In the circumstances you've desribed, Bob, my approach is to take a common sense approach rather than a legal one, and make the owners a "back-up" copy.

If I ever got taken to court over it, which is extremely unlikely, I'd at least have the satisfaction of putting on record how hard the system makes it for little folk to protect something they already own against future decay

As you say, with proprietary copyright stuff like movies it's different, but it would sure be nice if there was something in black and white allowing for non-commercial copying like this.

Here's an interesting site:
http://creativecommons.org/

Peter,
I agree and I'm certain common sense would prevail. But I think it's an issue that does need to be formally addressed. I don't even like the term non-commercail, it's a bit too subject to abuse. I could well argue that making ten copies of a CD to give away as Xmas presents was 'non-commercial' and I don't for one minute think anything that deprives an artist of what they're entitled to is morally justified and doing that certainly falls into that category.

I don't even go along with the idea that just because you bought the CD you should be able to copy it to a cassette to play in your car. If that's the right the publisher claims then they're the rules, if you don't like them don't play the game. If enough people don't play the game maybe the rules will get changed. Breaking the rules and then wingeing if you're caught is not the way to go.
SPOT sort of raises an issue that I hadn't even considered, material with DCRM will become an even thornier issue at some time in the future, even having the means to copy such material is probably illegal in most countries. However being digital hopefully it will not fade away so easily although the means to play it maybe an issue.
I guess where I'm really coming from is that the last few decades are the first time in our history where so much of our experience has been recorded, of course most of that isn't copyrighted material but quite a lot of it is. Preserving much of it will probably rely on individuals for whom it does hold some value. Even material that holds high commercial value and in the protection of enterprises who stood to gain from it's preservation has been lost. Worse still they may consider it not worth the cost of preserving yet 50 years from now its value maybe viewed somewhat differently.

Jay Rose on DV.com wrote a great article on this calle "Copy Rites". If you don't have a password, just sign up to read it:

http://www.dv.com/columns/audio_solutions.jhtml

John

It's quite a good article but it may leave a misconception that I had to pull a client up on recently. He says that the music of long dead composers is no longer copyright which is true, I can transcribe it into Acid without fear and use that to my hearts content (if only I knew how!) but what this client didn't understand was that a recorded performance of music by say Bach is copyright. By copying it he hadn't beached Bach's copyright but he had breached the copyright of the performers and the publishers and probably a whole host of other parties to boot.

This is now getting way of topic but it does show how silly the issue can get. I had a run in a few years ago with an organisation called APRA. basically they extract a blanket fee for public performance. If you have a piano in a bar you have to pay them a fee because someone could play music on it. But what they were after us for was our PABXs music on hold. Now that 'music' was about 4 bars stored on EPROM that looped. The manufacturer issues a licence denying all claim to copyright on the work, they did it specifically so you wouldn't have to pay an ongoing fee like you should if you used a radio tuner or a CD player. But these guys still wouldn't accept it, I eventually got pretty hostile with them, seem to recall using phrases like 'demanding money with menaces' before they gave up.
I used to deal with this same organisation years before where they were entitled to their fees but even then it didn't sit well with me. Just how much of their 'fee' ended up in the hands of the writers was never disclosed nor how they determined who got what.

I don't think you really have anything to worry about. I work for a medium sized Video and DVD duplication house and we run in to this all the time. A client brings in a copy of an old movie that the tape is deteriorating and he wants to transfer it to a new tape before it's too late. Someone brings in a PAL or SECAM tape and they want us to make a copy so they can play it in a NTSC player or vice versa. Someone wants to put music under their old 8mm films that is copyrighted.

What we do is have them sign a form saying that what we are doing is making a backup copy of the material, and that we are abslolved from any legal action that may come as a result. It also states that the client knows the copyright law and is aware of the possible infringement from duplicationg this tape. In most cases we will only make 1 copy, that way it seems like it is just a backup and we are not making 50 copies for them to sell.

