Geez! I didn't realize someone was keeping track. 132 posts.....I sure hope that other thread dies a quick death then. I'd hate for it to occupy #1.
Hopefully this article will be read and responded to with intelligence rather than emotion. I apologize to the forum for getting caught up in it. It's obviously an issue close to my heart.

Just wait till Sony ships the "boxed version" of Vegas 5 in a padded envelope with no box. That one will be a #1 thread for sure after the Vegas 4 no box fiasco.

I tried to print out your article but even with my page margins set for .116 the edges of a lot of words get cut off.

JJK

Thanks for letting me know. It was still in the printer's template, I hadn't removed their formatting. It's resaved now at a non-formatted size, should print OK, or at least it does on my printer here.

Somthing that wasn't covered in the article and I'm a little unclear on.
I'm now doing a bit of work as a hired gun. Clearly I retain no right to the finished product unless I enter into an agreement with whoever pays me to retain certain rights.

Do I retain any rights to use small segments of those works in a show reel? Do I need or should I have all clients sign a contract permitting such use in the future?

Do I even retain the right to mention that work as mine in say a CV?

I had a question kind of like that as well. A while back I did a VO for a local fishing show, it was a 30 second spot for a fishing resort type place. I was paid to do the VO and it was produced and editied at the place I work at. The guy who editied it no longer woks here anymore and let's just say we aren't the best of friends. Anyways, I put this video clip up on my website to showcase some VO work that I have done. A few days later I get a e-mail from this guy saying I don't have permission to use this clip and that I must remove it immediately or he will sue me. I've had a lot of people tell me that I could use it and there isn't much he can do about it, but I've never found out for sure. Let's just say I would love to have it up on my site just to prove him wrong :) Oh and as a voice sample too.

I'll add this question to the article, since it's a private web publish. I'd not considered answering work for hire...Thanks for the point. (it's not an issue for the group the original article was written for, but I shoulda thunk it.)

Lawyers, hire a lawyer.
Any type of specific case involving copyrights, you would be foolish to listen to anyones advise, no matter how knowledgable they are unless you are their client and they are a lawyer.

Amen, and when you do, if you do hire an attorney, make sure they are a COPYRIGHT attorney and not just a run-of-the-mill attorney. We hired an attorney many years ago who had a great track record. In patents.
We ended up paying for his copyright education. We saw a billing from the copyright lawyer he was learning from, and so we went directly to that lawyer. While he wouldn't rep us because of his prior relationship, he referred us to a copyright attorney in SFO. This guy took 1/10th the time, at about 1/2 the cost, and we prevailed against BMG.
As the bottom of the article states, this list of caveats is in no way to be used as legal advice. The article was vetted by an attorney, but that still doesn't take into consideration all the unique circumstances that can arise in a creative situation.

Hey I read the piece and like it, very informative and the links are helpful. One thing I want to comment on is the line "Showing copyrighted video for purposes of entertainment at church or school functions, whether admission was paid or not, is illegal." I think the broad sense 'yes' would seem logical however reality in the broad sense - no. Example is Big Idea. They do Veggie Tails among other things. We just finished using their "Jonah Adventure" VBS kit. We broke it down into 10 weeks for Sunday School. Now included in this is a lot of copyrighted material. One of these things is a video..a copyrighted video. This video is for use, in a public setting. So instead of the broad "Showing copyrighted video for purposes of entertainment at church or school functions, whether admission was paid or not, is illegal." statement perhaps you should add some sort of footnote or subsection about items such as this. Clearly not all copyrighted video showings are illegal, if it were we would be back to the whole Video Store concept (Which I notice was absent in your piece) as well as things like Super Bowl parties at Sports Bars and peoples houses. (Something else missing from the piece - sort of a "So I want to go to Blockbuster and rent Lord Of The Rings and invite my family and friends over to watch it on my new 50 inch HD Capable TV - that is legal right?" or "I have a large screen TV and am going to watch the WWF's PPV on Saturday. I can invite 50 people over to watch it without breaking the law right? I can even ask everyone to bring beer and chips right? That isn't the same as charging admission right?")

