Useful information
 

Sites i found useful to get license
 

Useful information on getting license for music and movie for educational and other purposes.

www.harryfox.com
www.songfile.com
www.mplc.com
repertoire.bmi.com
ascap.com

Copyright liability
 

The subject keeps me intrigued.

Assume the following people involved in a DVD project are all different people.

Producer
Director
Camera Operator
Editor
Duplicator
Client
??????

Now let's say that there is some copyright violation involved in the project, most likely uncleared music. But everyone had a hand in it. Who is legally responsible for this, and who can be sued?

My guess would be the producer and the client are the only ones who can legally be held liable. I hope Paul shows up for this one.

The "author" of the work is responsible for infringements. For copyright purposes, this is usually the producer. Whoever "owns" the example you describe above. "Having a hand in it" does not indicate ownership.

(My thoughts until Paul weighs in with a more accurate take.)

Yeah, let's see what Paul says, but in most lawsuits the philosophy is to to name everyone in sight and let them try to get excused....

This is a complicated question, and there's no easy answer.

Infringement liabiltiy can arise for direct infringement, i.e. someone makes an unauthorized copy, or contributory infringement, i.e. someone does something to facilitate someone else making an unauthorized copy.

Without knowing specifics, it is possible for some or all of the listed positions to incur liability. It is not a defense to infringement liability to say, "I was just doing my job."

Copyright infringement liability is also strict liability, meaning, it is not a defense to say, "I thought it was legal," or, "I didn't know I was infringing."

if your production is not a LLC, INC, limited partnership etc in addition to your list you might add INVESTORS , persons with points... remember those that get to a piece of the profit action might also also get a piece of the liability action !!!!

but remember even if you are a LLC doing something that you know is wrong you will not be able to hide behind a LLC/inc etc ...

copyright issues "Eye on the Prize."
 

I just heard on my local public radio network that it has been illegal to buy or screen a copy of the 1987 documentary “Eye on the Prize” since 1993 when the copyrighted material used in the film expired.

A philanthropist has donated about 250,000 dollars to help finance the heralded documentary on the American Civil rights movement. His money buys a limited reissue with, I believe no TV broadcast.

I bring this up, because I am confused by all of this. There are some twenty songs that need to be paid for. What confuses me is the money the owners of the song- “Happy Birthday” wants because it shows up in a video clip of friends singing it to Martin Luther King at a surprise birthday party.

What gives????????

What gives? Usually not the owners of the copyright to commecially valuable materials. But that's not so unreasonable if you think about it. Someone goes to a lot of effort to create something and they are entitled to control the use of their work and to benefit from the fruits of their labours. Do you work for free? Probably not. Why should songwriters, filmmakers, painters and photographers, or writers?

The "Happy Birthday" story begins with two sisters from Kentucky, Mildred J. Hill and Patty Smith Hill. Patty Smith Hill, born in 1868, was a nursery school and kindergarten teacher and an influential educator who developed the "Patty Hill blocks" used in schools nationwide, served on the faculty of the Columbia University Teachers College for thirty years, and helped found the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia in 1924. Patty's older sister, Mildred, born in 1859, started out as a kindergarten and Sunday-school teacher like her sister, but her career path took a musical turn, and Mildred became an composer, organist, concert pianist, and a musical scholar with an speciality in the field of Negro spirituals. One day in 1893, while Mildred was teaching at the Louisville Experimental Kindergarten School where her sister served as principal, she came up with the modest melody we now know as "Happy Birthday"; sister Patty added some simple lyrics and completed the creation of "Good Morning to All," a simple greeting song for teachers to use in welcoming students to class each day:

Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all.

