How much to charge for this, and what about tax?

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Steve House

Your wedding or recital video would be a flop if you didn't have the music audible and so the creator of the music has contributed to the success of your video - in return he deserves a piece of the action. You might say that he's charging too much compared to what you can bill your client but he could just as easily say he is charging a fair price for his contribution to the final production and it's YOU who are charging too little for yours.

Steve, I don't know if you're joking, because this statement is so obtuse and illogical that you can't possibly be serious. I don't know the exact price for using a copyrighted song in a video production, but as far as I've read it's in the thousands. So lets say $3000 per song. Let's see, a wedding has the bridal march, the song the DJ plays as they walk out the aisle, about four classic songs as the first dance, and father daughter dance, then about 40 or 50 songs during the party. So if my client wants a long version of the video, I would have to include about 40 songs picked up by my microphone in the final video. So 40 x $3000 = $120,000. So in your world, wedding videos should be charged about $125,000 so the videographer is able to pay for the rights to use every damn song picked up by the microphone. Are you serious? So yes, Steve, I'm charging anywhere between $1000 and $1400, so I charge too little. Next time a prospective client calls me and asks me how much I charge, I will tell them $125,000, so I can pay all the music artists their dues. Again, let me ask you, you're kidding, right?

If the music industry starts suing wedding videographers just because of the music that is captured through the microphone, then the wedding video industry will die and uncle Joe will record the wedding on his camcorder, still get all those songs on the video and the creators will still not see a dime.

Now, if there are people in the industry with any brains, they gotta see how they are losing money because they have a system that may work for TV and cinema, but not for small video businesses, and do something about it.

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

There is the letter of the law, which arguably is pretty easy to violate, making EVERYONE a "criminal" and there is the spirit of the law, which ultimately is supposed to allow for reasonable "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", not to mention the profitable exercise of commerce for "producers" of things of value.

Exactly. Right now these ridiculous laws not only are taking money away from the creators, they are taking money away from us from the moment we can't record a dance recital for private viewing of the parents without fearing being sued for millions, if they can sue you for $150,000 per song. It upsets me to no end that I had to say no to a job that possibly was going to leave me $3,000 or more, and I would have been happy to pay a portion of that to the creators, if they had a system for me to do so in a proper way.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Alvarez

Now, if there are people in the industry with any brains

It has turned into a philosophical discussion:

Why would a musician license their music this way?
Why would a choreographer choose such music?
Why would an artist bother to perform to such music?

If this were art, original music would have been commissioned for the performance and copyright would not be an issue. This is not art. Instead, it is a bunch of students dancing to prerecorded music. Such an activity is a type of derivative fan art. In the United States it is not considered fair use to distribute DVDs of such a performance without permission of the original music copyright holder.

The students paying their tuition to the dance studio should suggest that the choreographer use music which permits making a video recording of the performance.

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Eric Olson

The students paying their tuition to the dance studio should suggest that the choreographer use music which permits making a video recording of the performance.

That's not very realistic. People listen to music and have songs in their head. When a dance teacher wants to create a new dance, it would take them forever to go through the royalty free music services and find one song that they like enough to work with, if they even find it because royalty free music is always inferior to the kind of music that you can't use because of all this copyright issues. Teachers have songs in their heads that probably inspired them to think about new moves for their students. A song by Michael Jackson. A song by the Beatles. Why shouldn't they be able to use those songs? And why shouldn't the parents be allowed to have a visual memory of it on DVD or Blu-ray from a professional camera instead of their tiny camcorder? It's ridiculous.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Alvarez

When a dance teacher wants to create a new dance

If a dance teacher wants to create a new dance they must commission original music for the dance, otherwise it is not a new dance but a derivative work based on the prerecorded music.

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Eric Olson

If a dance teacher wants to create a new dance they must commission original music for the dance, otherwise it is not a new dance but a derivative work based on the prerecorded music.

So in your world, many small dance institutes would not exist, since they can't afford a band of musicians to compose and perform music. Very nice.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Alvarez

Very nice.

I'm glad you like it :-) Commissioning a local composer to write new music for a new dance may not be as expensive as you think. Also, as you already mentioned, there is music that either no longer has a current copyright or has a license which explicitly permits derivative works.

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Eric Olson

I'm glad you like it :-) Commissioning a local composer to write new music for a new dance may not be as expensive as you think. Also, as you already mentioned, there is music that either no longer has a current copyright or has a license which explicitly permits derivative works.

In the real world, dance studios plays ASCAP an accessible annual fee to play whatever song they want from whatever CD they want. So that license should extend to audio and video recordings for private purposes, or at least the possibility of paying a little extra to have that extension added to it.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

Key difference being BROADCAST...

Thus incidental or "documentary" capture of a one time event for later private use and viewing falls into an entirely different scenario, and that's what the W/E videographer struggles with. As we've discussed, there is NO legal liability incurred if a private party uses their own video camera (be it a cell phone, camera, handycam, or whatever). It makes little sense that having a "pro" document the exact same event makes it "criminal".