Actually this is funny because today my daughter had her christmas party in school and on the way out I saw this flyer on the wall for a "family video night" where they will be showing "Spy Kids 3D" and admission is only $3.00. My first thought as I walked by this was "Hey, they can't do that!" In the christmas spirit I will not be calling the toll free MPAA hotline number and reporting them. Next year if they keep doing this I will bring it up to school bord members however...and I am being serious.

Veggie Tails, like many kids shows, as mentioned in the piece, have Enlightened rights, and as stated, situations and products will vary in the licenses granted in the purchase. It's not a specifics-deep article. Hell, Fair Use alone is a 744 page behemoth I have on my desk, cost 168.00 and weighs 20 lbs. And of course, it's non-conclusive as legal books often are. I covered it generally in one paragraph for the NARAS article.
I didn't cover creative commons, either. Those situations didn't really apply to that group. I just modified and shortened the article to be more video specific. I agree, calling the MPAA on a school is a little silly, as it's probably for a good cause, family time. But....being aware of the law is equally important. I look at it this way; If I see a kid driving down the road at 55 in a school zone, I'm sure as hell gonna call 911 on my cell because he's potentially harming others. If I see the same kid doing 55 in a 45, I really don't think it's my place.
That said, if I see the kid in 7-11 a few minutes later, I'll probably comment to him. The bigger point, at least in the segment of the biz the article was originally written for, was to dispel common myths, and to raise awareness. I'm not a lawyer, I've just had a hell of a lot of experience with them and our lawyer actually sends folks to me to help write certain stuff before it goes to him, saving them money. I've screwed up some, and as a result learned a lot. It's a fascinating subject to me, because there are some laws that actually countermand others due to the DMCA. Plus, with the strong LDS community here and the LDS Church actually openly advocating copyright/DCMA violation as a religious position, I've gotten pretty educated so I can argue intelligently. So, warts and all, that's the motivation.

Spot, thank you for this "informative" thread.

Having read the other thread and wanting this thread to eventually immerge, I've been "thinking" outside of the box on this one. I've come up with the wish to ask y'll a bit of a psychological question here. Why do you think this copyright thing is so complex?

Simple question, I know. The answer may also be simple - it may not be complex at all.

But Spot, thanks for restarting again here.

Cheers - Grazie

It's ridiculously too complex, Grazie, IMO and in the minds of most people. We have 2 centuries of law that are being attempted to manage, plus this new monster and monstrosity called the DMCA, and couple that with new tecnologies emerging faster than any legal management structure could remotely begin to manage. Then you toss in the new generation that feels "information should be free" and "entertainment should be free" so therefore it's not harming anyone to rip CD's, DVD's, and software.
The laws have been too strict at some levels, and the hand used to deal punishment too slow until recently.
One thing I've learned as much as I love America: This country is a buncha mealy mouths. We tell someone, don't behave this way, we'll lock you up. We arrest someone for behaving that way, say... don't do it again, if you do we'll lock you up. We let them go. Then when they behave that way again, they're told, if you behave that way one more time, we'll lock you up. Maybe on the third misbehavior, we lock them up for a day or two or a week. There is no fear of the law in the minds of most. There is no concept that theft is wrong, not when you see Enron stealing billions and no one in jail for it. "heck, if they can do it, why can't I?" sort of thought. That's been expressed.
Then there are the people who genuinely have never had to protect anything they own, so they're fully in favor of owning someone else's works because they don't have anything.
If people could be moral and fair, if producers could find a better means of life-cycling copyrighted works, if the government would destroy all the old laws and enact entirely new ones, and technology would quit advancing so fast, we might find a point where it all made sense. Until then, heavy handed protection will be the answer, because once that door is opened, it will never be shut again, I'm afraid. People for some reason, like to take advantage of others, hence the need for laws to protect those being taken advantage of. Artists want to focus on creativity. Without creativity and an incentive to be creative, we become a dull and lifeless, angry, and emotionally retarded society. Arts lift us from an otherwise mundane existence. Therefore, artists must be incentivized and protected from the non-artists that would steal from their very soul.
I guess at that level, the answer is simple. People shouldn't steal. And Hollywood (so to speak) shouldn't get so freaked out about people copying a CD to play in their car or a DVD on their computer hard drive. But, sometimes a pound of prevention is worth the ounce of cure. I suppose that's the other side and the reason for complexity. But, that's a psychological question, and I've simply provided an FAQ.

