Muttley - music rights assurances?

musicvid10 wrote on 12/10/2009, 8:48 AM

Muttley,
When people give you their own CD from which to produce a music video, what kind of assurances or release do they sign with you guaranteeing that they freely own the performance and mechanical rights to the song(s), that they are not owned by or shared with a publisher or someone else, and they are not involved in any litigation or action surrounding the rights to the songs?

Is this a separate disclosure or part of your contract? Is there a template on the internet somewhere that would help guide me to create my own language?

Thanks in advance,
Musicvid

Comments

DaveM2 wrote on 12/10/2009, 9:29 AM

Not Muttley here, but you want something to protect you - and while I don't have a pre-established form, your wording sounds good with an "any and all rights" added. I was just in Jamaica and a travel channel videographer did video releases as he shot, which I thought was a good idea. I would think you could ask on camera a band member to state their name and say he was a member of the group and that the group has exclusive ownership of all rights to the music they are going to perform. It's probably not the strongest, and probably every member saying it would be best, but I would think that if an copyright/ownership issue arouse later, the video release would serve to indemnify you, unless something was so obvious that you should have known it was copyrighted. And I think people are more comfortable and willing to participate in a video release as opposed to a written one.

Spot|DSE wrote on 12/11/2009, 8:54 AM

I have one of the answers (there are multiple qualfiers), but I'm not Muttley. :-)

musicvid10 wrote on 12/11/2009, 9:35 AM

Douglas,
I welcome your answers with qualifiers.
I probably shouldn't have mentioned a name in my post topic; I just thought of him because I know he takes published CDs as his audio source.

I would welcome you checking in on this thread as well to see where I am headed with this . . .
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=685463&Replies=11

Thanks as always.

Spot|DSE wrote on 12/11/2009, 10:31 AM

With the context of that thread;
I don't know that I'd lose much sleep over the Master Recording and sync rights (two different issues). Generally, the label will provide one and the publisher the other. Often, the label and the publisher are co-owned and associated.
The band may own the publishing rights and the label own the Master, and any percentage divided between the two of them as well.
But...
In the market you're looking to tap, I'd suggest that the band likely recorded the songs in their basement or hired studio and own all rights to the songs. However, bands break up. You could very easily find yourself editing a song, band breaks up, bass player claims ownership and tells the band they can't do anything further with the song without buying out his share.
The easy way to do this is to help the band understand that between themselves, they need to agree who the songwriter cred goes to and who owns the master.
You bear no culpability in most any of this, so long as the band provides reps/warranties that they have the rights to replicate and sync the Master. Getting all band members on camera at once, giving you permission is the cheap/easy way to deal with this. It's a waiver of sorts, and not an exact contract, but it would be enforceable for both you and the band, should a problem arise.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/11/2009, 11:12 AM

Thanks, Douglas, for your insight and for reminding me of the distinction between mastering and sync rights.

The video agreement both of you suggested seems a good bit of evidence if questions arise. Mostly interested in insulating myself from claims of performance or sync rights by a third party after the fact.

Probably the onus of this lies with the band; by providing me with the material for video production implies that they are knowledgeable and have the rights to do so . . .

Once again, an ounce of experience is worth a pound of speculation. Thanks.