OK, this is getting weird...but here goes....

If the video in question already has music on it, and the congregation sings along, no problem.

If the church shows the Wizard of Oz / Dark Side of the Moon combo.....I'd like to visit that church, dude!

Seriously....you cannot show a movie publicly without a license. That's what the CVLI does for a church. If you show a movie (with a license) and play a CD , then you haven't made a derivative work. It's only when you make a new product (using Vegas, for example) that the sync laws apply.

Deja vu all over again and again and again

but as usual , very entertaning .

Well said Bob. Ironic, it was digital technology that propelled the music industry into its glory days and the same digital technology has now become an uncontrollable headache for them. They choose to distribute their product in a format that can easily be copied by anyone. Are they really surprised that someone might actually go ahead and make a copy, or heaven forbid, use a favorite song in a wedding video? It’s certainly confusing to the consumers who have historically been able to make cassette tapes to play in their cars or at beach parties, not to mention fueling the music industry for decades with their monetary support.

On the other side of the coin are the artists. I believe that true artists are inherently creative beings who share their God-given talents with the world unencumbered by greed and paranoia; or at least many start out that way. The music industry on the other hand is in business for the sole purpose of making money, necessarily being driven at the top level by what some would say is greed and accompanied by paranoia as a side effect. Now we all know that artists need to make money to survive and there’s nothing wrong with that. Yet, if the established industry is the only game in town it’s difficult for the artist to play that game without the attributes of the industry rubbing off on them over time, ultimately influencing their creative direction.

The music industry is what it is today in part by the talents of the artists and in part by the technology that allows mass distribution of the product of those talents. Unfortunately, technology is young and agile and doesn’t stand still. By comparison, both the music industry and the law makers are relatively slow to react, and are simply being outpaced by technology.

JL

That pretty much puts me out of business. Because of the laws that are out there and no way that I can get/afford rights to songs that people want to use. I basically will have to quit doing video. I'm not feeling very happy right now. I try not to break the law unless it contradicts my beliefs, and now to maintain that I will have to stop doing what I love. The fact that I was told the opposite about the CVLI/CCLI rights available by the people that are in charge of the video things even at the state here makes me very dissheartened in the moral character of things (though it's possible that they too didn't know), but never the less I'm quite dissapointed righ now. :-(

Dave

Sometimes in network shows mainly you will hear popular copyrighted songs performed by OTHER musicians, like house musicians, (opening credits) or you see them in commercials....for some reason the production did not use the ORIGINAL recording.

Anybody know why this practice is done and what possible loopholes are there that would motivate a production to do this?

Reason I ask is because Im also a musician multi/instrument and have Vegas(obviously) and could do that.

Maybe they are only doing it for creative license and ARE paying for the usage...but dunno, lotta "B" movies do/did this also.
John

And this is the important part. The laws as written DO make the work of videographers almost impossible to do legally. Weddings, funerals, school events (including kindergarten plays, etc), reunions, video yearbooks. Now, all of this work is still getting done. Sometimes by people who don't know any better and sometimes by people who do. Other industries for lobbies to deal with Washington on issues like this, so why not some body repping the videography industry (rhetorical question)? Because they've been working outside the letter of the law for so long - in ways that would make the RIAA & MPAA choke if they knew the extent of the violations - that they don't want to call attention to themselves. Remember the evil eye of Mordor (I think) in the Lord Of The Rings movies? That big, flaming eye that was always watching, and how, when it sensed the ring would cast its gaze in that direction? The ring in this case is the videography community, and the big flaming eye is the RIAA & MPAA. he slightest noise from any community will attract its attention. There are other rings (music downloaders, etc) that will occupy the eye for awhile. So everyone is trying to slip inder the gaze of the eye.

The reason that those crappy covers exist is because the artists or their publishers want too much money for the sync rights to the original work. I'm cutting & mixing a lot of reality television at the moment, and the facilities & pproduction companies I work for go to EXTREME lengths tyo avoid copyright issues. This should be a lesson to us all. These companies have in-house legal look at EVERYTHING to make sure they won't get nailed. There are no discussions of "what can we get away with" or "the system sucks." They just take the appropriate precautions. Last week I was working on a show where a rapper was featured on camera for the whole show, and there was a scene where he was in a studio recording parts for his latest single. As the show was in final mix review, the lawyers came down to tell us the artist was all of a sudden asking for a ridiculous amount of money for the song to be in the show. Five minutes later, the show's composer was emailed the specs of the pieces required to cover the sections in question (BPM, length, key, etc). 3 hours later the music was emailed back to us edited in. Sorry for the ramble.