The Hills' catchy little tune was unleashed upon the world in 1893, when it was published in the songbook Song Stories for the Kindergarten. (The composition of "Good Morning to All" is often erroneously reported as having occurred in 1859 by sources that confuse Mildred Hill's birth date with the year she created the melody.) After the song proved more popular as a serenade for students to sing to their teachers (rather than vice-versa), it evolved into a version with the word "teacher" replacing "children" and a final line matching the first two, and "Good Morning to All" became more popularly known as "Good Morning to You." (Ironically, in light of the copyright battles to come, "Good Morning to All" bore more than a passing resemblance to the songs "Happy Greetings to All" and "Good Night to You All," both published in 1858.)

Here the trail becomes murky — nobody really knows who wrote the words to "Happy Birthday to You" and put them to the Hills' melody, or when it happened. The "Happy Birthday to You" lyrics first appeared in a songbook edited by one Robert H. Coleman in March of 1924, where they were published as a second stanza to "Good Morning to You"; with the advent of radio and sound films, "Happy Birthday" was widely popularized as a birthday celebration song, and its lyrics supplanted the originals. By the mid-1930s, the revamped ditty had appeared in the Broadway musical The Band Wagon (1931) and had been used for Western Union's first "singing telegram" (1933), and when Irving Berlin's musical As Thousands Cheer made yet another uncredited and uncompensated use of the "Good Morning to All" melody, Jessica Hill, a third Hill sister who administered the copyright to "Good Morning to All" on behalf of her sisters, sprang into action and filed suit. By demonstrating the undeniable similiarities between "Good Morning to All" and "Happy Birthday to You" in court, Jessica was able to secure the copyright of "Happy Birthday to You" for her sisters in 1934 (too late, unfortunately, to benefit Mildred, who had died in 1916).

The Chicago-based music publisher Clayton F. Summy Company, working with Jessica Hill, published and copyrighted "Happy Birthday" in 1935. Under the laws in effect at the time, the Hills' copyright would have expired after one 28-year term and a renewal of similar length, falling into public domain by 1991. However, the Copyright Act of 1976 extended the term of copyright protection to 75 years from date of publication, and the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 added another 20 years, so under current law the copyright protection of "Happy Birthday" will remain intact until at least 2030.
(from Urban Legends Reference Pages @ http://www.snopes.com)

Hope that explains it.

Just because something is legal, it doesn't mean it's "right."

Jay

Should I put a copyright notice on certain work?
 

I am always concerned about professional pilferage, unauthorized broadcast or webcast, or people re-editing my work and presenting it as mine still (making me look bad?). But I do some work (personal events like parties, birthdays, etc) and legacy biographies where I have no problem or issue if the client wants to make additional copies for family. Likewise, some corporate work becomes the property of the client when all invoices are paid.

I am thinking that if I put a copyright notice on the work, they may have problems making copies (now or in the future as laws get more stupid). I know that Kinkos gets pretty restrictive about this today.

Right now, I put in the contract that the client has the right to make unlimited copies. But especially for personal events, it is unlikely they will have the contract around in 10-20 years when they want to make copies for the grandkids.

I would like to hear people's thoughts on this issue. Should I worry about it? Should I change the copyright notice that I put on these projects?

Hey, Bob. I understand where you're coming from and I agree with you whole heartedly. My thought is there are people that are going to do what they do, right or wrong, regardless of what anyone does to protect their work. Look the "big boys" in Hollywood. They can't even protect their works that cost hundreds of millions of dollars! The hackers and pirates have proven time and again that they can break any security code anyone can come up with. So what chance do you or I have to stem the tide?

Frankly, the chances of you or I loosing any significant sums of money due to copyright infringement (illegal copies) are pretty slim. Yes, someone could take our work and butcher it, saying it was ours, but why would they?

So, as far as any copyright notice on your works are concerned, I'd say do as you please. But realize that it will not have any real affect on those who have no regard for the law.

Jay

d'uh
 

Steve, what gives???? You totally missed my point.

I was talking about the fact that the songs were a part of a personal film or video- the song was not added to the film clip but was part of journalist reportage of the event- like a wedding.

