Try this

Has anyone ever tried this service?

http://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp

Read this.
A lot of questions have been posed and answered here. Including Harry Fox.

j razz

Nothing is "technically copyrighted"; it is or it isn't. And everything is unless it's in the public domain through the passage of time or the specific will of the copyright holder.

Myths:

You're not violating copyright if you don't charge or make a profit.

You're not violating copyright if you bought the CD.

"Fair Use" covers wedding videographers, etc..

And just to be provocative, and probably get under a few people's skins (I'm feeling testy this morning after a really nasty school board meeting last night):

Myths:

You can be a successful event videographer and do what your client wants, without ever violating copyright laws.

*ding!*

"What is 'Never in a million years, John.'"

You can be a successful event videographer and do what your client wants, without ever violating copyright laws.

John, I can point you to a community that would castigate/castrate you for such a bold statement.
but I totally agree w/you.

John, I can point you to a community that would castigate/castrate you for such a bold statement.

Spot. Like I said, I was feeling pretty edgy this morning and just wanted to rile a few people. Unfortunately, it's pretty tough to film a wedding reception and strip out all the music, just to take one example. You've provided marvelous tutorials and help on this subject over the years, and have helped me "do the right thing" in many instances where I actually DID have a choice.

Thanks.

The funny thing is, if it's ancillary audio, no one really cares. There is a significant difference between the camera audio and ripping a CD.
it's impossible to remove the location sound, that's pretty well a given. Using it in segments of the video isn't an issue.

Spot, my concern has always been the filming of school dance concerts. The taped music is not incidental, and is obviously copyrighted. The school has secured a blanket performance license but, as you have pointed out in your articles, that doesn't cover the video. There is no solution to this, because I can't offer "substitute" music and, from what I read, I can't simply buy twenty copies of the songs for each and every person ordering the DVD (which, even if I could, would add $20 to the cost of the DVD, and the school already complained when I charged $10 per for the last set -- the cost per disc would have to be lower in order to be viable).

Anyway, no need to respond, we've all hashed this over dozens of times.

> my concern has always been the filming of school dance concerts. The taped music is not incidental, and is obviously copyrighted.

I am interested in this scenario as well. From my point of view (which doesn’t count in court ;-) ) you are documenting a private event for the express purpose of preserving that event for those who have attended (i.e., not widely available to the general public). You would think there was some provision in the law for this being legal. Uncle Joe can tape the recital and make copies for friends. Why can’t you have someone do it professionally for the good of all and have it be legal?

> the school already complained when I charged $10 per for the last set

Wow, cheap skates! I assume you don’t charge to tape the show so you have to make that time back somehow. $10 is very reasonable. We had a guy tape the school’s communion and he charged parents $30 a copy for a VHS tape that wasn’t even properly white balanced. I think he added music from a cassette recorder. It was horrible! (I had to capture it to my harddrive and color correct it and replace the music before I could even watch it)

~jr

"You would think there was some provision in the law for this being legal. Uncle Joe can tape the recital and make copies for friends. "


Well, the School could probaby buy the video rights for the music and performance as well. But the cost could be substantial unless there is some agreement worked out with the music industry like there is one apparently for the theatre industry.

One problem too few IP owners are ready to admit is this. Their intellectual property is not worth as much as they want for it in the small venues where it is really wanted. So they sit on it unwilling to make simple provisions. They are not really retaining any control because the students can and will use the music anyway and parents will obtain video of it one way or another.

For several years I used to take the music for a local elementary school's talent shows and place it into a media management system for controlled playback at the talent show. I would also man the audio desk at the shows. We had to make certain that the content was acceptible but also often had to substitute a higher quality recording for the one the student gave us to use.

The school had the high school audio visual department tape the talent show. You could not tell them, "No!"

Our USA copyright office has already addressed this sort of problem already in a system that is working.

Juke boxes.

Yep, all juke boxes in the USA have to be registered annually by their owners and pay a small fee to the copyright office. Once a year BMI, SESAC, ASCAP and a few others get together to negotiate and divvy up of the take.

A similar system could be used for Wedding Videographers. Wouldn't it be great if Wedding Videogrpahers or other Event Videographers could register once a year paying a fee of $200.00 and then submitting a log at the end of the year listing how many copies of what songs where mechanically edited into their videography and then the licenseing agencies could divvy that take.

Creating such a system would require a law, but there is no real reason why such a law could not be passed or why such a system would prove too difficult to make work.

A similar system could be used for Wedding Videographers. Wouldn't it be great if Wedding Videogrpahers or other Event Videographers could register once a year paying a fee of $200.00 and then submitting a log at the end of the year listing how many copies of what songs where mechanically edited into their videography and then the licenseing agencies could divvy that take.

Now, if we can just get this from the forum into the lawmakers hands we might have something. But, something tells me that if it were this easy, it would have been done years ago.

j razz

What no one has ever brought up in these discussions - has anyone actually asked to see the schools paperwork? take a look at the licenses they have in place and how video taping is worded?