Spot, considering my new found prediciment (and I'm sure you've told people this before, but)
How do I do it legally?
Where do I go, what do I need? - Is all this in the copyright video that VASST sells or is that just on how to copyright my video?
I'm pretty well screwed right now, so any help would help. Thanks

Dave

The copyright vid only covers how you do it, and how you avoid screwing up with other's works, plus the releases, etc, etc....
There are clearance specialists, but it varies. If you haven't read my micronovel that was done for NARAS, it provides a lot of these answers.
http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/articles/copyright.htm

Over the past two years - I have contributed to all of the major discussions on Fair Use and Copyright Issues that have cropped up. My contributions and input are all based on My Real World Experiences in Regularily Dealing with those who believe that they hold Fair Use Rights and other claimed rights to Broadcast and Profit from my Copyrighted, Intellectual and Artistic Video Works.

Here are some very recent examples:

1. Broadcast Entity believed that it held the rights to Trade and Barter with Third Parties for the use of my Video. Entity, believed it had the rights to remove my watermarked copyright symbol in the process. All Letters to Cease and Desist were laughed at. Negotiations to enter into a License Agreement for permissions - were refused, by them. This - to their shock resulted in a Lawsuit being filed by me, in October.

2. I recently caught a broadcast of a major cable program that included my Copyrighted Video. I contacted the Production Company Directly and was told by them that I had No Claims because th Program first aired in 2000 and has re-aired several times since. And, because I never contacted them earlier to claim my rights - They hold - that I must have agreed to their usage and No Longer have Any Rights. The reasoning appears to be that it is my responsibility to see and catch them vs. them, seeking authorization.

3. I Licensed Footage to a Specific Program. In the Contract that they provided - it specified that they have a right to "Promote" the program. Most License Agreements also include this term "Promotion". After 20 years in the Footage Licensing Business to the Boadcast Market - I have a pretty good sense of what "promotion" means to me "The Copyright Owner".

So, the Program Aired and they Promoted it in commercials by saying things like - "Stay tuned to ____ for the upcoming Episode of ____ on Tuesday Night.' And, as far as I was concerned - They could have even used representative still images on Billboards, Magazines and Even on the side of City Buses to promote the Program, if they wished. So, long after the program aired - the Footage from the program was used on Another Program, on Another Network with Another Producer and Production Company. So I contacted the Show that just Aired my Footage and was told that they had been given rights by the first producton company. I informed them that No One but me had the Rights to Authorize the use of that Video on their program. So, they said that they would contact the first production cmpany and get back to me. What I got back was a letter from the first production Company"s Lawyer with a copy of the signed contract and the word "Promotion" Circled. And, a brief explaination that they had the rights to auhorize the second Production Company the Rights to use it and Air it - because the first program was receiving promotion in the second program.

So, what do you guys think about that, one?

And, one last thing. Billy Boy, You made me laugh at your suggestion of the "Bathroom Police". Years ago, I came home from a Very Tuff Night of Shooting Real Blood and Guts. I laid in the bathtub of my Condo and just let the Shower Stream - Spray my Stress Away. About an hour later - there was a hard Knock on my door. I got out of the tub and answered it. It was two LAPD Officers. Looking Perplexed - I asked them if I could help them. They told me that they had had calls about a Shower that was running for over an hour and neighbors were concerned. So I assured them that I was alright and that I didn't know that the LAPD had a "Shower Police Section".


Jay Mitchell

Thanks Spot, I'll be reading that for a while, I hope it's not illegal, but I did print it out (heh heh). (the way my luck is going, it probably would be - sorry if I'm coming across as a downer I'll quit now) :-]

Dave

Not illegal at all. As long as you don't reprint and distribute without permission. :-) You'd be surprised at how many requests there have been for permissions. And they've all been granted.