Would our form and method hold up in court, who knows. In 30 years of buisness we have yet to get anyone breathing down our neck for copyright infringement. We do close to 2 million dollars in sales a year, so I'm sure for a really small company nobody would know. Just make sure you have some kind of form for them to sign stating that they understand the law, that they are purchasing a Backup Copy, and to be safe I wouldn't run more than 1 or 2 copies of any copyrighted material for anyone.

I'm a lawyer but not a copyright lawyer. My bit of understanding of the issue is that in any copyrighted, commercially distributed music, there are two "copyrights"--what most people call the copyright (which by the distribution stage is a royalty due to the music publisher) and the mechanical fee (owed to the recording house that creates and distributes the physical media). How you plan to use the music may involve a third fee, i.e. if it's going to be in a film soundtrack. The same principle is involved, with slightly different terminology, in rights to visual media.

So if you want to put Beethoven's ninth into a film track (as I hope to in mine), you don't have to pay Beethoven a publisher's fee, since he died before the U.S. copyright laws existed and is considered a work in the public domain. In my case, for the sake of timing my film edits (in Vegas of course) I'm using an old CD of the ninth symphony, but it's distributed by--surprise--Sony Entertainment, an old recording of the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. So although I don't have to pay conductor George Szell or the individual orchestra musicians, I would have to pay Sony to use that recording in the finished film, and this type of thing is very much policed in public forums (e.g. film festivals) by ASCAP and BMI who are the police dogs of the music industry. (Not to be paranoid but farss might possibly get a call from a curious industry rep after posting to this forum.)

Solution: I'm looking for a university orchestra's archived recording of its own classical performances, as many colleges do, never commercially distributed. Then I only have to negotiate with the university's representative. But again (disclaimer) this is not official expert advice. Got to be very careful on any income-producing activity when it comes to copyrights. A filmmaker can lose his monetary rights to an Oscar-winning film if a distributor gets sued by an obscure copyright holder. Best place to ask questions like this is in a copyright lawyer's office.

Or... just wait 70 years until it becomes public domain...

unless, of course, Congress extends the copyright, like they just did for Mickey Mouse..... ;-)

Your copyright 'protection' method has been tossed out of court many, many times.
Here is the test:
Remove the concept of 'intellectual' from the discussion.
You have a license to view, hear, or experience the information. If the mechanical device that is used to deliver the medium is lost, damaged, or subject to the ravages of time, accident, or act of God, you still do not have the right to copy. Period.
If you have a VHS of "The Sound of Music" and it's your favorite movie, you do not have the right to a 'backup' copy. The media wore out.
If your tires wear out, if your oranges go bad, if your shirt gets stinky, you are not entitled to a new tire, orange, or shirt simply because the affect of time took place.
That is, and most likely will be for a long time, the position of the courts. The test of removing the concept of 'intellectual' is the only way that these issues may be judged fairly. Should you be entitled to a copy of the movie for the rest of your life? I don't know. I would wish it so, as I once had nearly 900 VHS tapes, many of which are now store-bought DVD's in my over 2K DVD's collection. In other words, I bought the same movie twice. But I've also gone through a lot of tires, pencils, shirts, and other consumable items. Who ever said cassettes, LP's, CD's whatever last forever?

Wow...this is another slant on the whole copyright issues. Seems every few months someone comes up with the question of music use and this sort of squeezes into that as well. There are many many many "thin" lines anymore. I am not sure how the whole archiving element fits into this so it is a really great topic. For example - we probably all have had school photos done and probably don't think too much anymore about scanning them 1> Archiving all of ours, our parents, our grandparents, etc 2> emailing our kids school photos off to friends and relatives. However seems like now this breaks that law(s). My daughter just had her first school photos done and stamped on the back of each one is a legal notice - that the photo is copyrighted and can not be copied in any way. Inside the package was a notice saying the same thing except adding on that one should use the enclosed order form if one wanted re-prints. Somewhere in all of this there was also a notice about only keeping "negatives" on file for the school year so any reprint orders has to be done in that time frame. I tend to look at this as questionable only because 1> We pay them thusly it is 'work for hire' in a way 2> In 5, 10 or 50 years they will no longer have the 'negative' so the only way to get new copies to to use whatever technology is available to make copies. In theory if someone comes in and makes a video yearbook when my daughter is a senior, taking all of these class photos over the years and scanning them adding music and showing at the prom or whatever, will be in violation of the law.

