Wedding Videographer Sued For Use of Commercial Music

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Many of us were just waiting for that shoe to drop, so there should be no surprise that it finally has. It's a good thing, though. Those of us who have been cautioning people for years about unauthorized use of copyrighted materials sort of expected this at some point, and those who ignored the warnings finally have something a bit more tangible to consider.

From the article:
He said he can buy generic music for $50 for a three-minute track, but it cuts into his profits and his newlywed clients don't like it as much.
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I don't know where he's been looking, but there are certainly other alternatives out there - really good ones, in fact - that are inexpensive or even free. There really is no excuse anymore for not having a couple of royalty-free libraries on hand. There are even sites that sell by the track for less than $10 a cut.
 
Very true, Alex.

Although it's a bit confusing, I think the shooter anonymously quoted is not the one who was sued, especially since someone shooting Tony Romo's wedding obviously could afford $50.

But isn't song selection done for client satisfaction as much as saving a few bucks? (not condoning or rationalizing using commercial music, just thinking what the main motivation here is).

Here's a beautifully done wedding by the offender, who now uses licensed music:

 
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groveChuck said:
But isn't song selection done for client satisfaction as much as saving a few bucks? (not condoning or rationalizing using commercial music, just thinking what the main motivation here is).
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The goal of any producer/director/event videographer - whether weddings or promotional videos or ads or features - is to satisfy the client, but that should not come at the risk of a major lawsuit for not covering all the bases and licensing that which needs licensing.

So, in response to your question: isn't client satisfaction worth the investment of music licensing?

It doesn't matter what the motivation is, and this is the part of this never-ending conversation that I just don't get. Folks will argue that artistic choice/motivation should come above everything else, and somehow that's supposed to justify ripping off some one else's creative content. I mean, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Until, of course, there's a lawsuit. The reality is that content creators should protect other content creators, not take advantage of them.

Copyright is what it is, and it's supposed to protect the artist. I bet those same wedding videographers would be up in arms if they saw their footage used in some one else's project without permission.
 
You know, it's not that small wedding videographers are about skirting the rules and ripping off music labels. It's that music labels make it literally impossible to use copyrighted music for videos. The process to get approval takes longer than what a videographer even has time to deliver the video in (you have to edit with the music, and if you have to wait 3-4 months for approval that's a really long delay to wait for a wedding video, let alone to just begin editing the final cut to...) And of course the larger issues is the insane cost: To license a song once with both use of the music and sync rights, besides taking a lot of time to do all the neccessary paper work, etc. and then waiting for it, is ridiculously expensive. Perhaps what a videographer makes in 2 years of work might be the cost to license w/sync rights ONE song. COME ON!

If big music companies would stop being behind-the-times idiots they could make a lot of money by licensing their music with sync rights for $100/track to small businesses for wedding videos/indie films and charging more for big corporate stuff and even more for hollywood. With an instant approval online form. It's free marketing for the music. I mean, they finally realized they should stop pulling every youtube video with copyrighted music and instead starting put a link to buy the song, and I've purchased songs this way numerous times, and the record labels are certainly making money by doing this (and saving money by not paying people to patrol youtube and have everything pulled down).

But instead they insist on impossible prices, lawsuits, etc. It's dumb. And frankly, many of us will continue to use copyrighted music and keep it on the DL because clients want "their song" for their video and if you tell them no, they'll go to someone else who will do it.

Also, it doesn't protect the artist in the same way that Alex implies, saying if a wedding videographer saw their footage in someone elses video they'd be upset. No one sees a wedding video set to Coldplay Fix You and things "oh gee, I bet the wedding videographer wrote that song!" No, they say "wow what song is that, where can I get it on iTunes!" and it HELPS the record label AND the artist. On the contrary, I've never seen someone watch a terribly made video set to a good song and say "wow, that song is really crappy." The idea that a bad video is going to ruin the image of a song has some grounds I suppose... but pretty shaky grounds, and it's a bit far fetched. I've seen plenty of bad videos but loved and sought out the song. Bottom line: "protecting" content creators doesn't mean not referencing their stuff. It means referencing it and sending the credit back to them. If you use Coldplay in your wedding video, give Coldplay & the record label credits.