As usual, very entertaining. BB, lighten up on Spot. Spot, I want you to make a living and all, but I'm sure you understand the utter foolishness of the current system. Millions of videographers will continue to use copyrighted music for their little projects, and the laws on the books will be used only to catch the major players.

I will sit up and take notice when someone can point out to me current prosecutions of the sort where Joe Videographer was sent to prison for 10 years and bankrupted because he used "Hawaiian Wedding Song" on 50 DVDs that were sold to wedding guests.

The CVLI license covers the church for using the protected materials. It does not matter if they paid, how much they paid, or who they paid to prepare those materials. What matters is that the church was the entity that displays the protected video property. The agreement is a blanket agreement and its cost depends on the average attendance at church services. Use of protected materials is covered for any and all use from a short snippet used to enhance the sermon to the showing of an entire DVD before the youth group on the large screen in the sanctuary.

These days, most churches using a big screen up front are also using a media queue management system that requires them to convert and or combine the protected materials into something that can be controlled by the queue. The church can do wahtever it wants with the protected materials so long as the public use is controlled by the church.

We could not for example, show the entire Star Wars collection and then sell DVDs we made of that event.

what about hacking apart the video and shortening it (like when we have promo videos sent out by missionaries that we want to cut up and shorten because they wishfully think that they can take 10-20 minutes of any given sunday morning?) BTW, does it, or does it not cover sync stuff? (and or does CCLI? if you [or anyone else] know(s) conclusively [no conjecture]).

Dave

conclusively = copyright attorney.

Whether it's a church or not.

I tell you this thread is weird. I posted me question, I was being silly and a bit ironic, about Veggie tales and such and than I had 2 meetings tonight at a church. So I bring up a general question - does the church have any sort of blanket clearance for this sort of thing. And no one knew - but this got into a discussion and they were planning on showing Passion of the Christ in the teen youth Sunday School class. I said unless they had permission to do so it was, technically, illegal. So one person, who is also a member of the Schools PTSO, says "But we show movies *all* the time at school. We don't charge admission but we sell popcorn and stuff." And another person, who is a police officer, says "Well that is legal, as long as you are not charging money to see it." And here is little ole me going "err...umm...well...no...." And I suddenly thought "I need to go home and print out Spots piece and give it to these people."

So Spot - can I? Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? :)

I will sit up and take notice when someone can point out to me current prosecutions of the sort where Joe Videographer was sent to prison for 10 years and bankrupted because he used "Hawaiian Wedding Song" on 50 DVDs that were sold to wedding guests.

It'll never happen. Fines, yes. Prison for 50 copies...no way. There are actual loopholes in the law that I've been looking at with an IP attorney that might make it a point of acceptance for some of these uses to occur, but until I'm 100% sure, I'm not going to say much more. It's certainly an interesting point.

I have the position that I have because it has to be taken. IP MUST be protected at all costs. However, the laws and practices make it too damn hard for professionals to have access to songs for legitimate uses at affordable costs. By "affordable" I don't mean buying a license to use a song on a wedding DVD for 10.00. I mean being able to buy a license that includes sync rights and mechanicals for say....1000.00 per year, that would cover wide uses of multiple songs from a rights organization similar to ASCAP, similar to what Australia has. Their model works. And works darn well.
Only a small portion of the resistance of the music and film world is greed-driven. Most of it is fear. The producers, directors, managers, attorneys, and workers in the industry read these sorts of threads and have these sorts of discussions, and are scared crapless because once the genie is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in. That's the nature of the digital distribution model. No longer can we base a fee on declining quality of experience as it could be argued in the 60's and 70's. The industry is responding way too slow, but caution rules the day.

Even though I stand strong in my beliefs in protecting the rights of artists for whatever reasons I'm shot at for accepting, I also find it equally frustrating. I have to get a sync license for MY OWN works from the three publishers I've got. That's ridiculous. But it's the biz, and I signed on for that. These days, it should be easy to achieve. But it's not. There are literally thousands of cases that have set the standard for today's business practices. There will be more cases required before business practices will be able to safely change. Look at the confusion that exists now, based on nearly 300 years of copyright laws. How can anyone intelligently expect it to change in a few years? No one ever knew we'd be able to perfectly clone a person's artistic performances when most of the laws were set up. It sucks, I don't agree with a lot of how it's done, but property rights are property rights, and those rights must first be protected at all costs. Otherwise, we no longer have a free market, we have communism where the artistic works of one becomes the property of all. I don't think anyone here could support that.

