My firm wants to add music to the end of training videos. I searched around, found ASCAP, gave them a call. They directed me to www.clearance.com. Interesting information about copyright, permission, etc.

They will locate the copyright owner for a small fee, $50 for the first contact, then cheaper after that. They also give good advice on what to write in a letter asking permission.

Sent them an email, but have not heard back. I hope their full service, not simply providing contact, is not overly expensive, we'll see.

Anyone have any experience dealing with EMG at www.clearance.com?

From clearance.com:

"Today, music clearance is a detailed process that demands accurate copyright research, expert negotiation and meticulous contract administration."

There will be more fees above and beyond the $50. Then there will be the actual cost of obtaining the license--five figures or more, depending upon your usage.

If you, or anyone here, was following it the discussion/debate was humorus in parts. The end result though was all suggestions were voted down so the bill is still standing, without modifications. Still has a few more steps before it gets to the oval office to be signed but much of the debate was, and has been, about internet censorship. The fact that there is imprtant wording in all of this that deals with I.P as it would relate to the discussion here has been all but ignored in the wider coverage and debate.

But there was one little twist that does relate directly to this thread. Keeping in mind something I said up above somewhere (that the artists can agree to something but if the label or publisher did not agree it can cause issues) Last week Megaupload put out a commercial via You Tube against SOPA and they had artists appearing in it voicing their support of Megaupload and against this bill. One guess what happened. UMG claimed a copyvio and You Tube removed it. So Megaupload sued UMG on Monday. Along the line UMG also issued a takedown to a news show that was doing a report on the bill and included snippets of the video. You can read all about here: In SOPA's shadow, Megaupload strikes back against Universal

A sampling of media coverage today on the bill:

CBS News
IDG News Service
Tucson Citizen
Business Week
PC Magazine

On The Australian side of things I found this article about their version (AFACT) interesting:
Sony Caught Using Bit Torrent Service To Download Competitors Movies

UPDATE:

Bill was still not resovled. No changes accepted yet. Set to pick up discussions again next Wednesday, December 21.

Hollywood Reporter
AOL Texh
Frobes

I echo what Jay said but also suggest reading my post further down ("Corrections - "brief" overview (UPDATED) ") for more information.

The article from C/Net just proves my earlier point that the music industry (the suits, not the artists) is its own worst enemy, and a s-t-u-p-i-d one at that.

What a circus this is. The MegaUpload video features a testimonial by Kim Kardashian. The MegaUpload founder is "Kim Dotcom". That just reeks of credibility.

And then the US House of Representatives spends their "marathon debate" arguing whether "offensive" is an appropriate word in a Twitter Tweet.

Did I say, "What a circus"?

...Jerry

> "The article from C/Net just proves my earlier point that the music industry (the suits, not the artists) is its own worst enemy, and a s-t-u-p-i-d one at that."

Yea, the whole thing is quite ridiculous... but I have an easy solution... ;-)

Let's look at the facts:

(1) Everyone agrees that artists need to be paid for there work. No argument there.

(2) The artists would go hungry without their fans (should be no argument there)

(3) Their fans want a wedding videographer to use their favorite artist's song in their wedding video (seems like a reasonable request to me (...and to the fan))

(4) The current copyright laws make it extremely cost prohibitive for a wedding videographer to do this legally because sync rights cost too much (and despite what people say... a wedding videographer couldn't get them if they tried)

The problem is that there is no way to legally give the fans/client what they want, so the solution can only be something which gives them that right. The way I see it, either one of three things need to happen:

(A) The fans boycott the artists because they can't use their song in the wedding video. The artists looses out.

(B) The fan finds a wedding videographer willing to break the law and the artists gets NOTHING! (The artists still looses out.)

(C) The artists convince the publishers to allow wedding videographers to use a song requested by a fan for $0.99 a song (if I may borrow a very successful business model from Steve Job's iTunes Store which everyone said would never work). The artists and publishers have more income in their pocket!

Currently, option (B) is the only choice since fans won't do option (A) but option (C) could work if publishers agree.