The difference is that the private party is simply documenting a personal experience while the videographer is engaging in activity in the public sphere during which he captures the music along with images and then sells the results of his work to a third party, his client. The difference between the activities of the local videographer making videos of weddings and the activities of Sony Pictures making films of stories is only one of scale, not of type. Both ar engaged in ventures involving the creation and exploitation of intellectual property. The videographer is producing a work that he is transferring to a third party - the fact it gets transferred to someone other than the person who produced it, either by sale or by gift, removes it from the realm of "private use."

One of the frustrating things about "copyright" enforcement is that in it's most agressive form, the argument goes that EVERY play of a song or whatever MUST be paid for and accounted for individually, or a violation has occurred... this completely IGNORES that a consumer typically thinks (with somewhat good reason) that when they BUY something, they have the right to do with it what they want, as long as they don't turn around and "mass produce" copies for a profit.

Except that they haven't bought the music. They have bought a container for the music and a license to listen to it. The license permits me to share the listening experience with you when we're physically together and even allows me to lend you my container so you can listen to it on your own, but if BOTH of us want to listen to it at the same time when we're not physically in the same location, each of us needs to buy our own license.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Alvarez

Steve, I don't know if you're joking, because this statement is so obtuse and illogical that you can't possibly be serious. I don't know the exact price for using a copyrighted song in a video production, but as far as I've read it's in the thousands. So lets say $3000 per song. Let's see, a wedding has the bridal march, the song the DJ plays as they walk out the aisle, about four classic songs as the first dance, and father daughter dance, then about 40 or 50 songs during the party. So if my client wants a long version of the video, I would have to include about 40 songs picked up by my microphone in the final video. So 40 x $3000 = $120,000. So in your world, wedding videos should be charged about $125,000 so the videographer is able to pay for the rights to use every damn song picked up by the microphone. Are you serious? So yes, Steve, I'm charging anywhere between $1000 and $1400, so I charge too little. Next time a prospective client calls me and asks me how much I charge, I will tell them $125,000, so I can pay all the music artists their dues. Again, let me ask you, you're kidding, right?

If the music industry starts suing wedding videographers just because of the music that is captured through the microphone, then the wedding video industry will die and uncle Joe will record the wedding on his camcorder, still get all those songs on the video and the creators will still not see a dime.

Now, if there are people in the industry with any brains, they gotta see how they are losing money because they have a system that may work for TV and cinema, but not for small video businesses, and do something about it.

The cost of a copyrighted song isn't necessarily in the thousands, every time you use music from a royalty free library such as SonicFire you are using copyrighted music and for a license fee that is just a few dollars. The problem arises when you want to use popular music by major performers. There you are wanting Ferrari performance but only can afford a Chevy price. The point is that the owners of the music have put a value on their product. You either pay their asking price or you use something else. There's no moral entitlement for you to use their work for your own personal gain.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Sebastian Alvarez

...
In the real world, dance studios plays ASCAP an accessible annual fee to play whatever song they want from whatever CD they want. So that license should extend to audio and video recordings for private purposes, or at least the possibility of paying a little extra to have that extension added to it.

Why should it? So far the only arguments I've heard boil down to "It will make it easier for me to make a few bucks shooting video."

There's a difference between the ephemeral experience of hearing some music in the environment and permanently capturing that same music as part of another copyrightable work

[Sebastian Alvarez]

Originally Posted by Steve House

The cost of a copyrighted song isn't necessarily in the thousands, every time you use music from a royalty free library such as SonicFire you are using copyrighted music and for a license fee that is just a few dollars. The problem arises when you want to use popular music by major performers. There you are wanting Ferrari performance but only can afford a Chevy price. The point is that the owners of the music have put a value on their product. You either pay their asking price or you use something else. There's no moral entitlement for you to use their work for your own personal gain.

Well, the problem is that we were not talking about production music. At least in that aspect the wedding or events videographer has a choice. Although there should be an accessible license for us to use any song we want, but at least we have a way to abide by the law because we have royalty free music to use, some of them cheaper than others, but there's a lot of that.

But when we are talking about the music that is captured through the microphone, we have no choice in that. No couple is going to pay over a thousand dollars for a video where the bridal march is muted unless they hired their own string quartet, where the first dance songs are muted, and people dancing to some generic royalty free music of far inferior value and unknown to them. So in that, we don't have a choice.

[Chris Hurd]

Okay, we have reached the point where I have had to edit and withdraw posts from
public view because of an all-too-common problem: attacking the messenger because
the message was not agreeable. Just a reminder that above all, I expect our members
to be perfectly polite to each other even if there is disagreement.

The topic of this thread is one which has been discussed and debated many, many times
before, and just like all of those previous times, this one is going around in circles and is
accomplishing absolutely *nothing* except aggravation towards fellow forum members.
That is always my signal to close and lock the thread.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially to those who kept it polite and civil throughout.