So, how does one get sync rights? I assume the answer is, "Contact the publisher." But, how does one get contact information for the publisher--or even find out who it is?

What I am looking for is step-by-step instructions for obtaining sync rights legally.

Buddy

"they're not set up to handle the zillion requests from the public and the cost to do so would be prohibitive because they would never make back the money from small peons like us ... that's the nature of the music business .... "

Dealing with annoying, small peons like us it seems it would behoove the record industry (and us) to set up a "peon" licensing system modeled after any of the online companies like royaltyfreemusic.com to sell small-potato licenses for hit music/songs (ie $25/song for say up to 5 copies, not to be televised, etc).
Randy

ARRGGHH! Search this forum. THAT particular question has been responded to ad nauseum. you can also read http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2004/02_feb/features/copyright_caveats.htm

Didn't mean to perturb you Spot...and maybe it's because I just woke up but I didn't see the idea addressed in your article. Also I've read many threads here regarding the issue but I've never seen anyone suggest a "small-potato" online license for us peons. If it has ...sorry man.
Randy

Only the publisher direct, or a clearance agency ie Harry Fox can issue sync licenses.

Ah, Spot thank you. That's the first piece of information in this thread that I can actually use to try to get something done.

I too, searched this forum and came up empty in looking for practical advice that a small-time producer like me can use to get legal sync rights for a small project. That's why I started this thread in the first place (see my dislaimer at the start of my original post).

I looked at the article you referenced in your last post:

http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2004/02_feb/features/copyright_caveats.htm

and it appears to be the same article posted at the VASST site that I referenced in the first line of my original post. This is an excellent treatise, but of course does not answer the question of what phone number do I call, or web site do I go to, or which organization I must contact to get a license. Obviously, I have now figured it out, and realize that there is no answer to my question. I've already stated my reaction and disappointment, so I won't repeat. However, I will contact the Harry Fox agency and see what I come up with. Thanks again for helping me understand this issue.

[Edit]

I just found the Harry Fox sync license web page:

Harry Fox Synchronization

On this page they state:

"The Harry Fox Agency, Inc discontinued synchronization licensing services in June 2002. However, you may secure synchronization rights by contacting the publisher directly. "

but I've never seen anyone suggest a "small-potato" online license for us peons
That particular question isn't addressed in the article, because it hasn't, and likely won't happen. In Clipman's above post, he said it best, because I'm probably too tired of saying it to say it nicely.
The recording industry DOESN'T want to hear from wedding videographers willing to pay $10, 20, 50, or even $100.00 for use of a song. There simply isn't enough cash there to pay for the admin of a hit song being licensed. By the time the publisher gets his percentage, the admin gets his (typical 15%) percentage, and the artist gets their share, plus the cost of admin on mechanicals and assuring they're paid, NO ONE wants the peanuts involved here. Think about it.
To admin a Celine Dion song for instance, for say.....50 copies of a wedding vid, on a say....$100.00 license.
Call the lawyer to call the publisher.
Publisher wants to know where the song is being used, then they approve. (or disprove)
Publisher has attorney issue contract.
Attorney sends contract to label or to licencee.
Label or licensee signs agreement, sends back.
Attorney takes his cut. (Figure 300.00 per hour for low cost IP attorney or general entertainment counsel)
Admin gets a minimum of 15%
Artist gets balance.

Now how much $$ is there really being distributed to whom? for the MAYBE $30.00 that the publisher receives, it's totally not worth my publisher's time.
Now, a "B" grade song is much easier. As my article shows, you can contact Harry Fox or the copyright holder directly. Much easier, and maybe/usually much cheaper. My music tends to be licensing out at 500.00 per needle drop right now. And I'm a "C" level artist these days.

As I've said so many times in the past, you might as well forget about using that Toby Keith/Faith Hill/Celine Dion/Hubastank/Metallica song legally, because you simply can't afford it.

In 1984, I contracted with Mike Parker and Rob Friedman, the founder and president of Bitstream respectively, to license the Helvitica typeface at 10 point and 12 point size, in both Roman (normal slant and weight), italic, and bold. The contract required lawyers, a trip to their Boston headquarters, and a payment of $30,000.

