But it's really no different from purchasing a CD, making a copy for your own use and then reselling the original on eBay. Would you consider that acceptable?

You mentioned that the wedding DVD is for your client's personal use. Fair enough, but that's not the same thing as YOUR personal use. I think there's a qualitative difference if you're Uncle Travis who shoots video as a hobby and is making a video of Niece Mary's wedding as a gift to the happy couple versus someone who is in the business of making and selling custom wedding videos for clients drawn from the general public. The first case is pretty much the same thing as playing music CDs for the family during any family gathering or buying a CD and giving it as a gift. The second is more akin to the computer retailer who offers to install an unlicensed copy of MS Office on a potential customer's computer in order to close the sale. Yes, someone paid for the original copy but the copyright owners have the right to expect to be paid a royalty for EVERY copy that's struck outside the narrow definition of "fair use" copies, not just the one master copy. So contrary to what you've claimed, they haven't been (fully) paid for their music. It's kind of like saying it's okay for a business to knowingly shortchange their customers as long as they don't try to keep ALL of the change.

Your next to last paragraph describes an attitude you feel music artists should have. Some of them do, and they make their music available for easy and economical licensing through avenues like magatunes. But others such as Madonna and Celine Dion, from what I've heard, are vehemently opposed to such usage of their product and have agressively pursued infringers. Are you saying you have the right to impose your views of the way you think they ought to feel on them by using their material whether they like it or not? Isn't that a choice they have to right to make for thmselves without you overruling it.

Actually, it's quite different. If a client comes to me with a CD that they own, or if I have to buy a song for them, I don't retain the music. What you're talking about is buying a song for my own personal use, and THEN selling copies of it for others' personal use. If a client gives me a CD, and I set video I shot to a song on the CD, and then give the client the music video and their music CD back, I think that's a pretty different scenario.


Now YOU are making exceptions to the law. According to the law, NOBODY, not even Uncle Joe, can LEGALLY synchronize video to copyrighted music. By saying it's okay for Unlce Joe to do it, but it's not okay for a couple to pay me to do it, you're being hypocritical.


Again, bad example I think. It's practically impossible to figure out where to go to get the proper rights AND not pay a fortune for music. With software, the industry has made it simple. Just go buy another copy of the software. If such a system were in place for videographers, we would use it without hesitation.


It's not. You specifically asked me how I would feel about the situation if I were a musician. I was not speaking for how anyone SHOULD feel. I was just saying that if I were a musician, that's how I would feel.


I also believe that if the music industry really felt threatened by the practice of videographers using copyrighted music in wedding videos, then they would do something about it. Napster-the-file-sharing-monster was nipped in the bud pretty quickly, yet wedding videography has been around many, many times longer. The laws are there, no doubt, but it's like the law that says you cannot drive barefooted. It's just ridiculous and no one wants to enforce it.

Finding the music publisher, who probably is the one who owns the rights you need is not all that hard, it's right there on the CD. One reason there isn't a really easy way to inexpensively license popular music is in fact, control of use. If there were a site, where you could license music without submitting a script or without a lot of limitaions on use, then that music could potentially end up in a production that the rights holder wouldn't necessarily want to be involved with, porn, political commentary, social commentary, a documentary with a negative slant toward some group or person. That is one reason it is hard and expensive to license popular music.
In order to secure the license you need you must contact the publisher, and let's be honest, they are more concerned with licensing for major productions, where the return is much better.

Here is a source for free music under certain conditions. The Terms and Conditions covers alot of situations that have been discussed in this thread.

Terms & Conditions
www.freeplaymusic.com/licensing/termsofuse.php

www.freeplaymusic.com