a question about music
 

Lets say a bride and groom want this particular song in their video. How do you guys get it and put it ? Do you just buy a cd/rip and put it into their video? Or is there a special website for videographers that lets people license the music? Or do you just use the music you buy on those stock music cd's?

There is a process to follow for requesting permission to use copyrighted music, but I've heard it's extremely unlikely you'll even get a response to such a request. That leaves you with two basic choices: either use the music your customers want and hope it never attracts any legal attention from the copyright holders, or use royalty-free music. As things stand now many videographers appear to be taking their chances with the former approach, which generally seems to work out okay most of the time--but not always. I've also noticed that at least one bridal show specifically prohibits the use of non-approved copyrighted music in material displayed at the show, so there's a good reason to do at least some of your work within that guideline. If nothing else, figure that the more widely your work is going to be seen the more you should be cautious in approaching this issue.

FWIW, there seems to be a direct relationship between those who use stock music libraries and their rates.

Corollary: If you never use stolen music, you will make more money. :)

eek..

this has been bothering me for a while. I was afraid of using non copyrighted music , but i think its the only way...

I have moved in the direction of royalty-free as well. Even though brides have supplied me with CDs and it's for their own personal use I just don't want to be caught in the middle and possibly get sued over the use.

What royalty-free libraries do you guys use? I just bought the Digital Juice BackTraxx suite (I also provide corporate video). They have about 30 tracks such as Ave Marie, etc.. that I can use.