Based on the replies here if I recorded myself singing in the shower and put it on YouTube (god forbid) then this is a public performance? The performance part is showing it to a YouTube audience I suppose? I would need to get a music license to show this video on YouTube?

A private wedding dance is not a performance in the sense that the people dancing are doing so for a paying audience. They're dancing to a band for their own enjoyment privately. But if this is shown on YouTube then it's classified as a public performance and a music license must be obtained?

So if I show these videos privately then that's ok but if I show them on YouTube they become public performances? What an odd way of defining "public" and "performance." No wonder people become confused about copyright or think some of it is quite ridiculous.

The shower example is akin to the Warhol Foundation trying to enforce image copyright on a privately painted version of a Warhol posted on a website. And the wedding example is like suing for copyright violation because the Wedding hall in the video had a copy of that Warhol on the wall.

I think it's fair to ask people to pay for the original performance of the music at a public event but to charge fees for private events is bizarre. The logical conclusion of this is to tax teens and kids every time they hold a birthday party and post a video online. If YouTube can't differentiate between private and public events then no wonder many people have little sympathy for the copyright industry.

Well you're just talking about YouTube. I shoot weddings, and the DVD's and Blu-rays that are going to the couple are never seen by anybody but them.

Spectralis, no, public performance rights are separate from synchronization rights and master use rights.

In the eyes of the law, posting a video with music on YouTube is no different from using a song in a TV commercial or a movie. You need licenses from the rights holders.

I understand that balazer but it's still a perverse law that litigates against teenagers sharing videos of themselves dancing to the music they love or a married couple sharing a video of themselves dancing at their wedding. Unlike the commercial world of films and TV which are based on profit these exuberant teenagers and couples in love are not trying to profit from these happy moments. When the law is this draconian and lawyers are this greedy it can create an atmosphere of resentment among the public that damages the whole entertainment industry.

YouTube is not just a platform for commercial businesses to shift their products - it also acts as a social media platform. If that part of the equation is crushed then potential customers of our products will find other ways to share their happy moments or just not buy our products at all. The music and film industry needs to relax its approach to personal use. It needs to catch up with contemporary trends in social media such as creating and sharing memes which might contain some copyright material because this exposure can be the best form of publicity for an artist rather than a crime against the industry. These copyright laws were adjusted to fit the digital age supposedly but they're already out of date because they're not suitable for the kind of personal use that has evolved with social media.

I have posted several videos on youtube using copyrighted music. I have not been involved in any litigation. I had to check a box saying I was aware of the copyrighted music. I had one video audio muted so I removed it.

Spectralis +1

You've said it very elegantly. YT is the medium of exchange today, not DVD's or Blurays. Moreover, the shelf-life of a video on YT is very limited. After the "big event", be it a wedding or dance recital, lots of views, but shortly thereafter, none. I suspect that traditional DVD's are much the same in that regard. Here's another way of looking at it. The owners of copyrighted materials are in essence "double-dipping" for these events, expecting to be paid twice. First, by the individual who "plays" the material, and second, by the individual who "records" the "playing" of that material--in essence the same event. To most rational people, it makes no sense, unless you're the one expecting to be paid.

Spectralis -10 Please - this is populist view. of course and welcome to it. Sure the tech is easy, thus obfuscating the real harm here.

IF you were an artist, producer, or creative force whatever, behind the creation of original works you would be in a much different position. Think about it.

Just because they CREATED a way everyone can share/pirate your music and videos, doesn't make it right.

If I make software the extracts rounded off pennies from banks and puts in another account, that is fine because I CREATED this software, and those pennies are never tracked anyway, right? A-Okay!

Artists have lost a LOT of rights to their work since computers.

Anyone here that is in business to make ANY money, would be okay if they lost 1/4 or 1/2 their income right? Just because I CREATED something that most other people think it fine, but it affected YOUR business? That doesn't really make it "ok" or even cloud the morality. It is simply wrong.

I had a youtube flagged and pulled from getting money over a public domain classical song that I had fully re-created via MIDI production. It was flagged as if it was the ogirinal recording, by a company who's name was " ". Yes, a blank space.

It's not a perfect system, but it is trying to fix the illegal parts. Like using and distributing music one does not have any rights to.

As Mr. Wonderful says every week, its all about M-O-N-E-Y.
Some of it is internet extortion, some of it is baldfaced piracy.
There's a lot of in-between, on both sides.
The "compelling social worth" argument, however, fails on almost all counts.

