"YouTube DOES permit you to sync music."
You seriously think that YouTube has some sort of agreement and/or license with the music industry that gives them the right to grant anyone and everyone the right to sync any music they want to?!?

Okay, this conversation has just veered into fantasy...

"So, you can definitely upload legally to YouTube..."
What has uploading to YouTube got to do with making something legal that is already illegal? If you sync your video with copyrighted music without first getting a license, then you have already violated the copyright. It doesn't matter if you are the only one looking it. Putting it on the internet just violates another aspect of copyright -- which is broadcast.

Here's a link to a Microsoft webpage that does a pretty decent job explaining copyright as it pertains to uploading to the internet and so forth.

Jim

I'm in jdw's corner on this: Why do people who make their living off intellectual material (film/video producers) get so pissy about respecting the rights of others who do, too?

Come on guys, you'd squeal like a stuck pig if someone ripped off your work.

Try to justify it all you want... it's still wrong.

Sheesh.

Here is the exact wording from YouTube:

YouTube's state-of-the-art technology allows content owners to identify user-uploaded videos and audio comprised of their content, and choose what they want to happen when those videos are found: Make money from them. Get stats on them. Or block them from YouTube altogether

You don't need a "sync licence" to sync music to vision for personal use.
I don't know even of such a thing as a "sync license".
Copyright of music, the composition itself permits anyone to perform the work anywhere, no fee involved.
Anyone may record the work and sell it, the copyright owner has no rights to prevent this subject to the payment of a fixed fee for the mechanical copyright. The fee is not set by the copyright owner, it is set by the relevant body who represents them. In Australia the fees are regulated by the government and collected by one body.

Oddly enough in Australia a derivative work e.g. a parody is not covered under mechanical copyright, in other parts of the world a parody is considered a new work and there's no mechanical copyright payable at all, go figure. As far as I can fathom from a discussion with APRA sometime ago even a public perfromance of a parody could technically get you into trouble.

Where the issue of syncronising music to video arises is copyright says by doing so you have created a derivative work outside the scope of the original composers intent and they have a right to control that. Therefore you have to negotiable a license with them. This applies to your own recording of a performance of the work. Outside of the use of the music as a temp track in a commercial environment the whole sync licence question is a bit irrelevant here. What is relevant is distribution rights which would automatically include the syncronisation of the work to vision.


What YouTube have done is to stirke a deal with the music industry as a whole. It seems to grant them the right to technically breach copyright in return for offering the opportunity for copyright owners to make a dollar or simply have the content removed or just plain ignore it. The problem for us peasants is we have no way of knowing what will happen and for how long it will be allowed to happen. So far I've had several notifications, most of them bogus and zero takedown notices. I'm very conscious of copyright and am oftently referred to as the Copyright Nazi by my peers and yes, I did pay my APRA fees when I was doing format shifting. If anyone asks me to sync music and upload it to YT that I feel is going to be a bit dodgy I get them to upload it to their channel. My posterior is covered.

Bob.

I think I see where our communication is breaking down. You are in Australia and I am in the USA. Yes, there ARE some differences in how copyright work in different regions of the world. Here in the US most music rights are managed through ASCAP / BMI. In Canada it's SOCAN. But, they are only involved in broadcast rights -- not "sync" rights. Sync rights are required when anyone (who is NOT the copyright owner) wants to add music to a production.

Here are a couple of references:

Wiki Sync info
Video - How Synchronization Rights Work

And you can do a quick search for "Synchronization Rights" on Google and find quite a bit of information on it.

Jim

Yea, I found it pretty funny when a lipdub we spontaneously en route to NAB started getting bandied about in various articles, here's one of em with the vid we made after the article.

Vimeo sued; have staffers uploaded infringing content?

Have no idea what happened behind the scenes though I did get to meet a few of the Vimeo higher ups at a function here in Austin during SXSW, I told them that I was really half expected to log on one day and find it gone, they said "We'll lets not talk about that" I said thanks as that was good enough for me. I've spoken my mind in the other thread that was mentioned but if you read it then or read it now my opinion hasn't wavered.

Filmy I think you latched onto the wrong part of that persons statement ""He said he can buy generic music for $50 for a three-minute track, but it cuts into his profits and his newlywed clients don't like it as much."