I understand artists rights - I have been a photjournalist and fine art photographer for 25 years. That was not my point. If the song was added to the film score- I understand, but if it is part of a journalist clip, then no.

If fine art photgrapher or photojournalist had to get permission to exhibt or publish a photograph because someone is wearing logo hat or shirt than we all lose as artists and reporters.

No artist should ever be exploited - but there are lines.

How about adapting a form of the GNU open-source software copyright notice and license where you assert your copyright and at the same time grant permission to freely copy and distribute the work as long as the work itself is kept intact and your copyright notice is not removed from it? See the web site for the Audactiy audio editor for the full text.

News reporting is fair use but part of the test for it being "news" use is proximity to the event. A musical performance recorded and prominently featured as part of the coverage of Prince Charles and Camilla Bowles wedding a while back would probably not require permission for broadcast during the live coverage of the event or its reporting. But if someone bought a copy of the footage a couple of years later and wanted to use it in a commercial for a soap "that gives your skin the glow of a princess bride" they'd need permission for the music and the copyright owner(s) could establish any conditions they might want.

I saw an interesting case of this just the other day that might interest you as a fellow photographer. There was a movie on TV called "The Amber Gatherer" where the story hinged around a photojournalist who had dropped out of sight and assumed a new identity. But meanwhile another photographer who I guess had worked for the same news service had taken over some of the first photographer's unpublished work and published it, claiming it as his own. Now the interesting point is that some of the photos that were being shown in the gallery scenes, etc, were in fact Robert Capra's classic photos of the Spanish Civil War from the 1930's. Those pictures are literally textbook examples of photojournalism in action and there's absolutely no question they were made during coverage of news events. But I would be extremely surprised if they could have been reproduced as part of the plot elements in an entertainment movie without securing permission to use them and paying whatever royalties were demanded.

Interesting what you say in your last paragraph. There is a case winding its way through the courts right now where a photographer has being sued by someone who he had photographed on the street in a public setting as a result of the images being displayed in an art gallery, claiming he had no right to exhibit them without a written release.

And that is where artistic impression ends and the legal issue begins. The court's interpretation of the primary subject matter will be balanced against the interpretive artistic peice. Sure there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when you are in a public place, but the use of such imagery is wide ... from photojournalism to commercial use.

A lot of blogs (or other written stuff) seems to use creative common licenses
from this place: http://creativecommons.org/

They have various levels etc. Perhaps some of that can be used for video as well?

Photo of camera in graphic - copyright?
 

I'd like to use an image of my Sony HDR-FX1 camera, taken by me personally, in a web graphic. I'm pretty seasoned in copyright issues but this is one I've never encountered. I own the camera and the photo will be taken by me. Are there any known issues with this?

Unfortunately, I cannot provide legal advice to non-clients.

Your concern isn't copyright, but trademark. Do a search on my name and you'll find a number of posts about relevant concerns.

Film Festival Copyright Rules
 

Where can I find more info about the copyright rules for submissions to film festivals?

Examples:
--My two main characters are playing Madden 05 on an Xbox. Can I include the commentators voices? Can I show the game they're playing?

--Music: how many bars of a pop music song can I use before it infringes on copyright laws.

--What about a pro football helmet in the background? Or a Pepsi bottle? Or the Kodak building in the background? Or any brand name thing?

Copyrights rules aren't different for film festivals than for other means of distribution.

-- The video game image is copyrighted, as well as the commentator voices: it's no different than having your characters watch the latest Harry Potter.

-- How many bars of a pop song? None, or at least, not enough to make it recognizable. Fair use isn't applicable to as many situations as most people think.

-- Logos, bottle design, and specific architecture are copyrighted too. Actually, in the case of the Kodak building, if it's part of a skyline, it wouldn't matter. But if the building is the subject of the shot, then it's infrigement (especially if you see the logo!).