This is a really interesting topic in terms of WHAT a video editor's job is. If I was a plumber I'd be expected to know all the national, state, and local codes for the job I was doing. Then my work is inspected (for sake of argument) by an inspector that says I did the correct job. This protects me against the consumer going after me because something went wrong (I can say "But the inspector said it was correct").

For video editing, are WE supposed to know all the national, state, and local laws? Nobody inspects us, so even if we tried to follow the rules and we made a mistake, it's always our fault. Even if we're lied to about the work we're supposed to do. We MUST depend on what others say, but WE are the ones who are responsible for following the laws, not the client/employer.

The plumbers responsibility ends when inspected and only applies to that job. If a new law comes in to effect the old work is grandfathered in.

For us video editors everything is fluid. Today we make a video for client X and have all the permissions to do the job. Tomorrow, the law changes and the video we made can no longer be used. Unlike physical goods (like plumbing tape, wrenches, pipe, etc). we must either change all past work to comply with a new law or never use it again. We also have to follows national, state, and local laws for any possible viewing location: what's legal in one location may not be legal in another and once we put the video out there it's beyond our restrictive control, and if it gets shown in a place it was never intended to and violates a law in that location we can legally be held responsible.

Granted, something like Youtube handles some of this (like local viewing restrictions), but what was considered legal in 1985 (videotaping a wedding dance and duplicating it for friends to watch, on the most modern home viewing and recording equipment) is now considered illegal.

[I]what was considered legal in 1985 (videotaping a wedding dance and duplicating it for friends to watch, on the most modern home viewing and recording equipment) is now considered illegal.[/i]

That was illegal in 1985 and it still is today. But rights holders usually don't care about small-scale non-commercial distribution, so you could avoid the issues with private distribution.

But even if you don't make any money on a video you upload to YouTube, YouTube is commercial enterprise. YouTube makes money. Uploading a video to YouTube is not the modern-day equivalent of making a videotaped copy for a few friends. YouTube makes videos available to a far wider audience, and even if YouTube doesn't put an ad on that particular video, user-generated content attracts viewers and helps YouTube make more money.

The law is what it is. We have to (or SHOULD) follow it.
But I am in full agreement the system is broken, or at least a few decades behind the time. There should at least be "tiers" of licenses structured for amateur (or non-broadcast) productions that are affordable enough to encourage everyone to obey the current laws. I'm sure the publishers would make more money if it were structured that way.

Anyone who has dealt with negotiating music rights from publishing houses are quite aware that very rarely are the "artists" getting paid fairly for usage of their music. In every case I've dealt with, from ASCAP/BMI publishers to inexpensive stock music houses, the desk jockeys are getting the lion's share of the cash. And the style of negotiations are ridiculous.

Last year I had to secure sync rights for a well-known 60s pop song. Got a publishing rep on the phone and gave him the specs for the ad, run length, market. "You won't be able to get that song for less that $35,000." "I've got $8000." "O.K. We can do that!" This type of business model is every bit as deserving of a spanking as the wedding photographer in this thread was getting. Should publishers (like most businesses and most of us do) have a published pricing structure, or is it ethical to just gouge each client as deep as you can?

The laws pertaining videos, copyrights, music, etc really don't change much. The difference is sites like youtube which make it available to the masses. Plus there are a lot more people creating and publishing videos. When I started editing, there were a handful of computer controlled editors in the US. It took millions of dollars of equipment and maintenance to put out any video. Advertising companies had lawyers to track copyright issues and there was no question about paying for music rights. Now anyone with a $20 camera and an MP3 player can create a video. So the copyright laws are being scrutinized.

Similar to interlacing, before computers, the average user was not even aware that video was interlaced. Now everyone thinks it is the spawn of Satan. ;)

I am familiar with some much younger people who TOTALLY BELIEVE that if it is on the web, it is completely free for them to take. There is NO consideration, no thought of cost, law, artists... none of that matters: if it is there, that means it is free.

This is truly what younger generations think.

Has anyone heard of the Harry Fox Agency?

They license the mechanical rights (i.e., duplication) of many, many songs in the USA. If you are "covering" a song, and not playing someone else's recording in the background, you can purchase the rights to make up to 2500 copies for $16 admin. fee and 9.15 cents per song per copy. You can sell the copies. A local copyright attorney turned me on to HFA saying its a really inexpensive way to cover yourself (pun intended).

There is also provision for licensing a number of streams. I am not into Youtube, so I don't know the details of the streaming licenses.

They also have a website that sells synch licenses, but you cannot sell copies covered by that synch license.

That was illegal in 1985 and it still is today. But rights holders usually don't care about small-scale non-commercial distribution, so you could avoid the issues with private distribution.