Now add on to that going to Sears or Wal-Mart ...wherever - they all have the same little "copyright" notice. You are not allowed to copy "their" photos. In a way technology has proceeded beyond the business of photography and making prints. So the 'easy' way to protect their business model is to just imply a lawsuit if you want to burn your kids baby photo, or senior photo, onto a disk for future. (yeah ok some will do this for you but what happens down the road if CD's become obsolete and everything is put on DVD?) (for the hell of it toss in these 'we restore family photographs' places as well, how to they get around 'copyright' issues?)

By the letter of the law if you copy something, in any way, that is copy written you could be in big trouble. However time and time again people admit to doing it and never having any problems. Back to all the grey areas again as have been pointed out here and discussed time and time again in other threads. We all tend to state the obvious - business's who offer transfer services or standards conversions or even those in the wedding video business but I would be curious to hear about any libraries who have been sued because they have backed-up and/or copied materials. And what about any local town/city historians - I would be interested on how many of them have ever been sued.

Someone mentioned community access and how that worked in all of this. it is actually not any different on the 'copyright' sense but it is different in the money making sense. The concept of PEG (Public, Educational, Government) television centers are that they are not for profit in the real sense, not the PBS sense. Anyone can go out and make anything and put it on public access you aren't supposed to 'advertise' things like "Copies of this program can be ordered..." or "The music you heard is available at...." Center to center, and even state to state, rules vary. Many centers just re-use the tapes, they do not keep everything ever aired or done in studio. So, much like the school photos, you have something that is "Copyrighted" thus can't be recorded and copied but chances are will not last more than a few years. What do you do if someone comes to you and says "I want a VHS tape made into a DVD" and it turns out this tape is, say, a Public Access show? Do you ask them if they are in it? if they worked on it? if they work for the PEG center? How do you handle it? By letter of the law if is says "Copyright Time Warner Cable" you can't even back it up unless it is an authorized rep from Time Warner Cable.

I see real issues coming into play with clear violations of copyright law for profit. I can see if someone takes their school photo to Highland Photo and has 500 headshots made up that would be questionable. However if dad scans the photo and emails it out to relatives I don't think he should be locked up and branded a thief or a criminal. Same goes for a Public Access show. Yeah if someone makes 500 copies of , say, After Hours (the much bootlegged public Access show from Buffalo, Ny that Ozzy was on), it would be questionable but if Rudy Sarzo walks in and asks to get a copy put on DVD I wouldn't question it too much.

All of this however still leaves open many other factors. Audio for example....and that goes to the many discussions we have all had about music copyright and use. On the photo side of things you have to look at what its use is. Going to have a 'snap shot' taken and then using it for a films publicity campaign is questionable if it was never discussed that it was going to be used for promotion. To directly tie in to what farss said - I have some old 8mm films that I would love to put onto video and even onto DVD or VCD. Many of them are home movies but some are 'store bought'. For example I know somewhere I have a super 8mm film from Willamsburg, Va. To me it is just a vacation memory, not something I have some major plans for in order to rob the Williamsburg historcial society, or whoever, out of funds by mass duplicating it. Having said that I also have some old 16mm news footage. Is someone going to come and arrest me if I have the "Japs Attack Pearl Harbor" newsreel put onto Mini-DV?

Sorry, I'm just blabbing on here. I think the law exists for a good reason but I think anymore everyone is either money hungry or sue happy and if you don't cover yourself in every way you can't do anything later if need be.