Festivals usually expect you to have the rights to anything that is in you movie (and that sometimes includes signed releases from your talent!). Some festivals might let you get away with some slight infringements though, like logos, and such, but the music is a more touchy issue. Small festivals might not care at all about it. Read the festival rules.

Copyright rules for festivals are the same as copyright rules for broadcast, distribution, anything else. Copyright is copyright. You'll need permission for many of these things. That only difference is that it may be easier for you to get permission for "festival only" distribution, as opposed to other distribution that you could profit from, such as a "festival license" for the music.

Objects in your film that are common to everyday life are usually permissible. Images of buildings shot from public property are permissible (at least in the US, right?). If either of these prominent subjects in your film, you might want to get permission, but you don't have to (Michael Moore walks right in to corporations and shoots all the time).

Bottom line, film festivals will expect everything to be legal. Whether they all enforce that or not is another matter. In fact, they'll have you sign a form stating that everything is legal, thus shifting the burden directly to you if anything proves otherwise.

Josh

I can't give advice to non-clients, so I'll just say, as a general proposition: If someone else recorded it, you can't use it without permission.

There is no magic number. Unauthorized copying is infringement. Period.

I've written about this alot, here. Do a search on my name and "trademark."

Not sure what you mean by, "objects . . . that are common to everyday life." It they are protected by copyright and/or trademark, there can be a problem.

Copyright music in event DVDs?
 

I've seen a lot of wedding DVDs with Celine Dion or other copyrighted tracks...Is this legal seeing as it's really only going to be given to a family or two and not developed for a mass audience, or can only royalty free music be used even with small scale videography DVDs?

I am not a lawyer nor do I play one on TV...

There are a number of threads on this topic here and in the Wedding & Event section and the archives hold an excellent discussion piece by Douglas Spotted Eagle. The short anwer is ... no, it is not legal, full stop, no exceptions (and I would suggest that even given it is as common as it is, it is an unethical business practice as well as a violation of the letter of the law). The size of the audience may well be a factor in how much the copyright owner will want to charge for a license but it does not factor into whether a license is needed or not, at least not under North American law. It is never legal to use copyright material without a license, even if you're only selling or even giving away for free as little as one single copy to a client family or firm. Now, what you have to do to get the proper licenses varies depending on the country you're in - for example, Australia has a licensing scheme for small producers such as wedding and event videographers that makes the licenses much easier to obtain and far more reasonable in cost than we have in the US and Canada (and I really wish we'd implement such a scheme here). But you'll need to check with an intellectual property attorney there in South Africa to find out just what the laws and options are in your homeland.

I'll second what Steve says and add this. Think about what happens when you put your wedding demo online! It's no longer just for the family. Add to that the wedding demos you hand out on DVD too.

Note that almost anything you read there could be different than what you need to do. Australia has a yearly fee, to cover such licensing (as noted by Steve), which is totally different than here in the US. SA might have that option. I suspect also, the correct answer is to find someone "in country" that is well-versed in copyright laws as they apply to South African productions.

Footnote - This month's EventDV has an article where EDV and others are trying to get the RIAA to move to a system like Australia's as a solution to this mess.

Portrait studio copyright
 

I'll be curious what our legal-minded folks have to say about this. A fellow contacted me wanting permission to use a 30 year old portrait studio photo of a couple of my family members (now deceased) for commercial purposes.

When I mentioned the issue of the photographer's copyright, he replied:

I'm not knowledgeable about portrait photography, but this doesn't jibe with what I do know about usual copyright practices for video work...and certainly not with the many framed family photos I see on peoples' mantels with a (C) XYZ Studio watermark on them. And the newspaper analogy is an apples to oranges fallacy, IMO. Anyone with experience in still portrait work able to comment on usual practices regarding copyright?

The ownership of the copyright of photos by newspsper photogs is completely a function of the contract between the paper and the photog. If it's a "work for hire" relationship then the rights would be owned by the paper, but many other arrangements are possible. The paper, for example, may only own rights to photos that are printed in the paper . . . etc. Reuse of work has often been a point of friction between photogs and newspapers

So it would depend on the nature of the contract between your family and the original photographer.