Handing out a video of people dancing at your wedding would seem to fall under the fair use questions: here

I searched on the US Copyright and Trademark site to look for cases where someone was sued over this and couldn't find one. The closest I found was that Universal and Disney sued Sony over Betamax recorders because those allowed people to violate their copyrights to the programs and the courts said no, fair use. Based on the courts decision a wedding tape would fall under fair use I'd figure.

Either way, that still doesn't answer the question of what our job as an editor really is.

HappyFriar,

I don't see how you are interpreting these two examples to make a wedding video fair use. On the first one, I agree, you giving free copies of your wedding to people could be fair use, but if you paid someone to create that video, then it is not a non-profit or non-commercial video.

On the second, this is referring to time-shifting. I don't see anything here that relates to a wedding.

http://daredreamermag.com/2011/12/07/the-music-licensing-chickens-have-come-home-to-roost-in-wedding-and-event-videography/

http://daredreamermag.com/2011/02/23/how-to-legally-use-music-in-your-films-and-videos/

They history of copyright laws is connected to technological development as has been stated earlier in this thread. Sony wanted to prevent people recording films but when VHS came out they had to change their tune. Copyright varies from country to country so there is no consistent and universal consensus on what copyright actually is.

Even if YouTube makes money from videos uploaded on its site, if those uploading them aren't then why should they pay anyone anything? I would have no problem with teens or newly married couples sharing videos of themselves dancing to my songs. Nor would it bother me if I filmed a wedding and the owners of the video posted it on YouTube. I consider this free exposure.

But that's not really the point I am making, people (potential customers) now record and then share their happy memories via social media. This is the way culture has developed and it's unstoppable so the industry better come up with more appropriate ways to enforce copyright that take account of these developments rather than desperately trying to clamp down on people sharing their pleasurable events for nothing.

One solution might be for YouTube and other social media to pay a mutually agreed rate to the entertainment industry so that people can share their wedding, school dance video without fear of it being pulled. Of course this will never happen because of the sheer greed of YouTube and the entertainment industry. They are both are making record profits while millions of musicians, film makers, artists, editors and those who create the content see very little in return. The problem isn't couples sharing wedding videos it's the disproportionate share of profits that undermines those who create content.

I read the article about the wedding film maker who got sued for $XX,XXX for using a copyright song on a video that went viral. Now he reckons that customers won't notice he left out their favourite song and used muzak instead. He also suggests educating customers about copyright. Sadly I think he's misguided on both points even though he's forced to follow this strategy himself.

I suspect that after just experiencing one of the most important moments in their lives many married couples won't settle for muzak as their soundtrack and will simply rip the video, dub their favourite tunes over the top and then share it on YouTube. Back to square one!

I would have no problem with teens or newly married couples sharing videos of themselves dancing to my songs. Nor would it bother me if I filmed a wedding and the owners of the video posted it on YouTube. I consider this free exposure.

I agree mostly with Spectralis. The problem however are those that don't just watch or listen but "rip" content off YT and other social media and that is where revenue is lost. Now who's responsibility it is to prevent this from happening, my gues it is the hosting companies responsibility.

I feel one thing has not been mentioned here. When you upload a video you have three options on how the content is made available; public, unlisted and private. A wedding video with copyright content such as background music should only be set "unlisted" so that only those with a link can view it. That is how I upload our figure skating videos which all have background music. Yes, it will be flagged but I usually acknowledge the 3rd party content and I have not had an issue with it; one or two of my videos say that they are not available in certain countries but so be it.

If you make a promotional video of any kind and make it publicly available then you better have the rights to all the content in the video to be made public.

I had the intention to have a figure skating channel on YT but I stopped it because of all this copyright issues and the fact that it is impossible to get a clear picture even if you are willing to pay for all the rights.

One thought here. Music by itself is " one dimensional", video with music is " three dimensional", music being one dimension and the picture adding two dimensions. Now, how much have I altered the original, the music, to make it a "new" product by making a video with music? A wedding video or figure skating performance are not centered on the music but the people or action in it. Maybe YT should offer a hobbyist license at a minor fee to allow uploading of such content publicly and forward the revenue to the entertainment industry? I don't mind paying even a $100.00 annually to overcome the copyright issue.

I wonder how profitable wedding videos would be if all editers said "Sorry, you can not have those popular songs the DJ was playing, in this video"

In the end, wedding video makers are making a copy of a song (that was so popular at the event in cerimony or on dance floor), and then SELLING that copy to the client - which is illegal.

Sell without the music is just fine.... and SOOO undesired.

What a mess! Glad I don't do weddings etc