© 2003 Filmy

:)

Funny you'd bring that up. Rudy wanted to use some footage of himself with Ozzy for a project we just completed. He was not allowed to, even though part of the show done by MTV contained footage Rudy himself shot, and footage that Rudy's wife Rebecca had shot.
So, you might not think twice about it, but the law and copyright owners surely did.
BTW, the 20 Years of Quiet Riot DVD just released 2 weeks ago. Some killer footage in there of the band in the early years, plus some footage of Randy Rhoads from the week before he left QR to join Ozzy. Rudy left a short time later.
Rudy also wanted to use some photos from a photographer's library, a photog that was hired to document the Blizzard tour. Rudy is just wrapping up a book on his life with Randy and Ozzy called "Off the Rails." He was not permitted to use the photos because the photographer sold the copyrights. So, Ozzy and Sharon have come thru to give Rudy pix for the book.
So....the public perceives the grey areas, while the law mostly sees this in black and white.

Since this popped up again, I guess I'll mention that I'm doing an article on copyrights for NARAS to be published in a magazine.
I'm curious as to what you all have sincere questions about, proposed punishments for those involved in copyright theft for personal or commercial gain, and any reasonable ideas for corporations to maintain and contain copyright while being able to financially provide access to parties interested in using copyrighted works of any nature. Please don't provide silly comments like I often see ie; the record companies should have a flat fee for copyright use, because various songs have various values at various times of the life of the work. "Drops of Jupiter" was a hot song a year ago, and ill affordable. Now it's way out of the chart, and not worth nearly as much. A year ago, Evanescence was worthless, but now their albums are multiplatinum. So let's not go there.
Please mail your comments to me privately? dse(at)sundancemediagroup.com. Any monster ideas will be quoted and attributed in the article.

Damn it Spot you always seem tp be posting within seconds of me....that must be some sort of conspiracy! ;)

I agree with what Spot says but I would mention something - Video Stores. there was this whole debate when the video rental business became..well, a huge business. All the copyrights are still in place however a video store is allowed to do certian things that consumers may not be allowed to do. When a new release comes out stores pay anywhere from $30 - $120 per title. (and Blockbuster pays between 7 - 15 per title but that is a whole other topic) but when it comes out for all of the rest we end up paying what...10 - 20? So you know there is a price built in to allow video stroes to do what they do. Technically they are not allowed to copy a tape if it wears out but they are allowed to sell it - thusly you have the "previously viewed" sections. They are also allowed to do little cheeky things like replace and/or repair tapes and the cases as well. In other words a tape breaks or a case breaks they can just fix it and put it back out on the shelf. If a tape becomes very damaged they could be able to get a replacement but they are either supposed to toss it or just buy a new copy....but lots of places just copy another good tape onto a new tape. Against the law? Yes. And probably with the massive decrease in mom & pop stores due to Hollywood Video and Blockbuster taking over it doesn't happen too much anymore. But this is a case of 'grey' because the complaint was how could these mom & pops compete with Blockbuster on a new release when Blockbuster had 50 or more copies and were getting $15 a tape deals when they could only afford 1 or 2 because they had pay 100 bucks a pop for the tapes. How did they compete? Rentrak was one way. Making a few extra copies was another. Selling out to Blockbuster or Hollywood was yet another. Closing up was another.

As with most of the issues being brought up thus far in this thread the end result of being sued for copyright abuse doesn't always justify the cause, or 'law breaking'. Goes to my other post - the shcool photo. Are Mom and Dad as much of a criminal for scanning their kids photo to send to a family member as the bootleggers who package up hand held camcorder shot movies and sell them? I do not think so, but on the other hand we have the whole 'MP3 grandma and gramdpas who have been sued' news. I think it is disgusting personally that the industry, as a whole, is so sue happy and money hungry that we have to be careful in even doing the most seeming simple and inocent things. IE - school photos, letting your grand kids go online, having a wedding video made, using a CD burner, wearing a shirt that says "peace now" in a public place, etc.