It's like back in the day when companies didn't want their products appearing in film. Then they said "ok, you can put our product in film but you have to pay for it." Now it's the biggest way to advertise and they PAY to have their products placed. Slow to adapt, behind the times. Music labels should have a quick online process with reasonable rates for licensing music to the small guys... at the LEAST. Maybe someday they'll actually pay US to use their music and link to it via youtube...
 
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FilmGuy, I want to use your gear. For free, of course. I think you make too much money with it, so, I shouldn't be required to pay a rental or anything for it's usage. And I am not even going to ask for permission, I'll just come by and take it. It will be better served by me, because I have a sense of entitlement to it and I will use it better than your management team/crew. It really does not matter what it took for you to acquire the gear, and how you use it. I just know it will be better for me to use it, however I want, because I feel it's okay. And, I might make some money off the usage, but don't expect anything in return, you already make too much money.

Sound familiar? I just used your own argument and applied it to another aspect. When you take something that doesn't belong to you or have any rights to, it is theft. You can complain about it, you can try to justify it, you can claim inequities...........but when it comes down to it, it is just petty theft.

And frankly, I am glad the ball is rolling on this. When you steal another's work/art.......as an artist, I am appalled at the blase attitude about this.
 
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While I do agree with you, Doc, your scenario is flawed. If you were to use filmguy's stuff, he doesn't have it anymore because his equipment consists of tangible items. If you have it, he can't still use it, as opposed to something digital which an infinite number of copies can be used at the same time.

Now if you were to spend months on a 3D rendering and getting perfectly rigged, and then someone used THAT without permission, it's closer to the same thing to me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating using copyrighted material.
 
Yes, the argument has some flaws, LOL. But since he does not understand why Copyright Infringement is wrong, I needed an example that might hit his "oh, now I get it" button.
 
filmguy123 said:
You know, it's not that small wedding videographers are about skirting the rules and ripping off music labels. It's that music labels make it literally impossible to use copyrighted music for videos.
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This is not an either-or scenario, it's both simultaneously. Yes, it is difficult if not impossible to properly use copyrighted materials. That does not mean that small wedding videographers are not skirting the rules and "ripping off" the labels. The absence of a usable licensing system for copyrighted content does not excuse the use of copyrighted content without a license.

That said, it's been said in these types of discussions before that it's hard to do the right thing when you know the guy down the street is going to tell your potential customer, "Sure, I'll do it," and I empathize with that. At least now, those that want to do it the right way have something to point at and say, "This is what could happen to me if I put that song in your video."
 
Alex H. said:
The goal of any producer/director/event videographer - whether weddings or promotional videos or ads or features - is to satisfy the client, but that should not come at the risk of a major lawsuit for not covering all the bases and licensing that which needs licensing.

So, in response to your question: isn't client satisfaction worth the investment of music licensing?

It doesn't matter what the motivation is, and this is the part of this never-ending conversation that I just don't get. Folks will argue that artistic choice/motivation should come above everything else, and somehow that's supposed to justify ripping off some one else's creative content. I mean, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Until, of course, there's a lawsuit. The reality is that content creators should protect other content creators, not take advantage of them.

Copyright is what it is, and it's supposed to protect the artist. I bet those same wedding videographers would be up in arms if they saw their footage used in some one else's project without permission.
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All that said..it's called stealing!
 
Yeah Doc, sorry, super weak argument, logically flawed and incongruent, and not even a blast at my point in the first place!

I'm arguing for a flawed mindset of record labels, not that indie's are entitled to use what they want for free. Yes, it's true that at the end of the day many indie's DO end up using it for free, but as I said in the first line the reason isn't an entitlement attitude. It's because there is no "real" way to pay or get licensed.

I'm arguing that record labels need to get it together. As Hawk said, change the argument away from physical property - we are talking about IP and licensing, not using my car. Extremely different. I'm also not arguing for an entitlement proposition as I am very anti-entitlement attitude. And I'm not talking about free, I specifically talked about fair and reasonable fees. Currently, it's an impossible fee. No indie could or would afford it, and the record labels are missing out on money. If I charged $6,000/day to rent my AF100 why would you rent my AF100 when you could buy your own? But let's say I have the only AF100 on the planet, and you could photocopy my AF100 so that you could use it at the same time as mine... and you offered to pay a rental fee to license it, but I insisted on taking your house, and let's say the only way you would have this job, that your career depended on, was to use this *photocopied* AF100 and you really wanted SO BAD to pay me a fair rental fee for the use of it and even plug my business but if you told me I'd make you HOMELESS mwahahaha. OK, this is getting weird, because stealing gear compared to using copyrighted music is such a far-fetched apples-to-oranges argument that it's irrelevant.

