Hi all,
Background - Each year for the last several years, a local booster club puts on a stage show as a benefit. The booster club is a not-for-profit. The show is open to the public and admission is charged. The proceeds benefit a local high school's music program.
The show is basically karaoke. The booster club purchases commercial karaoke CDs (hits, classics and show tunes). Live performers sing and dance to this music. The performers sign a fairly broad release assigning all rights to the booster club. Neither the cast nor the crew are compensated. The venue is a high school theater, provided by the school at no charge.
My production company provides the sound system and a crew and tapes the show. We do this at no charge as a donation to the boosters, and we write off the costs as a charitable donation.
My company produces from the footage a music CD and a video of the program. These are offered for sale as an additional fund-raiser for the boosters. We also donate this (labor and materials) and the proceeds also benefit the music program. The items are mostly sold to the cast, crew and their families, but a few are often sold to the general public as well.
We have been asked this year to produce a commercial spot for the upcoming program. For local broadcast radio, we would use clips from the soundtrack of last year's program, with a voiceover. For local TV we would use clips from the video, with superimposed text and a voiceover.
Rights questions -
1. Are we infringing on the producers or performers of the commercial karaoke by using their product in the live show?
2. Are we infringing those same people by selling a video or music CD of the performance?
3. Would we infringe on those same people by using recordings of the live show in a broadcast commercial spot?
Thanks for your time, and best regards,
-Don
Background - Each year for the last several years, a local booster club puts on a stage show as a benefit. The booster club is a not-for-profit. The show is open to the public and admission is charged. The proceeds benefit a local high school's music program.
The show is basically karaoke. The booster club purchases commercial karaoke CDs (hits, classics and show tunes). Live performers sing and dance to this music. The performers sign a fairly broad release assigning all rights to the booster club. Neither the cast nor the crew are compensated. The venue is a high school theater, provided by the school at no charge.
My production company provides the sound system and a crew and tapes the show. We do this at no charge as a donation to the boosters, and we write off the costs as a charitable donation.
My company produces from the footage a music CD and a video of the program. These are offered for sale as an additional fund-raiser for the boosters. We also donate this (labor and materials) and the proceeds also benefit the music program. The items are mostly sold to the cast, crew and their families, but a few are often sold to the general public as well.
We have been asked this year to produce a commercial spot for the upcoming program. For local broadcast radio, we would use clips from the soundtrack of last year's program, with a voiceover. For local TV we would use clips from the video, with superimposed text and a voiceover.
Rights questions -
1. Are we infringing on the producers or performers of the commercial karaoke by using their product in the live show?
2. Are we infringing those same people by selling a video or music CD of the performance?
3. Would we infringe on those same people by using recordings of the live show in a broadcast commercial spot?
Thanks for your time, and best regards,
-Don