The takeaway there is not the $50 but that clients dont like it. I don't do weddings but cant imagine any frikkin newlywed couples wanting someone to take out the audio of their first dance and drop in some gawdaweful generic stock music. The suggestion alone makes my brain hurt. In the immortal words of Larry The Cable Guy It's like wiping before you poop, it don't make no sense."

Wedding videographers don't make an extra dime with what music is played. I have never heard of one charging their clients extra to use a certain song.

Embellishing on what Jerry had said earlier regarding Chris Brown take a look at the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho "Paulo Coelho is a strong advocate of spreading his books through peer-to-peer file sharing networks. A fan posted a Russian translation of one of his novels online. Sales of his book jumped from 3,000 to one million in three years, with no additional promotion or publicity from his publishers.[16][17] Coelho took to pirating his own books on The Pirate Bay. Coelho provides free translations of many of his books." "it has sold more than 65 million copies in more than 150 countries, becoming one of the best-selling books in history"

The music industry loves to cut off its nose to spite its face and this is just one more case of them getting it entirely wrong. In most cases these vids are seen by only a handful of family and friends but they should pray that a video with their artists song is included because impressions lead to sales.

As for my own work wherein I used something that was copyrighted it was never with anything but the best intentions and, as I've said elsewhere, its my hope that they may have either turned some people onto a band or song they never heard before or that it'll inspire them to go buy the song and support the artist, obviously I like em or I wouldn't have used their music =)

- Ray
Underground Planet

I have actually talked to the copyright office in Washington DC they said as long as you have the music and/or the client has provided you with the music your fine. The issue comes in when your pirating music for videos, or making a short film or feature and using someone else's music to promote your own work, that's when the problem comes in.

You seriously think that YouTube has some sort of agreement and/or license with the music industry that gives them the right to grant anyone and everyone the right to sync any music they want to?!?No, it if very much grounded in reality. Bob's quote, directly from YouTube, says precisely what I stated in my post.

Now, what I wrote and what you read may not be the same thing ...

FWIW, here is a link to relevant USA copyright law, direct from their site:

http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf

My reading of the law says that once I have purchased a copyrighted work, I can do pretty much with it as I please, as long as I don't let the result out of my house. In particular, the concept that the mere copying of a copyrighted work is in itself a violation of the law, is not correct. This concept is such a strong principle that in the July 2010 modification to the exemptions section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress change the law so that the mere act of breaking Decss (the DVD encryption) is itself no longer a crime (prior to this, it was), as long as the usage of the resulting video does not itself break existing copyright law.

So, as I said clearly in my original post, and as Bob certified with his quote from YouTube, there is a system in place whereby video with synced music can (and is) routinely exhibited on YouTube's site, with the copyright owner being compensated, with his or her approval, via royalties earned from the sale of their music on iTunes, Amazon, or other affiliated site.

As for sync rights being available to most people in the class of a wedding videographer, I would argue that the total number of wedding videographers in the USA who have successfully negotiated sync rights from a major composer are probably somewhere between zero and none. The reason? No one in Nashville or Hollywood is even going to take the call, and even if they do, the lawyer fees will take that $10,000 figure described earlier and multiply that by a large integer.

I sense that a few of you are wanting to get on your high horse about copyright violations, just as always happens when this subject comes up. However, I really don't think the issue here is just the simple misappropriation of synced music for your own personal gain, something that is a clear criminal violation of copyright law, and something that rightly ruffles the feathers of many here in this forum who have been burned by misappropriation of their intellectual property, creativity, and hard work.

If you want to argue that the practice of creating the video with synced music is itself illegal, then you have to explain away the exemptions listed in the copyright law I linked to above. Finally, you will also have to explain why YouTube would have a published policy that explicitly describes how you can commit an illegal act. Put another way, if creating and then uploading the videos to YouTube really were a gross violation of copyright law, why the heck would YouTube be so s-t-u-p-i-d as to publish a policy that describes how that video can stay on their site (as it almost always does), as long as the copyright holder doesn't object?

In the case of a wedding video unavoidably including music played for the dance floor, the question shouldn't be "Are we allowed to, or how much does it cost to do this", but rather "I wonder how grateful the Record Company will be to have their music included?"

I recently tried to buy the rights for an ACDC track for a launch. Price R100.000. bang over budget. hire an awesome band to do the song live R20.000

If I shoot a scene and the audio is in the background no problem but when you cut music to a clip longer than 20sec = problem.