Billyboy's constant taunts and raves don't bother me. I've had much worse from DJs with big mouths at NARAS and RIAA events. I'm quite confident that his bluster of "I'll never buy another song again" is utter BS. Given the choice of being a thief or being an adult, BB will choose to be an adult. You CAN'T work in this industry without needing music, BB. No frickin' way. It's simply impossible.
What bothers me about the discussion is the people that want change don't do a damn thing to change it. At least I'm out there fighting the fight, and what's more stupid is the fight that I'm fighting is to grant creatives MORE access to artistic works. In other words, I'm fighting for you. But while I'm fighting, I also have to protect what we all know has value. Intellectual properties. But it's easy to spit on creatives over who owns what when you've never creatively owned anything. I look at the works of some of the people here and I marvel at how great some of it is. Muttley's music video stuff, James Green, Michael Green, Cheno, a lot of media seen on Chienworks site is very, very inspiring. How would any of these people feel about having their works arbitrarily taken and broadcast with no respect for what they've put into it? Or for that matter, copied and used? When we started the veg sharing site a couple years ago, there was quite a spat at one time from a guy who copied someone else' veg and didn't give the author credit for his works. And he should have been credited, because it was an actual "look" and style that was all his own. And when he DID share it, someone took it and called it their own after only changing some text in the image. I would respect your property and fight to protect it, and only ask the same from you. In the use of the word "I" I'm speaking collectively as a creative part of a large industry.

It's disrespectful to all artists to diminish their value. If you want their work so badly, then for heaven's sake, go create your own, and see how easy it is to create a masterpiece that the world will emotionally respond to. Music is the soundtrack of our lives, and therefore some people seem to think they're entitled to it at no cost, because it carries emotional value for us. It's easy to forget that others gave sweat, soul, money, and their lives to bring you that soundtrack.
Believe me, I understand that. I remember my first kiss, my first heartbreak, my first junior high party, my first hit of weed, my first date, and the night I lost my virginity all based on the songs of the moment. I hear an old song and it immediately brings back a specific memory, like the time I heard VanHalen for the first time in high school, I was helping a friend put in a car stereo and we started dancing like mad, with broom guitars and the whole bit. Every time I hear a certain Phil Collins tune I remember my son in ways that I don't think about very often.
Therefore, in my mind, I own those songs. But in truth, I only own the memories those songs calls forth. But they'll be a part of my life til the day I die. I can see myself being 80 years old singing "We Will Rock You!" and banging my walker on the floor of the rec center. I might not know what the words mean as I drool them out of my mouth, but I'll certainly remember the feeling they inspire.

There will always be those that think musicians do what they do to get rich. Yeah, for some that's a motivation, but for the rest of us, it's a disease. We're compelled to create, and we share those creations. Most musicians, less than 1.2% ever make it "big" to the point of having copious amounts of money. I've been very successful as a musician, and have now started back down the other side of that hill. But because my career isn't what it was 3 years ago, does that mean I should give up what I slaved to create? Of course not.

I make my music because it makes me complete as a human being, not because it has the potential to make me wealthy. And what I create in my music, or my video is "of the sweat of my brow" as Lincoln put it. And as such, should always belong to me, or to those that I assign those properties to.

Well said Spot.

And by the way - did you watch House tonight? if not you have amazing sense because much of your tone was in the show. The scene where the muscian is telling Dr. House why he signed a DNR - that all he had, that he felt - was music. Without his lungs and hands he couldn't 'blow", it was what he lived for. The end of the show he is fixed up, but his lungs still usless, he hands his horn to Dr House and says "I want you to have this. You can sell it if you want, just promise me you won't try to play it."

This is a *very* nice and simple Q&A that they offer at CVLI

========
What if someone in the church personally owns the video?

You still need a license. Owning the video still only gives you the right to watch it in your own home.

What if we don't charge admission?

