Any legal issues making this DVD?
 

I hope this is the right forum to post this...

The scenario: a highschool band or choir visits my church. I film the concert for myself. The pastor comes to me and asks me to make a few DVDs for the pastors and the band conductor... and while I'm at it, it might be a nice gift to give each kid a DVD of the concert.

My question: am I going to break any copyright laws by doing this - I am referring to music copyright? Does it matter that I'm basically not doing it for profit? Maybe the church will reimburse me for the actual cost of blanks... just maybe... Would it make a difference if I only make 3 copies instead of 30?

I'm pretty sure most of you have been in a similar situation one time or another, so give me your thoughts please.

Thanks,

Are you saying these "visiting" bands/choirs would have no knowledge of you distributing their performance? If so, I'd say... yes, that's a problem.

Rick,

maybe I have to be even more specific. No, I would NOT "distribute" this DVD "to others"... it would be for them (the "kids" as I mentioned) and their director, other than the two pastors from my church.

I'm not very well knowledgable at copyright stuff, but I wouldn't think you'd be any more breaking the law by distributing the performance than they are in performing it. The music they are playing is probably already copyrighted by someone else. If the director wrote the song than maybe he'd be the one to ask. I'm not thinking you *wouldn't* break the law... I'm thinking if one of you goes down, you *all* go down.

-Michael

As far as I know any performer buys the right to perform the music in public when they buy the sheet music (the paper copy book) - in other words, the copyright is included with the songbook or whatever they call it.

So on their side THEY ARE legal... I am concerned about MY SIDE...

Check out the latest issue of DV magazine with a yellow front cover and the A1U on it.

It's got an article on copyrights and fair use which is handy for anyone.

However, purchasing performance rights is not the same as purchasing recording rights, which happened the moment you turned your video camera on.

This is a really complicated issue which needs to be sorted out in a very fair manner. Everyone must know where they stand.

When I was a kid this was a non-issue. No one worried about it. Then again, perhaps only one person in a hundred thousand had the barest idea what a quality recording meant. Increase the factor by 5 and you could actually find someone who had both the knowledge and equipment to make that quality recording. Quite a different story today in some respects, and very much the same in others.

In my humble opinion you stood a far greater chance of accidently swinging your video capera around catching an old lady in the face, haveing her fall and die then having her son the attorney sue you for every thing you have. But you didn't worry about that did You and you probilby won't worry about it the next time you go out shooting either. Perhaps you would have a copyright problem if you were to sell the DVDs outside the performers and their families. But really you could even charge them. They are the performers and they have a right to have their performances recorded. I don't think there is a judge in the world that would rule that a highschool performer does not have the right to have a video record made of his or her performance. We don't live in China quite yet.

Mike