Rory, AC/DC must have dropped their prices.... 13 years ago I tried to get 15 seconds from them = US$60,000 ... good grief

@ ChristoC you’ve been thunderstruck.

I find it disillusioning to be standing on a soapbox attempting to defend copyright to a group of professional video producers. Of all people you should be the ones wanting to protect your work from poaching. But, it appears that I am in the minority and you guys have certainly let it be known that many of you are of a different mindset than me. I'll try and not let the door hit my behind on the way out.

Jim advertising yourself positioned atop a well known brand of soap could get you into hot water as well.

AC/DC seems rather aloof. Recently i purchased the soundtrack to "MegaMind", but the AC/DC songs were missing. So, i went to iTunes to add those to my collection. Not only were they not available, there's nothing performed by AC/DC anywhere on iTunes or in several other download stores i tried. I found some other band covering the song but it wasn't anywhere near as good.

I'm guessing they're still paranoid about online delivery and are big enough to enforce their paranoia.

"I find it disillusioning to be standing on a soapbox attempting to defend copyright to a group of professional video producers. Of all people you should be the ones wanting to protect your work from poaching."

The it might really shock you to learn that they're are people here who have had their work stolen by a major broadcaster and obtained a considerable settlement.
Trying to lump the theft of IP for monetary gain in with what the wedding guys and the YT uploaders are doing is perpetrating the same disengenious lie that lumps the loss due to piracy by the Asian mobsters in with losses from sharing.

Perhaps as you're so concerned about us profession video producers you'll join in the fight to defend our rights against those who are trying to subvert the copyright and trademark laws to claim copyright over the image of public buildings and charge us substantial fees just to put a tripod on the ground near them.

Bob.

The reason why music is an issue here is that it's audio. Audio has always been (and still is) just an annoying piece of baggage among the video crowd.

That attitude changes only when you or your friends make their livings as songwriters, and the royalties are the difference between having electricity and Budweiser and being homeless.

I find it disillusioning to be standing on a soapbox attempting to defend copyright to a group of professional video producers. Of all people you should be the ones wanting to protect your work from poaching. But, it appears that I am in the minority and you guys have certainly let it be known that many of you are of a different mindset than me.I don't know why you are disillusioned, nor do I know why you think the need, in this thread, to be defending copyright law. No one, including me, is disagreeing with the need to protect the rights of the artists who produce commercial music. That isn't the issue in this thread, nor is it the issue in the article that was the subject of the OP in this thread. The issue is whether the legal usage on YouTube can and should be used as a method to uncover the illegal usage outside of YouTube (i.e., the selling of "synced music wedding videos" to clients).

Now, if you want to take issue with what YouTube is doing, where their policy allows and encourages people to upload synced music, then take that up with YouTube. Their policy is clear and unambiguous and was described in that sentence which Bob ("farss") quoted above. Bob's quote establishes quite clearly that YouTube has provided a structure which supports and promotes this practice, and which provides a mechanism for copyright holders to receive compensation for the use of their work, and a further mechanism to control such usage should they not want their work associated with video that degrades the value of their property.

So, your "soapbox" statements are fine; no one is disagreeing with them; and you shouldn't feel as though your opinions are being ignored or disrespected. The only issue here is that they are only tangentially relevant to this particular discussion.

Audio has always been (and still is) just an annoying piece of baggage among the video crowd.I don't think you'll get much agreement in this forum for that idea. The reason most of us were initially attracted to Vegas is that is was an audio editor first and then a video editing platform. I think you'll find that a large percentage of those on this forum think that audio is even more important than video for many of their projects.

"Audio has always been (and still is) just an annoying piece of baggage among the video crowd"..
Agreeing with johnmeyer on this. Audio is 50% of your production value. End of.
Anyone regarding audio as baggage has missed the fundamentals of entertaining your viewer. Its VERY important.

Ask a music record producer and they would probably say the Video is baggage! Unless its a good producer and realise they are BOTH as important as each other.

Copyright is an important issue, and sometimes causes arguements! Been like this for years. But we all need to protect what we produce. And it only fair to pay for someone elses work if its included in your own.
If a band releases a record, then makes a video for it, using some if your footage, then what? Are you happy if you dont get paid for that?. They make money out of it, but you dont? same thing.

Then comes the nut and bolts of music law and that varies from country to country. But it is there for a reason. To protect us all. And in general, this actually works.