©2003 Filmy
;)

Do you know if he talks at all about Skip in the book? For that matter - is Skip mentioned in the DVD? Seems to me he just gets forgotten about in the whole Quiet Riot, Ozzy history. But he was always extremely humble anyway but I would just like to see him get credit.

Feel free to use anything in any of my posts on the subject if you want to. I was just thinking about a good punishment - lol. Make the person go out on the road with an artist who they absolutly hate for 18 months straight. Their pay, if any, goes straight to the artist they ripped off. LOL! Sorry...just that could be a better punishment that a simple fine. If they hate loud music send 'em out with Slayer. if they love loud fast music send 'em out with Jimmy Buffet. You get the idea. LOL!! Sorry.

I think the big problem with copyright law as currently written is that, while conceptually the right thing to do, is unworkable in that, correctly enforced, it would make the entire population criminals. It's like the "stop sign" law--whenever you come to a stop sign you are legally required, in no uncertain terms, to come to a full and complete stop. The police could, if they wanted to, cite virtually every citizen on breaking that law. The law has good intentions, but is simply unenforceable because it is too extreme.

Spot,

While your analogy is good, it is not perfect. Of course, no one has the right to demand a new pencil from the manufacturer when the one they purchased wears out. However, they can make their own.

In fact, correct me if I am wrong, but an individual can actually use the patented schematics/blueprints to make their own pencil. I believe someone built their own Segway in this way. However, they didn't violate the law because it was for their own use.

People making backup copies of videos/DVDs for their own use are not demanding the manufacturer give them another copy, thus, your analogy isn't perfect. On the other hand, they are not creating the original from the raw materials (that is, re-shooting, re-editing, re-burning...), which is why there is the grey zone.

How would everyone treat this situation.

I have filmed a wedding, and before hand I didn't ask as to what music was being used or played. When the wedding got going there were about 4 different songs used. 3 of which were popular songs which the live talent was able to play and sing live. The 4th song was straight from a CD as the bride and groom exited.

I've written to ask for permission from all four songs. One of the written letters (to Sony in fact) came back to me because it wasn't assigned to a person. Another letter was written back to me defering me to another owner of the copyrights. I haven't heard a thing from the last two songs. I wrote these letters about 2 months ago.

What should I do in this kind of situation. Do I tell the couple that I can't complete their wedding video because the copyrights are not being given? In fact, was it illigal for them to play the song to an audience in the first place? Or should I have just shut the cameras off when the first song started playing.

JBJones

To quote one of the band members, "Who the @#$ is Skip?" I asked Frankie, Rudy, and one other band member, and Rudy's best response was "As far as I know, Skip was the name of Randy's dog, but that's the only Skip involved in the QR story."
I know the QR/Ozzy story pretty well, and I'm not familiar with a Skip either.
Anf if you mean Skip the dog, no, he's not mentioned in the DVD. Then again, neither is Delores. It's not really about the personal lives of the guys at the time, it's about the evolution of the band and the projects that spawned from the band.
The DVD pak also includes a live CD with some unreleased material. As far as what's in the book, it's not for me to comment on, it's releasing from Cherry Lane in early spring.

1. It may not have been illegal for them to play the songs. If the DJ or hall that the wedding was held in pays ASCAP or BMI royalties, it's not illegal.
2. Syncing music to a video is a different license, different copyright statute.

You cannot legally make copies of this music even though it's ancillary, because it's a main featured part of the moment. If you were in a situation where you were filming in a mall for instance, and the muzak was in the background of an interview or story, that music is not considered sync, and is covered as ancillary music. However, in a wedding video where the music is fairly prominent and adds to the emotional and physical elements of the video piece, then it's a different situation and calls for a sync license.
I'd be VERY careful using it with the current climate. it's always been illegal, but 3 years ago, no one would have paid it any mind.
Can you find a karaoke track or other royalty=free 'near reproduction' of the original audio track to substitute?