I can now purchase that same typeface, scalable to any size, along with dozens of other fonts, packaged on a CD for about $20. In addition, I will get not only the standard English characters, but all of the characters to typeset any Romance language.

Back then they did about $2 million a year. Now they do $10 million.

I totally agree that the lawyer/contract approach to business does not scale to handle thousands of $20 transactions. But there is a LOT more total money in those transactions if handle it correctly.

I just noticed the post by spot above, partially quoted below. That one is interisting because the artist was Ub Iwerks, who was partners with disney at one point (and owned 20% of disney studios). Shouldn't he be lumped in with the ownership along with disney by all rights as he was the artist (today he would be)?


"<I?>Should Mickey Mouse have become public domain? <

Should Mickey be protected in perpetuity?
In my opinion, yes. Mickey Mouse has come to embody more than just ....."

I tried to get the rights to use a song someone sung in a video i sold (say that 10 times fast!) I got the OK's but it ended up it took to long to get the permission so I had to cut it out of the video.

So, if you ask, worst they can say is no. I always recomend a typed letter that you mail via snail mail. And e-mail/fax is much easier to ignore.

John, HappyFriar,
I agree wholeheartedly. Don't mistake my comments as defending the practice, I don't. Like I've said many times, I can't even use my own music in some things I'd like to do. When we were working on Hidalgo, it would have been MUCH more appropriate and easier to license out my own music for the trailers than to compose new. but it was a time-sensitive situation. There have been many like that for me.
On the other hand, sometimes asking (this won't work for A-level media) is all you need to do. Just locate the copyright holder which is EASY to do these days.
The lawyer/marketing genious that figures out how to make a mechanism to simplify this process will be rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Microsoft used warez copy of Sound Forge for wav files in XP ...

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/11/13/0036243.shtml?tid=133&tid=201&tid=109&tid=1

OK, I produce Fight Training and event videos. It seems every other producer in my field uses whatever music they want. I refuse to do that. How can I get upset about someone making illegal copies of my DVDs if I have stolen someone else’s music in the first place? I know this makes since to everyone here but I have a hard time trying to convince potential clients of that. They have just bought a new DVD from the Next Ultimate Fighting Champion and it has this great Rev Horton Heat song and they want to use it too. What I would like to know is just what it would cost to use a top 40 song in a training video that may sell at most 200 copies. Not because I want to pay that but because I want to use to explain why it is a bad idea to even consider it.

How does one find out who the publisher is and how to contact them?

Buddy

If they get caught, they can be fined up to 25K per use (although that is HIGHLY unlikely of happening) so 25K x 250 uses. Ouch. Is it REALLY worth getting caught? :-) Remind your buddies that it's now a criminal offense as well as a civil one. I'm unaware of a criminal case involving a US citizen going to court as of yet though. There are many involving Finnish and Danish, and I think there was an Asian one too, but I can't find it in a search.

BTW, BJ_M, Wasn't Mickey Mouse done as a work for hire? :-) In other words, the artist would have been a WOF. The company wouldn't have been. That particular case has been pretty well cited, in fact the woman that did the "Logos" book is supposedly doing a story or book for Rolling Stone on Mickey and his keepers.

Ub was part owner of Disney at that time, so i dont think it was 'work for hire' in that sense. It was after that the tif happened and iwerks left to form his own company for awhile (he came back later and did all the special effects design work and also the technical aspects of live mixed with toon as on 'song of the south' (still masterpiece)) . Disney was pretty sensitive though about ownership because before M. Mouse, they had another very successful seres which , though they created it and drew it, they lost ownership of it in a bitter court case. Ub would draw/direct the M. Mouse series himself at first, 300+ Cells a day I believe, Walt would write the story and produce.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=205404

John - I lost your email. Contact me - I have an idea about copyrighted music that your may find interesting.

Steve Mann
steve @mmdv.com

A town passes an ordinance saying that everyone can go no faster than 10mph, at all times, on all streets. The situation is so absurd that no one obeys the law, and the police don't bother to enforce it, since they know that virtually everyone violates the law.