I am guessing, after 30 years, it might be hard to find a contract or the photographer etc. But the photographer may have a family who inheritied rights to his work, or some commercial entity could have aquired the rights to the photographers work . . .

I would bet this guy actually knows this because he is asking your permission because he thinks you might have inherited your family's rights (separate from the photographer's rights if any) to the photo for which you might charge.

In anycase you need to have more facts that you have undertsand what the legal situation actually is. He's giving his wishful-thinking version of the facts, unless he knows more -- in which case he is being misleading at best.

If it were me I'd want to know what the commercial purposes are and think about any impact on my family member's reputation etc. Of course this is not real legal advise.

I'd be fairly confident that the only contract between my family and the photographer was a kept appointment for a portrait and a check for finished photos.

And Peter, you're right about the photog being difficult to reach. My mom is pretty sure the small-town studio doesn't even exist anymore, and I couldn't find it in a quick internet search. I'd give even odds that the photog is also deceased and whatever rights he had are long since forgotten by his heirs. But, that's really neither here nor there. I just think that this fellow is misguided to think it standard practice for portrait studios to yield the copyrights to their works. Then again, that's not my line of work, so maybe I'm the misguided one.

In any case, no big deal because our family is going to offer the fellow "use of likeness" rights in exchange for a donation to the American Cancer Society. Any copyright issues for use of a particular work (eg the particular photo he likes and wants to use in his ad) are up to him to work about (or not, I suspect). It was an odd situation and I thought I'd throw it out for folks to chew on. Any further opinions?

Connecting with the US copyright office
 

Okay, I am trying to get clarification on thier "best copy" requirement, since the FormPA seems to be slightly outdated in that respect and because of some inconsistencies in how that relates to another portion, but to the meat of the matter.

I am dialing the information specialists directly at the number given by the recorded message. and get nothing, never rings, no message, no on hold nothing.

Just wondering if its something with my phone system here, or theirs, has anyone else experienced this?

to outline the question I want answered, they list in descending order of preference
Videotape formats
1-inch open reel tape
Betacam SP
D-2
Betacam
Videodisk
3/4-inch cassette
1/2-inch VHS cassette


but when talking about movies produced before 1978 in which they must view the tape to make sure the copyright bug is on the movie, they say they cannot watch, Open Reel, Betacam SP, Hi-8 (Hi-8???? that isn't even one of the formats listed!) so will they accept DVCAM, Mini DV, DVD??? and what exactly do they mean by "Videodisk"?

just want to get a straight answer since I will have to wait 4-5 months for the certificate, but I can't even get the phone to ring!

By videodisk, they might be referring to the old Laserdiscs that came out in the late 70's early 80's.

that's what I thought, and why I can't believe, well I work in government so I guess I can, why its so out of date. LOL

Copyright?
 

This may be a dumb question, but here it is: When you make your own short film, isn't it automatically copyrighted because it is something that YOU personally created? I would appreciate it if I could get a bit more information on getting a short film, web page, etc. copyrighted.

Thanks,
Luke

This should help you out... CAUTION: Page slap!

http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/definition.htm

For copyright law in the U.S.

http://www.uspto.gov/

Though it is substantially similar to that in the UK link above.

for a direct link
http://www.copyright.gov/

copyright attaches upon creation, registering with the copyright office in the Library of congress gives you proof.

More copyright woes for MySpace
 

Interesting story here. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/O...fringers.xhtml

Add this to the crackdown on YouTube. My guess, is they will eventually pass the infringement 'through' to the users.

"MySpace is staunchly committed to protecting artists' rights -- whether those artists are on major labels or are independent acts," said Chris DeWolfe,"


He should also add: "But the major labels with their vicious lawyers scare the crap out of us, so now we're doing something about it".