Oh yes Spot! - This is the conversation I was wanting to see happen here.

There seemed to me a lot of "good" energy going into "Angels Dancing on Pinheads" - yes, I appreciate the need for "adult" information being passed between colleagues.

Knowing very little of your background, although I recognise it is one of revering things of this World and the Spirit, I can understand your wishes and sentiments for the need for creativity to be able to blossom, a "life force" is very close to your morality. Is this correct? It is for me.

I see everybody having this ability to create and express. To what level and with what "native" talents they are born with, is purely a personal one. How people have opportunities to develop these attributes - for good/evil - is a matter of chance. Those that "grasp" these opportunities are sometimes "called" artists. "Knowing" that these things are opportunities I suggest is one element of being an artist. Seeing and recognising individuals who fall into this category can create in those who are frustrated at not accomplishing an expressive way through life can, unfortunately, create jealousy and sometimes "ill-placed" rage. This is still energy - a different form/type of energy, but energy just the same.

I truly liked what you wrote.

My very best regards,

Grazie

Thanks, SPOT, for the very comprehensive and concise look at copyrighting. I have one area that would be nice to see added to the FAQ: dance recitals. I've been asked several times in the past to videotape and provide copies of these, and the copyright issues can get very muddied on such a production.

In most cases, the choreography is copyrighted by the owners of the studio, and you therefore have their permission to videotape and distribute copies based on just the video content. However, since 99.9% of dances are set to music, typically copyrighted material, things can change. The studio owns the usual BMI and ASCAP licenses for playback of the music during the recital, but obviously not for mechanical reproduction. I've been told (not by an attorney), that videotaping a recital and any copyrighted music played falls under the clause of incidental capture, and is therefore legal. The issue has also been raised that if the camera is receiving a direct feed off the theatre's sound board (therefore providing an exact digital duplication of the music), then it's not really incidental capture any more.

If you have the knowledge and the time to address this, I'd love to see it in your document.

Thanks,

-Brent

Not wanting to pre-empt anything SPOT might have to add but...
How the hell is that incidental?
You're recording a peformance of which the music is a core part of the performance. The copyright isn't owned by the performers so they cannot assign it to you. How it gets onto your tape is irrelevant.

If you were shooting an interview in a shopping centre and there just happened to be some music in the background MAYBE that could be construed as incidental, even then I'd be real careful. I'd be moving the interview at least so that at least the music was pretty well indistiguishable and not just for copyright reasons.

You MAY get away with this if the recording is just that, a record for the venues archives of the performance. If you or they plan to sell that recording then I can see an incident of the legal kind looming.

I've done a few recordings of live performances. This can have another dimension as well. In this case the entire crew are entitled to additional pay if the performance is being recorded and those recordings broadcast or sold. Deal we have to operate under is no media leaves the venue so we have to take quite a bit of kit to do this.