I ask because some Church's have wording that allows for the taping and selling of a certian amount of copies. In mentioned this in the thread from last week on the topic of music and copyrights - Reception music illegal to resale?. Here is the part I speak of from tmat thread:

Our church's legal stuff says the following: The quantity of copies allowed should not exceed the maximum number of your "Church size" category, with the exception that the quantity of tapes duplicated per service should not exceed 15 percent of the "Church size" category. Also it is safe to videotape with the same restrictions. However it does *not* cover any sort of receptions or things that happen outside of the sanctuary and most people do not have a recption inside the actual worship area. As for selling tapes it says You may also charge up to $4.00 (U.S.) / $5.00 (CAN) each for audio tapes and CDs, and $12.00 (U.S.) / $15.00 (CAN) each for video tapes and DVDs. But there is a catch 22 to this method - one can not Rent, sell, lend, or distribute copies made under the Church Copyright License to individuals or groups outside the church, or to other churches.

Does any school and/or schools music department use the same type of model?

BobGreaves:
The key word is a "reasonable fee". Who determines what a reasonable fee is? My idea of a reasonable fee is somewhere around a buck a song. Or the yearly fee is OK as long as there is an ID number issued that can be inserted in the film titles.

JJK

Some songs are easier to get than others (of course, the one's we really want to get are the ones we get stonewalled on, Top 40 hits, etc). I obtained a license for the Point of Grace song "This Day". I think we paid about $50 to use it 100 times. (I think those figures are accurate)

If only all tunes were that easy to get...

For answers to most questions regarding copyright usage, especially the questions relating to the legality of taping a performance where the performing organization has secured a performance license, but you have not secured a sync license, see Spot's amazing Q&A:

Copyright Q&A

Check out question 26.

Bottom line on all this stuff is that you will never be able to secure sync licenses for a small video production, yet you cannot produce the dance video without violating the letter of the law.

To deal with this, some people turn down the work; others buy copies of the music, not because it helps them legally, but because it helps their conscience; and others go ahead and tape the video because they don't think anyone is being harmed. Often, they reason that they are providing free marketing for the music (like getting free airplay for a song). Other times they reason that it is not their fault that the music industry has chosen to discriminate against smaller operators. After all, copyright holders DO license sync rights for large projects.

There is a certain restraint of trade or anti-trust feeling about copyright holders only dealing with the larger players without providing an accommodation for those of us dealing in smaller quantities. I suppose if you were a young lawyer wanting to make a name for yourself, you might even be successful mounting a litigation along such lines. There certainly are many cases in the law where companies have been prosecuted -- with serious consequences -- for having quantity discount schedules that gave far too much favor to large customers, without being able to show that there was an underlying cost structure to justify such disparities.

More to the point of this thread, if you Google "refusal to sell" along with modifiers such as "law" or "legal" or "anti-trust" or "restraint of trade," you'll come up with jillions of hits describing situations that are not too far removed from what we are talking about here.

Of course, having said that, you'd have to be willing to spend your entire lottery winnings to mount such a defense and, if you could do that, you could probably afford to negotiate the sync rights in the first place.

Well, what if A. Someone on this forum new a GREAT lawyer who would be up for this challenge and
B. what if alll of us on this forum chipped in at least 100 USD to give some backbone to changing this predicament for legal fees, etc.

Anybody interested?

j razz

> Bottom line on all this stuff is that you will never be able to secure sync licenses for a small video production

I didn’t think a dance recital falls under a sync license. I know that’s what Spot’s article says but you are NOT synchronizing video to music. You are merely recording a historic event. It was my understanding that a synch license allows you to bundle music together in timed relation with visual images or motion pictures to create a derivative audiovisual work. That is not what recording a dance recital is. If I added my own music yes, but just recording the event as it happened, no. I guess I’m wrong but it makes no sense.

The point of my post was that this type of “small town” work should be legal. Like the “Fair Use” act that allows certain rights (although even those are slowly being taken away) there should be a “Fair Recording” act that allows the recording of private events like school activities and parties without concern for breaking the law.

~jr

$100.00 per person wouldn't *begin* to cover the costs.
There are lots of great IP lawyers out there, the best of em' in SFO and NYC for the most part. They range from $400.00 per hour on up.
This is at least a year of dedicated work for virtually no return.
Only WEVA and 4EverGroup really have it in their best interests to resolve, and I doubt either one of them will get it done.
It will take a fairly large social force, with a plan, not just words. I can't imagine anyone seeing a financial benefit derived from taking this on without a serious sugar daddy to make it happen. I'd love to see it happen, and eventually it *will* happen, but in the meantime...folks are better off pressuring a large group like WEVA who apparently has oodles of resources available to them.

I can't understand why they wouldn't go to an Itunes style format, where maybe one would pay $5.00 per song to download for use in a small project, and then $1.00 for each song on each copy. For instance, say I were to use 3 popular songs in a wedding montage. I would pay $15.00 to use the 3 songs, and then if the happy couple wanted 7 copies, I would pay $3.00 on each copy, which comes to $21.00. I would then owe the music distributor $36.00, a reasonable fee for me, the bride and groom, and if enough people were to use the service, an excellent means of revenue for distributors and artists.