Paul.

Wow, having read through this I can say there is a lot of ms-communication. And that is normal - believe me I know because I have these conversations all the time in trying to educate people on copyright, moral rights, sync licenses and PRM's.

I am in a hurry right now and out the door but:

First and foremost - copyright is not what is at issue here. What triggered this thread is not about how some wedding videographer took someone's music and claimed they wrote it/performed it. If it was than it would be a clear cut copyright violation.

Copyright = creation. (Or ownership) Not so much about usage in the vein this thread was started from.

So: I create something and that is copyrighted to me, unless otherwise noted somewhere. I have the right to control public performance of that - that is explicit in copyright law in the U.S. but on my own I most likely do not have the time to follow it all over - this is the next issue, and more important issue here.. Without going into great detail copyright is basic in it's concept around the world, but it varies greatly country to country in how is it enforced and what rights are assigned to it or even what is copyrightable. An example is the United States copyright gives the creator no moral rights. In other countries moral rights are part of copyright. So that would mean, for example, in the U.S. my copyrighted work could be performed in public but there is nothing via copyright that says the "performer" has to give me any credit for doing so. (or even any credit for creating whatever it is you are using)

So given that, in the US, enter publishers - or PRM's - at least in the scope of music. Now, again, this is *still* not the full problem here. A PRM does not normally handle a sync license (And commonly in the US this is what they are called in the industry) . A PRM is there to collect money from TV, Radio and others who publicly display ("Perform") content, this includes Internet play as well as sales of CD's, DVD's and PPV . ASSCRAP is well known for strong arming mom and pops under the guise they are really looking out for their artists when they refuse to pay lesser known artists using them. But this has zero to do with usage of the artists works in media - it has to do with use of the artists works on, say, You Tube or in the local dance studio and the artist not getting any money in return.

Sync = just what it implies. You use something in your work - most commonly a visual work.

So - to be overly simple:

1. Obtain permission to use it form the copyright holder. AND/OR
2. Make a deal for usage with a PRM. AND/OR
3. Obtain a sync license form the company/person who own the mechanicals.

In the case of music a copyright holder may not (And in the realm of major labels most likely does not) hold the right to the actual recording and more times than not does not handle their own publishing.

In the case of You Tube - there could be various objections to content. The copyright holder could say I do not want my song being used in that way. The PRM could say we do not have an agreement with You Tube to collect royalties. The label could say there was never any sync license obtained.

When I pointed out the quote from one of the articles about the "producer" not wanting to pay 50 bucks for music because it would eat into his/their profits it was based on a reality that they, and many like them, simply do not get or care to understand. If a client came to me and said they wanted to use a specific version of a song they would need to understand the money involved. If paying 50 bucks is eating into their profits than they are using a poor business model. What an educated producer would do, at the level of Wedding videos, would to explain the options at the front. Such as "What music are you wanting to use?" Is they insist on that Whitney Houston song and *only* her version of it than lay out how much money it will take to legally use it and than explain options - such as a new recording of the same song by someone else. If that producer does it, or knows it is a common song they could have already done it and have it on hand, than they would own the mechanicals thusly solving the core sync license issue. What would be left is the royalties - which, even in the U.S. are not that hard to set up.

Links:

Overall copyright in the U.S: United States Copyright

The section that is really the basis for why PRM's exist is in section 106 and reads, in part: -

(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;

(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and

(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.

To confuse the issue further keep in mind:
Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (PDF) (See also Fairness in Music Licensing Amendment - Summary)
Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (PDF)
Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004

PRM's:
BMI
ASCAP
SESAC

For Church use:
CCLI

Other:
Bug Music
Harry Fox (Discontinued sync licensing in 2002

Clearing Synchronization Rights For Music Uses on the Internet, a 2001 article from 'Entertainment Law & Finance'

===================
EDIT for spelling (Told you I was in a hurry) and some links.

Just stumbled on this and immediately thought of this thread:

Wake up, media moguls: Louis C.K. no-DRM video makes $200K

- Ray
Underground Planet

Excellent read, Ray. Thanks for sharing!

I presume this discussion about JB is based on the 2011 introduced admendemnt/modification of Section 2319 of Title 18 To amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes - AKA the"Commercial Felony Streaming Act"? It got a lot more legs recently due to the whole "FreeBieber.org" movement.