Why does American Idol etc not infringe copyrights?

robertwerden

robertwerden

Well-known member
This pertains to film making. If you have a band and a vocalist reproduce a song, why is that infringing on copyright?

I see this in the forum all the time and I often see people jump up screaming "INFRINGEMENT!" Yet singing competitions get away with it and they profit from the song being sung.
 
Barry_Green said:
They also pay the royalties to the music publishing company.
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Right. Television shows that feature copyrighted songs pay royalties on them, just as movies do. So do radio stations and all other broadcast or distribution entities that use them legally. It's also possible to use copyrighted material free as long as one has explicit legal "permission" from the holder.

It's doing it without permission or required payment that constitutes infringement.
 
Which caused quite a bit of controversy last year because one of the contestants' fathers had his kid change the words to one of the songs, inserting lyrics from another song. That resulted in the show having to pay double royalties.
 
robertwerden said:
This pertains to film making. If you have a band and a vocalist reproduce a song, why is that infringing on copyright?

I see this in the forum all the time and I often see people jump up screaming "INFRINGEMENT!" Yet singing competitions get away with it and they profit from the song being sung.
Click to expand...

As the others have said, they get the necessary licenses and pay all the required royalties and fees. What makes you think they don't?

The basic copyright is on the melody and the lyrics of the song. There is also a separate copyright on any specific recording of the song. If you want to film and record your own band and vocalist performing a certain song you need to secure a license from the composer/lyricist/publisher/whoever owns the copyright to it. If you want to use an existing recording of the song, in addition to the permissions required to use the music you also need to secure a license to the recording from whoever owns the copyright to the master recording - typically the record label.

Your posting did give rise to an interesting thought, though. If a contestant on "American Idol," lets say, performs a certain song, does the program need to obtain a performance license, a sync license, or both? And similarly, if a song by a certain artist is used as the music on a show such as "So You Think You Can Dance" what licenses are involved - performance, sync, master? Are the licensing requirements different when the song is part of a (video-taped) production for broadcast versus a film/video destined for theatrical release?
 
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