I feel this could work because a wedding video is a private work for hire by an individual. Since the fan will only be watching their video and listening to the music, the $0.99 covers the listening to the music part just like it does with iTunes. The artists and publishers makes some money, and everyone is happy. The video could not be used commercially because that's another thing entirely. Corporations could not use this because they are not private individuals requesting the work for their personal viewing. It could work.

I realize this doesn't help commercial videos, but that's why sync rights exist in the first place. The topic of this thread was about the dilemma wedding videographers face, and having a rather simple iTunes model makes it affordable for everyone to "privately" and "legally" enjoy their favorite music on their wedding video, birthday video, Barmitzvah video, etc.

~jr

At one time on the ASCAP web site, there was a pilot of a simplified form to apply for use of music. Types of use included small runs of CDs and DVDs and web sites where the traffic was low -- much lower than a Youtube video might get.

It has been maybe a decade since I saw this. Don't know if it included what the Harry Fox agency does or not and the Fox "Songfile" license appears to be a reasonable legal method.

See http://www.harryfox.com/public/songfile.jsp

Jay,

When you say the cost will be five figures or more, are you basing that on your personal experience? Could it be that the cost would vary, possibly greatly, depending on the current popularity of the music?

EMG (www.clearance.com) suggests putting "Independent Film Request" or "Low Budget Film" at the top of the request, and including $25 to $100 when asking permission because it shows respect for the value of the copyright.

My purpose is not wedding videos, but if the EMG advice is based in reality, these dollar amounts would seem to work for wedding videos as well.


Barry Hull

"I feel this could work because a wedding video is a private work for hire by an individual. Since the fan will only be watching their video and listening to the music, the $0.99 covers the listening to the music part just like it does with iTunes. The artists and publishers makes some money, and everyone is happy. The video could not be used commercially because that's another thing entirely. Corporations could not use this because they are not private individuals requesting the work for their personal viewing. It could work."

Only modification to that i would make is that it should be $0.99 per copy of the video delivered. I see that as fair to the artists, while not being onerous to the videographer or the customers.

I'd also ask though, isn't making a wedding video for pay a commercial use?

Barry, yes, it based on personal experience (and that of others).

"Current popularity" has little to do with the cost. As it has been pointed out, the artist's opinion and/or agreement with the producer has nothing to do with it. It is the publishers that are in control. They are the ones who make the money (the artist will make pennies on the dollar).

EMG is doing the leg work, that's what you're paying EMG for and nothing more. You still have to buy the sync license to use the piece or pieces you want, and you are not going to get it for $100 on any song that was popular at any time. Are there exceptions? There always are, aren't there? But in such cases they few and very, very, very far between.

Try this. Pick a song you want to use. Contact Mr. Greenspan, tell him what the use will be, and ask him what you might expect to pay for a sync license for that piece of recorded music.

This is exactly why the popular TV show from the 80s, "WKRP", has never made it onto DVD. With the first season, they had to replace the music clips with library trash (occasionally, the plot was tied into a particular song). The audience said "No thank you." The publishers demanded such ridiculous sums for sync licenses for the music (that probably never went longer than five seconds per song) that it was cost prohibitive and the producers, MTM and 20th Century Fox, simply could not could not afford and/or justify such an expense.

The fee structure in Australia (I linked to to it in an earlier thread) for wedding videographers is covered in the following PDFs.
It's definitely more than $0.99 per copy but, IMO, still very reasonable.

2011-2012 AMCOS - ARIA Domestic Use Video Licence Application – Annual

2011-2012 AMCOS - ARIA Domestic Use Video Licence Application – Single Event

Mike

"It's definitely more than $0.99 per copy but, IMO, still very reasonable"

It's not much more than that though and as you say a very sensible system.
Keep in mind that you can have more than one copyright work in the video for the same fee. The client has to own a legit copy of the work as well and I think on CD, so the owners do get something out of it as well.
The actual fee paid to APRA in general goes to support local artists.

Australia is not the only country with such a system, in fact I might not be too far off the mark in saying the USA is one of the few countries that does't have such a system.

Bob.

So what happens if an Aussie wedding videographer pays the fee for the music and produces the client's wedding video; the client is so proud of the wonderful work that was done on their video that they think the whole world should see it?

