Staying on topic....
 

Thanks for all the feedback.

I was able to sort out the current vocal issues by sweetening the audio a bit in Soundtrack Pro and moving forward, I may record the a separate isolated file to a multitrack digital recorder to have as a backup.

The licensing thing is a whole other issue that probably deserves it's own thread or even forum (Legal??)

Anyway, lots of food for thought for the next batch of beginner musicians.

Reed

Reed, In regards to the alarmists' comments. My EASL attorney friend said, (off the record, hearsay between this person and myself) "laughs.. If these are for school kids and their parents, they won't go there.. Unless someone is selling huge numbers and gains notoriety"

If you wanted to be completely above-board legal, this project would be still-born by the cost of sync licensing fees and royalties. It appears to be true (IME at least) that DVDs for the PERFORMERS ONLY typically flies "under the radar". But with the RIAA on what seems like a legal crusade against anyone and everyone in recent months, I would be a lot more careful than in years past.

There is no hard legal right to distribute royalty-free copies even to performers. It has merely been the choice of right-holders in the past to not pursue such cases. But I wouldn't bet my life (or my fortune or my sacred honor) that this courtesy will continue in perpetuity.

A reference frequently recommended on this subject is "This Business of Music" ISBN-13: 978-0823077236. I don't have a copy, but someone who does claims that it recommends that schools who make recordings for students are not even allowed to contract with non-employees to record, duplicate or distribute copies.

This was born out of my taping of my son's recitals and it morphed as the school grew. As the parents now don't have to line up with their camcorders disrupting the recitals to tape their kids, they end up enjoying the show and getting a decent video to watch.

I've always been careful to use stock or cleared music for all of my one-on-one clients (mostly family histories and sports highlights/recruiting reels).

The recital videos are not sold to the parents. There are any number of folks around here shooting dance/music recitals and selling the DVDs for $50-70 each. The music heard in these events is never live and is usually coming off of a CD. I have never heard of anyone getting heat from the record and publishing companies for this.

Reed

There are a lot of discussions on this whole topic in the Taking Care of Business sub-forum.

When I hear about the easily obtained and inexpensive licenses referred to by our UK posters I get really disturbed by our strange US customs and dysfunctional lawmaking process.

As I understand it, LEGALLY sync licenses are required to put audio events together with video, but for CD's only, a "mechanical license" is adequate. This is the law (again as I understand it) and doing otherwise is against the law.

Now, let's consider the reality - there are probably thousands (or many thosands) of people making DVD's etc and handing them out to friends, selling them to parents, whatever. And because of our arcane system, I would guess that fewer than 1% of these people even know that licensing is required and fewer than 1% of the 1% would have the foggiest idea of how to go about getting a license even if they did know.

And guess what - I suspect that every member of Congress knows someone at their church, their kids' schools, their country clubs, etc who is making CD's/DVD's and selling them - in fact I would be surprised if these same members of Congress hadn't in their lifetimes actually BOUGHT some of them from their kids' school band performance or whatever.

And yet, the law never seems to catch up with with what people really do - it's a "don't ask, don't tell" situation in spades. Yeah, we know it's illegal, but go ahead and do it anyhow because nobody will catch you because there isn't enough money at stake to make it worth trying to catch you.

Anyhow, enough ranting!

Only problem is these days, sure as shootin', some parent is going to post the scenes containing their little yard ape on YouTube and the cat's out of the bag. So much for the DVDs staying under the radar.

In North America there are clear distinctions between performing a song, recording it as a cover song on a phonorecording, or recording it in the soundtrack of a film or video production. So recording the recital as a music CD is one thing but filming it for a DVD is a completely different situation. A license to record a cover is very easy to obtain but to use it in a video soundtrack, not so easy.

Rick

Having worked as Exec in Charge for a host of biography-type shows, news, and reality shows, I've dealt with my fair share of licensing issues and those shows had the budget and staff to deal just with licenses and I agree with the off-the-record comment above. Plus, I am not 'syncing' the music much the way a wedding videographer would match the couple's favorite love song to select images of the wedding day. Rather, in this case, I am documenting an event that takes place. Recitals are a part of the music school process and there are thousands that take place each year. While I am in no way an expert on these matters, I would think that there is a certain amount of fair use expected here and these things would fall under that to a certain degree.

I recall a conversation with a teacher at a local school about buying the license to allow kids to perform a grammar school play of a well known musical and she made it clear the license did NOT include rights to videotape and distribute a copy of the show although the believed for extra $$ she could get those rights.

"Sync'ing" doesn't mean coordinating, it simply means the pictures and the music occur together in a single integrated work. A soundtrack for any motion picture, even a slideshow of still images, is sync'ed to its images when the two are assembled together in juxtaposition. So in copyright terms, if music is audible when you're viewing the picture, it's sync'ed even if the rhythms totally don't match.

"Fair Use" does not mean "a little infringing but too small to matter." It means the usage is one of several specifically defined types of usage, such as copying for purposes of classroom instruction.