A more congruent example would be you wanting to use my video footage. So in answer to your question, if you would like to use my footage in a piece, and watermark which pieces are mine and pay a FAIR fee for using it and then link it back to my site so people can see my work and hire me? Umm, yeah dude, absolutely. As for free? Well I never said anything about free, but I'd consider it depending on how much traffic your site gets.

As far as clients go, weddings are deeply personal as is music. Music is powerful as it reminds us of time, place, and people. I know someday when I am a client looking for a wedding video, it's extremely important to me that "our songs" are what the video is set to. It's personal to me. If a company can't do that, I won't work with them unless they give me the footage and allow me to edit my own piece with my own music. As a client, I won't care how good royalty free music is. If we had our first dance to some song, that song sure as heck better be in my video. Period.

Look, I understand some people are pretty black and white thinkers and like to deduce everything to A or B, but (1) logically this is almost always flawed, and (2) the reality is life is much more complicated, and for as how righteous and appealing simple A-B morals sound they are rarely accurate and always have the sense of leaving things out. Life is gray. BUT AGAIN - I'm not arguing for gray or anything terribly complicated. And I'm certainly not going to get in an argument about if copyright infringement is wrong or not (even though it's clearly been touched on, it's not my point and it's irrelevant to what I'm really wanting to say).

My point is super simple:

My rant regards the sheer stupidity of record labels who miss out on mass marketing and money making opportunity by not charging FAIR and affordable use fees while getting free advertising. I would wager that 90% of videographers would happily pay the use fees, even retroactively, if they were fair and reasonable, in addition to clearly giving credit and linking back to a purchase point for the used tracks. And I would argue that re-writing the licensing rules for a modern era would be greatly beneficial not only to small businesses and the general population, but to the record labels and artists.

By the way, this isn't "personal" - I hate doing weddings. I've done like 2. Ever.
 
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I agree that the labels are short-sighted for the fact that they could be making a ton of money doing low-level licensing to wedding videographers and the like, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to use a fellow content creator's work without permission. Additionally, trying to rationalize infringement as "free promotion" is even worse than the infringement itself, IMO.
 
arroway said:
I agree that the labels are short-sighted for the fact that they could be making a ton of money doing low-level licensing to wedding videographers and the like, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to use a fellow content creator's work without permission. Additionally, trying to rationalize infringement as "free promotion" is even worse than the infringement itself, IMO.
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I'm not trying to rationlize or justify anyone's actions. I'm not saying that makes it "more ok". I am simply saying that the reality, from a record labels POV, ought to be that it is in fact free promotion. That doesn't mean people have the "right" to take things into their own hands. Of course, it certainly does mean that a lot of people simply just won't care because they see it differently. I won't attack or defend any of these people. I will say that for many people, this is a classic case of "Malum in se" VS "Malum Prohibitum".
 
Interesting. I shot B-camera for a couple of years with the offending videographer. Very good guy, if anyone is curious.
 
filmguy123 said:
I will say that for many people, this is a classic case of "Malum in se" VS "Malum Prohibitum".
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I don't think this distinction applies to licensing. That is like trying to argue that stealing is not inherently wrong, but it wrong only because the legislature passed a law making it wrong. That's a horse that won't run.

In any case, it is inherently wrong to appropriate other people's property to your own use, which is essentially what using another's artistic creation as your own.
 
There would be millions of unsigned bands on soundloud or bandcamp of where ever with great music that would love some nominal fee for use of their music. People are just blind to the fact that good music exists that isn't on the radio.
 
David, even though this isn't my point (my point was clearly stated above, this is a side discussion) I do want to point out a few problems with your point.

1.) No one said anything about appropriating another's creation as your own work, and this is NOT essentially the same as using content w/out license. If you imply that the music used in a video was created by you, then yes of course. If you fail to give credit, maybe... I don't know many people who mistake a videographer as also being the writer/composer of clearly recognizeable, famous songs - especially those that have been around forever... but I could see the point. In any case, it's quite a stretch to say using something w/out license is the same as implying you created it.

