One Time uses of popular songs
 

Hi all,
Had a question about using popular artist's songs in private production stuff.
Specifically, say my mothers friend wants me to put home movies of her kids to the beat of a madonna song or 60's jazz music or whatever, and wants to pay me to make it for her, and a couple of copies for her sister.

Do I:

A. Have to buy a license from the music companies that produced the song (3 copies)
B. Just purchase a CD from the artist containing the music and send it along with the DVD
C. Forget about it because getting a license for this would be obnoxiously expensive and time consuming
D. Listen to the wise advice and much better suggestion from other DVINFO contributers :)

You should try a search on these boards because this EXACT topic was discussed at great length within the last few weeks, as I remember, there was no final decision except that "legally" you would have to purchase the rights from the copyright holder, which basically means, your friends mom probably can't afford it, especially if it's from Madonna.

A combination of option C and D! :)

C is the most accurate answer. You'd be much better off getting her to pay for a royalty-free "Madonna-ish" music. to use, or checking out a site lie www.sounddogs.com which will license you music.

Thanks for the replies!

It's truly a shame that record companies don't have something in place to make it easy for the little guy to use their work legally.

It seems like they have an attitude of: If we can't make ten or fifteen thousand dollars at the minimum then it's not worth our time. Then they complain about not making enough money.

Maybe if the record companies were to all draft a "small fry" fee for small scale and personal uses as described above, they'd actually make more money rather than sending guys like me to their competitors (I'm looking into getting sonicfire pro) or worse, people using the works illegally because they can't afford $10,000 so a mom can watch her kids playing to the tune of Madonna...

I guess the RIAA thinks more about suing people for money than coming up with creative solutions.

Part of it may have to do with people like Madonna not really wanting her music to be cut to your friends' kids' antics.

here is something I haven't heard anyone mention here - iTunes

If you are make a home movie for yourself, buy the song on iTunes and use it in iMovie. Songs bought on iTunes and used in Apple software for personal non-comercial products are considered to be fair use under Apple's terms of service.

check this web page about iMovie:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/soundeffects.html
near the bottom of the page under "What About a Soundtrack?"
it states :
"Or you can use any of the songs in your iTunes music library, including those you transferred from your CDs, purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store or created yourself in GarageBand and exported to iTunes."

I also remember Steve Jobs in a web cast stating that one of the reasons to buy music from iTunes is that you can now use hit songs in your home movies when you use Apple software such as iMovie.

If anyone really wants to watch the video of this I think I could find and post the link.

Yes, we all use such things in our home movies, or even when we are showing things to our friends. But that is different than selling your services to edit, and throwing in a copy of something you do not have the rights to.

All of my home movies from the Dallas Zoo have Lion King stuff in it for home use to show my nieces and nephews. But I use SmartSound when I post the same material on the web.

This is interesting.

I wonder if there is something similar in place for software like Kazaa?

If I download a song off of Kazaa and use it only in editing programs that I also dowloaded cracked off of Kazaa - Can I then legally make a theatrical release or a production run of ~20,000 dvd's?

Why are people so mean and nasty here?

If people would take the time to READ and UNDERSTAND the posts before responding, this might be a place where people could come to get help and suggestions.

NO WHERE IN ANY OF MY POSTS DID I IMPLY DOING ANYTHING ILLEGAL, I WAS TRYING TO HELP! SORRY, MAYBE I SHOULD JUST POST SMART ASS REPLIES LIKE ALOT OF THE OTHERS HERE.

Good way to build "neighborhood" guys!

Kevin,

In no way did I mean to attack you or the post your made. I was simply making a joke - I am sorry if it it seemed as if I was underminding the post your made before mine.

I did find it interesting that iTunes used along with apple software will allow you to do this and will think about doing it for future use.

I was just making some ill-attempted sarcastic humor about the rampant use of p2p technology for 'illegal' uses. I am sorry if I offended you.

Kevin, although I got Brandon's joke, and had a good laugh at it, it could have been mistaken pretty easily for an attack because he didn't put any smilies or other indications that he was kidding in it. As far as the rest of us being mean and nasty, please cite examples. You'll find that we have the most polite digital neighborhood on the web, just not always the best typing.

Brandon, a little closer attention with a ":)", "<g>", or "j/k"'s next time please!

I did a similar thing for one of my friends' mom. She wanted me to make this whole picture slideshow movie thing. Her son is her only child and he was going off to college, so she wanted to have this little sappy sentimental piece to remember him by. She had a list of songs she wanted me to use, and paid me something like $150 to do the whole thing.

Although I thought about the possible legal infringements I might be committing, the logical, realistic argument took over: Who the hell in the music industry is even going to know about this? Unless I make like 1000 copies, market them, and sell them all over the country, the RIAA is never going to find that one DVD I made for a mom in East BF, USA. :)






.....until now. Ha!

Totally! Just like no one is ever going to know I drove home ripped on LSD and scotch last night! As long as you get away with it, it's legal, right?

Right?

Anyway, I didn't really, but my point is, just because you can get away with something doesn't make it right.
On top of that, promotion of illegal activities on DVinfo is strongly discouraged.

Meh. Could be worse.

Although I am very aware of what is strictly legal or illegal, I believe our system of copyright protection is broken and needs a modern update just as Napster did finally force a change in the way record companies distribute music. Thankfully, we now have iTunes, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, New Napster, and perhaps a couple other 'legitimate', affordable outlets to buy music in the way we want it distributed which is via internet download. There does indeed need to be a method for obtaining and using popular music in our small time productions in a legal fashion. I think the fees should be based on a sliding scale percentage of expected revenue or units of sale. That way, if I make a single DVD for someone using a Madonna tune, I could pay a small fee and stay legal. Frankly, I don't think most mainstream artists really have time to care about how some small company uses their song. If would be nice to be legal and give the artist their royalties though.

This is my opinion and I don't encourage illegal use of copyrighted information either, but something needs to give.

-gb-