven's Door?

Unlikely.

Usually, BMI/ASCAP/whoever collects money from the artist and sens it where it should go. But they look at per-unit-sold or airplay or jukebox distribution...don't know what they do for films.

Oh. And at that point you're talking the song-writer/pubisher, not necessarily the original performer.

Dan
 
Right. So basically, I was thinking along these lines. If I dropped in even Guns 'n' Roses' version of Knockin' on Heaven's Door in a short film, I would really be asking for trouble, especially in this day and age. But if I recorded my own crappy rendition, would I be inviting legal action?

I'm guessing not, but I'm just kinda curious what the (American) laws are regarding copyrights on the actual tune itself (i.e. the songwriter's copyright).
 
Yes, if you don't have permission from the authors who wrote the music.

There are two levels of copyright -- the performance, and the underlying music. You can re-record someone's song if you get permission from the songwriter. It is my understanding that there's some sort of reciprocal agreement in place that allows artists to perform covers of other artist's songs, but I don't know what that involves. Short answer is, call the Harry Fox agency or visit their website and ask what permissions you need, and who you need them from.
 
Hey - in searching old threads, I had found a link to this article by Douglas Spotted Eagle. Really great reference about what is and what is not copyright violation. The short answer that I took away from it is that everything is technically a copyright violation. That's right -- everything. The fact that I just wrote "that's right, everything" is actually itself a copyright violation of the time that Dwark Farkmore wrote the words "that's right, everything" on a napkin at a diner in Boise, Idaho next to the doodled drawing of a smiley face. He could sue me big time... :)

No, but seriously, if I understand the article right, darn near everything you can possibly imagine is TECHNICALLY a copyright violation of someone's artistic creation or ownership rights. Whether anyone would ever be interested in prosecuting you for certain things is much less clear. But that's why I was curious how much effort and money it really takes to get the proper permission. Completely unreasonable money/effort? Then I guess I would take my chances with the law. (Hey, they can sue me if they want -- they are welcome to all $200,000 of my medical school debt if they want it...) :) But it actually sounds like a lot of you have been able to do it right, or to find work arounds that were legal and still artistically satisfying. (Thanks very much for the replies!) I might try my luck with Paul Simon or someone else -- I'll let you know how it goes!
 
This brings up a question I have. My wife sells an insturctional dance product. We would like to put some music together to include with it. Many of the masters works would work well. No copyright problems with the actual compositions but how to get the compositions into Garage Band or something like that without someone actually playing the music. I can't do it. There are reams and reams of public domain music in written form on the internet does anyone know of a software program that can import written sheet music and play the scores.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top