2.) Malum in se VS Malum Prohibitum ABSOLUTELY applies to licensing and copyright infringment. There's not even room for a "maybe" here. It's the single largest modern example of what those latin phrases mean. The reason a person would think it doesn't or wouldn't apply is because they view copyright infringement as congruent with stealing. Of course, the copyright infringement discussion isn't about whether stealing is right or wrong, it's about whether infringing could be or should be considered stealing, and in cases where it could be, to what extent. But that's a big long contoversial topic for another thread and topic, which I have no interest in discussing or arguing.

Again, I really want to discuss (or at the least, just point out) something less philosophical and more relevant: the point about WHY people do this often not being because they are evil thieves, and the need and benefit of record label reform to make licensing music actually feasible. There is literally no feasible way for anyone but hollywood to use a known song in any video production. Ridiculous, and pointless, and record labels rob themselves of profit.

Also, for what it's worth, I am just finished a video for a local small business who is insisting that they want to use a unlicensed song in the video and I have forwarded them the link and adamantly protesting it. I refuse to use unlicensed music and am insisting we use something we own the rights to. I point this out to say, I'm not arguing this emotionally or defensively. I'm trying to talk logically about the circumstance. I will also say that my motivation for not using the music has nothing to do with morality, as I legitimately believe it would promote the song and I literally would have no way of paying them to use the music due to the current fee structure. My reason for not using it only has to do with not getting in trouble. It's ironic because if music labels had a good system, I could work with the client on obtaining licensing and we'd be able to credit the artist and it would certainly give them exposure and promote the music track. Oh well.

The bigger bummer is I can't find any royalty free music I like for this piece. If anyone has suggestions, I could really use one. The client wants something that sounds like the new Switchfoot track "Dark Horses" and I'm having trouble finding any good music online. Something rocky, but not too rocky, with cool diversity and moodiness that switches between the chorus and verses, and something that doesn't sound like some crappy garageband loop or a rockband from the 80s or 90s. Sigh.

Dan, agreed!! It sucks when people insist on using radio-music. There's so much BETTER (not just good) music from smaller artists, but people always want something everyone recognizes.
 
filmguy123 said:
clients want "their song" for their video and if you tell them no, they'll go to someone else who will do it.
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I see a lot of validity in your posts, I definitely do understand that, but this line above is the most important. All the details and philosophical discussions go out the window pretty quick when you choices are reduced to getting the job and a happy client or not. I'm not going to get into the rest of the discussion, except to say that, regardless of your opinion, straw man arguments are not effective. It's important to understand where other people stand before you can make a proper argument for yourself.

And honestly, most of the independent stuff I've been able to find really does suck. It stays independent for a reason. Clients (and producers) like the speed and reliability of finding known tracks.
 
Face it Doc, David and others -- these guys are never going to be convinced. They are arrogantly going to continue to support and condone the stealing of other people's work for their own use. It's the entitlement mentality, and it's a sickness. "If I don't do it, then someone else will." Okay -- let THEM break the law and face fines and federal prison. You either have morals and ethics -- and will do the right thing, no matter what -- or you don't.

One last futile attempt at analogy...

The bride has ALWAYS wanted to be driven off into the sunset with her groom, in the actual DeLorean used in the movie "Back To The Future". Not a replica -- the one actually used in the movie. Well hell, why not? The movie's producers have certainly made MORE than enough money off it. Can't buy it? Can't afford to rent it? No problem -- just STEAL it! I mean, you'll bring it back, right? IT'S WHAT THE BRIDE WANTS, for heaven's sake! And if YOU don't steal it for her, then she'll dump you and find someone who WILL -- so you'd BETTER steal the damn thing! It's JUSTIFIED, right???? And when they come drag you to jail for grand theft auto...
you'll be kicking and screaming that your use of that car was your God-given RIGHT!

Good luck with that defense.

I'm am so sick to death of filmmakers and videographers who think they should be above the law.
 
One final thought...

I have a movie out on Amazon called "Tangled Web".

If ANYONE takes even a small part of it and uses it in their own film -- whether it's for profit or just a freebie YouTube thing -- and I find out about it, you can bet your ass I will have you in federal prison! NOBODY steals my stuff! "Free publicity"??? Yeah right! Just think about all the free publicity I'm going to get during your TRIAL. :)
 
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