Still doesn't matter. Whether or not you charge admission, you need permission from the studio (or an CVLI license). Thus saith the Federal Copyright Act.

What if we do charge admission?

Then the CVLI license doesn't apply. In this case, even if you hold a CVLI license, you must get further permission from the studio. The CVLI license is only for free public performances.

But we're a non-profit organization.

Doesn't matter. The copyright law applies equally to for-profit and non-profit entities. You can't get away with claiming it's for "education" use, either. That exemption, which has a strict definition, applies only to fulltime, non-profit academic institutions.

But the video doesn't say we can't show it.

Unless it explicitly says you can show it (or duplicate it, in the case of music or literature), then you can't. The assumption, unless stated otherwise, is that you can't copy or show it.

What if we rent our facility to other groups, and they show videos?

Then you, as the owner of the facility, are ultimately liable. The renters may be considered "contributory infringers."

We pay a rental fee to Blockbuster. Doesn't that count?

Renting a video doesn't give you the right to show it in public.

What about watching a video at a member's home?

The law states that videos can be shown in homes, without a license, to "a normal circle of family and its social acquaintances."

Home use is a big part of copyright infringe cases. The law was never meant to cover playing in a house or for non public or paid use. That's why use in education is not protected and people viewing something in their home with no pay can never be prosecuted. Eventually all these cases of people swapping files for home use and no commercial intent are gonna be found to be legal use. The music industry is cutting it's own throat by going after people for home use and file swapping. One day the Supreme Court is going to say home use of any music is legit wether the owner bought it, traded for it or copied from a server. The idea that a person can violate a copyright in their home by listening to something with no finanical gain is nuts and sooner or later the Supreme Court is going to find on the side of people listening to anything they want in their home no matter if they bought it or copied it from a public access point. Label the DVD NOT FOR COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION and no one will sue you ever. I myself oversee a music label and we use our artists tracks all the time in our DVDs as well as royalty free stuff, we also pay artists to create unique tracks for our commercial use. If someone wanted me to use whatever in a production with no commercial use, I would just label the DVD as mentioned above. If someone sued me I'd countersue for a lot more.

Dave asks ... what about hacking apart the video and shortening it (like when we have promo videos sent out by missionaries that we want to cut up and shorten because they wishfully think that they can take 10-20 minutes of any given sunday morning?) BTW, does it, or does it not cover sync stuff? (and or does CCLI? if you [or anyone else] know(s) conclusively [no conjecture]).

When we first aquired them, I read all the way through both the CCLI and the CVLI agreements. I have frequently been back to their web sites. Both CCLI and CVLI endorse and promote third party products that do all sorts of creative and interesting things with covered copyright protected materials including sync stuff. There is no limit to what you can do TO the protected material, but there are limits of what you can do WITH what you have done to protected materials. We can create anything we want and use that creation at a church event, but we cannot distribute anything we wan to anyone associated with the church. Distributing has some permissions and restrictions.

There are products endorsed by these licensing companies that reworked materials better than I can yet manage to do.

CCLI and CVLI are not entirely identical.

With CCLI, I can create more supportive preparatory materials and distribute them to people who need to use them. I can create a CD that has all the original songs (or even my version of them) and give a copy of it along with words and chord charts that I prepared to the worship band so they can study and practice. BUT I can't give that stuff to congregation members. I cannot photocopy and distribute to choir members copies of commercially produced scores but I can use scoring software to create my own score and use as many copies as I need to for choir members.

CVLI, on the other hand permits me to use materials in whole or in part alone or in combination with other materials but I am restricted to using what I create only at Church events. I cannot copy a DVD and give that copy to all the participants in the service so they are familiar with the movie to be used during the service.

Both CCLI and CVLI reserve the right to randomly require any license holder to submit a log of everthing they did with covered copyright protected materials during a particular month or quarter.

An example that would work. Take a video scene from star wars, edit the sound track so that the conversation is altered to be about an upcoming fellowship dinner and replay the altered video during announcements for the four weeks prior to the dinner. I can show that altered video at church, but I would want to nail down permissions before using that altered video on a Television commercial.

In fact, it would be wise to discuss questions with CCLI and CVLI. Anything we say here may or may not represent the license correctly.

Read the copyright act yourself as well.