Thanks guys! I wanted to make sure it wasn't just synching other's music to, say a photo montage section - hence Synchronisation! It refers to all and any music that others have ownership of . . in whatever way that means.

Z, tell me why I should keep going? . . . Oh, I get it! . . . . it was parody on my attempt to understand something I was trying to understand. And there was I thinking you were offering a solution! - Do you still want me to carry on?

Grazie

Just remember that's only the right to copying into the video. That doesn't cover distributing it or selling etc. That's a whole lot of extra fees. I'd suggest you need to know what that is as well. You might find it's $500 for the sync licence and $20 per copy!

Believe me I know of a serious production that got killed off by exactly this sort of thing. Also you can spend a lot of time negotiating or even researching this stuff for a client only to have the client decide it's all too expensive and it's hard to get the client to PAY for your time whne they feel it all went nowhere.

Not lost patience, it's called "Being out of the studio doing other things for the day"
All of the above are great options. In the copyrights article, I mentioned the 4 affordable solutions, but didn't mention the expensive solution, "Hire a band and composer to compose exactly to your desires." Can be cheap, can be expensive. The film that won Short at Sundance had a 7K budget total, and nearly half that was composition. That's how important it can be...
If they've done a Jimi Hendrix track on a local band, you can't release that without a sync license from Hendrix' publisher. I believe that Warner owns his material, but not sure. Easy enough to find out.
Mechanical licenses, which are compulsory, are very easy to understand.
If you make a copy of a song on a mechanical device, ie; hard drive, CD, DVD, phonorecord, cassette, 8 track (remember those?) or any other device that embodies the work, then the author receives a royalty that is predetermined by an act of Congress. That's how Dolly Parton can make more money on a Whitney Houston cover of a Dolly Parton song than Whitney Houston made for performing it.
It's also how I make more money on a DSE song than Robbie Robertson makes recording it.

Spot, thank you . . once I get the "bit" between my teeth, I just keep on going , ,anyways thank you.

. . However SPOT: Ralph, above says, "it seems they are licensing specifically for sync rights . . .. " are you convinced from reading their site this is the case? And to what assurances do you think or have an opinion on that having "purchased" such a synch license AND publication, I would be covered?

I have listened to some f their artists work and I feel it would fit well with my video work. Okay, it's not "scored" to the work but the time for me to engage an artist to do such work is a long long way off . . :-(

I really want to include/add music so that there is as much of an "whole" to what I do.

Regards,

Grazie

SPOT,
going back to what you said before about places such as Weed being in violation of the compulsory mechanical licencing does this mean that even though the artist who owns the copyright outright to his own work cannot, waive these fees?
To put it another way, IF you decided you liked say the Weed business model no matter what agreement you and they entered into somehow the law was being broken?

I'd assume if you put your work totally into the public domain would get around that but that'd defeat the whole purpose.

Good point farss . . . I'm listening . . G

See guys, this is how rediculous we could get with this whole liscensing thing. I mean, do record companies and artist's representatives honestly think that they should be paid for EVERY time music is used. It is such a legal shambles that they are only hurting themselves in most of our eyes. If one were to LEGALLY do a wedding video, he or she would need to pay fees for the music they used, the music performed at the wedding (which the performer would have to pay for as well), recording any music at the reception (which is not supposed to be publicly performed). It is really time for those of us who are fed up to say so, despite the fact that the RIAA has never lost a case. Sorry to vent, but you never know when or how someone might try to screw you over something paltry like that.

By the way, I'd really like to know Spot's take on this as he has so much experience in both areas.

If you've not already been there, try http://www.freeplaymusic.com/

It's excellent.