SPOT,
here's a simple suggestion, one that I've made before. I can buy from uStuff the right to use 10 copies of MSOffice. They don't even have to send me anything, just a document giving me the rights. Same thing could very easily be done with music. My client wants 10 copies of their wedding video with a track from ABCs album. I contact record company and for the retail price of 10 copies of the album they send me 10 shiny holographic stickers. I put one on each copy. Artist and everyone still gets their dues, same copyright laws apply to the wedding video as they would if they'd bought the CD.
My wedding video gives due credit to the artist and their copyright.
Seems to me this is pretty simple to do and would improve the bottom line for all concerned. It's so cheap and easy the wedding videographer would have no excuse for breaking the law.

While the tyre analogy is a good one where it falls down is once I've bought the tyre I can do what I please with it. The only thing the law (correctly) prevents me from doing is copying its exact design. When I buy a CD I've bought the right to listen to the content but only from that physical copy. I guess I can see why many people feel they're trying to have it both ways.

I'm glad to hear SPOT is writing a book on this very topic, don't know how applicable it'll be in this country but certainly something is clearly needed. I've run into many videographers who are simply ignorant of the law, I even had one ask me how to put Macrovision onto video he'd produced that was in itself in breach of copyright!

Perhaps the fundamental problem with copyrights is that intellectual property and the arts are way out of line with any other industry. Blue-collar workers don’t get paid twice to dig the same hole once, yet the hole may be used for multiple things. Yet you want me to pay twice for the same movie or record just to transfer it to another medium. It doesn’t make sense. I paid for the vinyl record once. The artist/publisher was paid for their copyright; the musicians were paid their mechanical royalties, advertising fees, etc. I paid for the blank CD that I recorded the vinyl record onto. I paid for the computer to make the transfer. I don’t see where I owe anyone any money for that. Everyone has already been paid for the work they’ve done. No one should get paid again because I transferred it to a more stable medium. I know I don’t have the right to do it, but it’s not fair.

It would be like a painter telling me that I if I want to transfer their painting to a new picture frame; they want me to pay them for the painting all over again! No, I’m sorry, I own the painting, the artist as been paid, and I’m only transferring it to a new frame. Well, I own the vinyl record, the artists have been paid, and I’m only transferring the contents to a new medium. Common sense seems not to apply to copyright laws.

Now I realize it is illegal to transfer a vinyl record to CD or CD to MP3, etc, but the illegality of it defies logic. I can make a legal backup copy of software that I own, but I can’t make a backup copy of music or movies that I own. That’s what’s wrong with the copyright laws. They are out of line with other laws and the public can’t see the difference. Copyright laws somehow raise the status of artists to some godlike level where they should get paid multiple times by the same person for their work, when no one else in society is getting paid multiple times by the same person for the same work. What would happen if the rest of the world worked this way? I build you a new deck on your house and you pay me a royalty for each year you enjoy it. Oh you didn’t want to paint that deck after 5 years did you. Well you now owe me money because I consider that a derivative work of my original deck. We would soon all be broke because we couldn’t afford the royalties on everything we own!

Now before you jump all over me, I happen to be a musician, songwriter, and a patent holder so I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be copyrights and patents. I’m just saying that they are unfairly skewed toward overly rewarding the work of some, while others are not rewarded for their work in the same way. So while I want to be paid when someone uses my patented idea, or to be paid for a performance that I did on a recording; once you’ve paid me, I don’t care how many copies you make for your own personal use, you have already paid me to enjoy my performance and if you want to enjoy me at home on your CD player and in the car on your cassette player, you should not have to pay me twice because it’s the same performance I’ve already been paid for by you. The copyright laws should be changed to allow for this.

Am I the only one this makes sense to? Stop, I already know the answer. If you don’t think loan-sharks are fair, don’t borrow money from them. If you don’t think copyrights are fair, don’t by music CD’s or DVD’s. I’m just having a hard time discerning the difference between copyrights and organized crime. Neither seems to be fair to the consumer. (tongue planted firmly in cheek) ;-)

~jr