The legal term, as used in the cases I've cited and/or studied, is ancillary music, and ancillary music as part of a choreographed or sync edit is a violation. I've answered that less specifically in the FAQ. (read the Girl Scout hypothetical)
In your event, you have several copyrights to consider.
1. The choreography and whom it's copyrighted to (no formal copyright submission is required, the moment it's developed and taught, it's a tangible)
2. The music. If it was a work for hire for the dance studio, then it's theirs to license, but if it's "Saturday Night Fever" then their ASCAP/BMI/Sesac royalty covers their dancing to it, but it does not cover you reproducing it.
3. Sync licenses are also not covered for them or you in the video stage. It certainly doesn't fall into the category of incidental or ancillary music because it's what the dancers are dancing to.
http://edie.cprost.sfu.ca/~jacsen7/janedancerecord.html for more information on choreography copyrights.

thanx for a useful faq. i wondered about a lot of this stuff. this is a better thread because its not a bunch of yell.

Nice work, Spot.

With 30+ years in the live performance biz, whenever I tell someone that what they're suggesting is probably illegal, I usually get the "Yeah, but what if . . . " comeback. And most people think that "Fair Use Doctrine" is their way around almost anything they don't wish to deal with. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Imposing some contrived interpretation of Fair Use without asking permission first is the surest way I know of to part with $10K.

The only all-encompasing caveat I know of is:
"Just ask. The very worst thing that can happen is they might say "no."

Having read some of the comments and read the article, and longer able to bite my tongue. my pennies worth.

The Copyright law should be removed and made the same as the Patent law, as , how can an invention somehow have less value then an audio or visual item both are sort of inventions or unique. Why is that everyone and their dog wants to extract money from this money making making scheme, i do not object to paying the person(s) who perform and write the stuff for a modest fee, but sync rights come on who thought this one up, no doubt someone looking at being paid for not actually doing any work.

With reference to the car as an example in the article, though easy to comprehend not the whole story, when did the a car company stop you from adding bits to the car, changing the tires, customizing it, selling it on modifying, basically any thing you wish to it, driving on private roads, having passengers in it, racing, even driving in sync, or charge a different price for the car because you will make money out of it.
What other business gets so much free advertising on radio and TV, who else can publicize their music/film and get paid royalties for it & even get special sections on the news for them.

It is a ridiculous affair, that when a record is played on the radio it gets royalties, the café/shop playing the music on the radio has to pay for the privilege for using it (even though the private people who could be listening to it at home for no additional cost, are out and in the café) and if I wander around with my audio recording device will have to pay a fee as well, and if someones actually likes whats playing may actually go out and purchase it, now thats what you call a pyramid selling scheme, or having your cake and eating it.

were are my rights in all this toward the copyright holder if I have to suffer some c*ap music in a mall, then I should be compensated, if its on the TV in a public area and I do not wish to be bombarded by it, they should compensate me. If my neigbour plays really loud music, causing me no end of grief, i do not see the copyright holders coming round to stop it, I do not see them putting money into the local councils to fight it, all they are interested in is lining their pocket first from people who may not have paid their copyright fee. not what harm or damage their music may being dong to the public who may not actually be interested in their music.

The system is one sided and it's time the public were brought into the equation and things evened up a bit.

penny over.

" . . . and things evened up a bit. " . . . . er yes . . Zcheema . . like how? Isn't this at the bottom of all that has been said?

How do you suggest that this could be resolved?

G

Thanks, yes, that makes sense. Ancillary is more appropriate than incidental, but like I said, that was told to me by someone who's been in the business for many years. Just goes to show what a clouded mess it already is.

A while back I actually investigated how much it would cost to license the mechanical rights to a piece of music that would be duplicated for about 100 copies--a typical number for the sales of a dance recital VHS/DVD. After answering all the questions through Harry Fox, the final answer that I was given was that the music could NOT be licensed because the number of copies desired was too low. In other cases of different music, it simply couldn't be licensed at all (reason not specified) no matter how many copies I wanted.

So, that leads to the inevitable conclusion that all video tapings of dance recitals, dance competitions, and dance conventions are illegal. Based on the existing copyright law and the lack of means to legally license the rights to use the music, it is therefore virtually impossible to legally produce a video of this kind.

*Sigh*. Just another case for revamping the copyright laws.

-Brent