They rip the DVD and they put their wedding video on YouTube or Vimeo. That's a different usage, which the wedding license agreement does not cover. What happens then?

Same as anyone posting to YouTube. The licence doesn't allow public performance rights. Nor is the Australian licensing system as clear as other posters have made out. ARIA, the collecting agency for recordings, does not issue licences to permit it's recordings to be synchronised - you need to go direct to the record company. Nor does APRA/AMCOS have the right to permit synchonisation of ARIA recordings . Whether the APRA/AMCOS licences are worth more than the paper they are written on hasn't been tested. People relying on or considering purchasing these licences might want to note that direct links to these licences recently have been removed from the APRA/AMCOS website.

Jay, not only will I contact Mr. Greenspan, but I will also contact the owner and see what happens and report back, may take a while. I really want to add some music, but can not afford five figures to add some pizzazz. There must be many wedding videos breaking the copyright law out there, such a convoluted area of law.

About twenty years ago, in another time, upon return from a Desert Storm cruise with the US Navy, I put together a video about a squadron mate killed over the skies of Iraq. I wanted to use a Pat Benatar song. I tracked down her agent, spoke to him on the phone, asked him if I could use her song and distribute the video among my fellow pilots. He checked in to it for me, got back and said, sure, go ahead, just don't distribute it too widely. They were glad to let me use it. But times change.

Barry, yours is one example of the problem. In 99.99% of most situations, neither the agent nor the artist has the final authority to say yea or nay in licensing. It's the publisher.

Had the publisher gotten wind of your video, and wanted to press the issue, you could have been slapped with a very expensive lawsuit. The agent is not in control of the property. In the vast majority of cases, the artist is not in control of the property (that idea boggles my mind). There was nothing in writing giving you permission. In your example, you (thank goodness) dodged the bullet.

In today's climate, unless the producer has purchased a sync license to use a piece of music in his video, and can prove it, he is legally liable.

Best of luck to you, honesty!

For any Canadians trying to navigate the copyright quagmire, CMRRA (Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd.) is the best place to start.

From their site:
CMRRA is a non-profit music licensing agency, which represents the vast majority of music copyright owners (usually called music publishers) doing business in Canada.
On their behalf, CMRRA issues licenses to users of the reproduction right in copyrighted music. These licenses authorize the reproduction of music in CD's and cassettes (usually called " mechanical licensing") and in films, television programs and other audio-visual productions ("synchronization licensing"). Licensees pay royalties pursuant to these licenses to CMRRA and, in turn, CMRRA distributes the proceeds to its publisher clients. The publisher in turn distributes the songwriter's portion of such revenues to the songwriter involved.

I dealt with them several years ago when I was trying to obtain rights to use a song in a video I was working on. The publisher enthusiastically gave their permission but the song's writer (one of the band members) said no so it was back to canned music :(

Mike

Here's another informative link for the "Small Business Videographer." This is from The Music Bridge.

All good stuff, and true, I've been dodging bullets for quite some time now. I will pursue until either success, or the brick wall. Sounds like the brick wall is more likely.

Here are a (very) few links over the years from like discussions. I miss Spot but am glad to still have Bob, Jay and Kelly here.

Church Video Music Rights - 7/23/2004
Use of Music in Wedding Videos - 7/23/2004
Amateur Production: Licensing of Music Needed? - 8/10/2004
Music Rights - 8/25/2004
What is a normal distribution deal? - 1/27/2005
Fair Use - 1/31/2005
Circling Sharks and Copyright - 10/24/2005
Reception music illegal to resale? - 1/2/2006
OT: BMI sues and wins... - 3/21/2006
Free comic - Bound By Law? - 6/20/2006
copyright question...is this infringement? - 3/2/2007
Random copyright question...? - 12/16/2011

How can this even come as a surprise for wedding photographers?

In all other fields of video production, we're pretty used to NOT using music without aquiring copyright for it.
Heck, it's even strange for anyone at all, to not know that producing commercial advertisement for your company and stealing music, hardly goes hand in hand.

Why deny the musicians their income, when you're trying to earn money out of your own craft?
What would you live of yourself, if everyone stopped paying for your images/videos?