Unless someone can point out to me numerous instances of the copyright police hauling in small-potatoes nonprofit folks and bankrupting them with $1,000,000 fines, I tend to think that the current copyright rules are simply too extreme to be enforceable.

I don't want to hear any more arguments about the creators of some piece being entitled to 100 years of royalties for themselves and their heirs. I have several patents that I sweated bullets over, and I get 20 years. After that, it's public domain.

I strongly believe that people will look back on the current situation years from now and laugh at the absurdity.

Could I ask, what's wrong with how this is at least partially handled down here and in many other parts of the the world?
Here we do have APRA from whom you can get a licence to do at least of what is being asked for?
Like SPOT said if every $20 transaction costs $20.10 no one's going to be interested, with one central clearing house the numbers start to look better.
Bob.

Can't believe we're on this again, but since we are ...

How many artist sanction their music to be played at strip clubs ? I'm purtty certain most haven't ( explicitly ) and that there are quite a few that get played nightly that would not consent ... if they had a choice. There are limits to what ANY artist can control once they put it out there.

If a band wanted to be or thought they were rock but started getting play on a country station could they tell the country station not to play them because its a bad reflection on them ? Because they don't like the association ?

C'mon. This started about event/wedding type videos. For christ friggin sake why not just give the artist the right to show up at my wedding and rip the cd out of the player because they don't like me, or my opinions, or the way I walk, or the color of my skin. Ludicrous.

To say that there is no means by which a musician/record company etc could license songs for the purposes of which were discussed is simply poppycock. There are music sites out there now doing the exact same thing with their music and, I presume, making a profit. No one said or implied that it should be free, dirt free, or public domain. Most, I think, would be willing to spend a fair chunk ( a nice amount more than they paid for the cd in the first place I'd imagine ) to be able to use it for their event type video.

Many of the sites I've seen have stipulations regarding the use of their music and therefore one could easily state under what terms the music could or couldn't be used for.

Spot, love ya man, honestly respect the hell outta ya. I do understand that you have a vested interest in the issue and are passionate about the topic. I simply think that your views of artist control are somewhat black and white in a grey world. Being an artist ( as just about everyone on this forum is in one medium or other ) does not make us gods. We have rights, but we cannot conceivably dictate every who/what/when/where/why scenario as I hope I illustrated with the strip club example. We put our work out there, we hope for the best, when we get screwed we explore our legal options and again, hope for the best.

Bah, this topic is old and tired ... and so am I. Forgive the ramble and pissy attitude, probably not worth upsetting anyone with my arrogant opinions that have no impact on the subject whatsoever.

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

> I have several patents that I sweated bullets over, and I get 20 years. After that, it's public domain.

Same here, but I would argue in the other direction. Our patents should also be good for 100 years. Why shouldn’t our children benefit from our patents as well? (perhaps we should have written a song about our patents, that would have been protected) ;-)

~jr

Ray,
If it's all poppycock, please define a path/direction/method of working this out so all artists and publishers, and potentially labels are protected, remunerated, at a fair value.
FYI, music synced to a video and distributed among say...100 people is immensely different than a strip club playing the song. One is licensed under BMI/ASCAP/SESAC, and the other is illegal. You can't take the strip club home with you, you can't play the strip club whenever you want, and you can't copy the strip club.
As I've said a HUNDRED times, I wish it were different too. But to cost the artist and publisher anything for the benefit of the "little guy" is insane.
"The Way West" really wanted one of my songs. Total remuneration for on-air rights, needledrop, and mechanicals;7500.00 That is for a C grade song, one time use in a video production, plus the right to place it with Shanachie on a soundtrack. This was a LOW BUDGET film, funded by American Express and Miracle Gro, with a little $$ thrown in from Ford. It was an 8 hour series. Multiply my amount by roughly 30 additional licenses.
That is what the industry expects. Most folks here wouldn't pay 10% of that to use the song once, let alone a few dozen times in various videos.
Australia has done this fairly well, but it's still not enough for the US market. In Canada it's even tougher.
I wish it were different. It's not, and likely won't be for a while. Don't shoot the messenger, just hate the message.