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May 16th, 2003, 12:33 PM | #31 | |
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How the record companies pay royalties to their artists is irrelevant to copyright statutes and this discussion.
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Rick, all I'm saying is I have an ethics problem with using the law to protect my work and then thwarting the same law to appease a client.
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May 16th, 2003, 01:07 PM | #32 | |
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May 16th, 2003, 01:35 PM | #33 | |
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Jeff,
At least read the thread. A previous exchange between myself and Paul Tauger: Quote:
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May 16th, 2003, 02:10 PM | #34 |
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The problem, though, isn't the law, but the fact that technological advances have resulted in situations that the law never anticipated. It's Congress' job to remedy these situations -- they did so with the AHRA, which had the result of turning millions of college students from potential felons to mere collectors. In my opinion, they made things infinitely worse with the DMCA (though, fortunately, there is evidently some movement towards revising it to make it less weighted towards the major content publisher/distributors.
The law isn't a static thing -- it grows and adapts as society changes. With the explosive growth in increased accessibility to video production that has taken place in the last decade or so, copyright law will simply have to change. There is, I think, a wedding videographers association. That organization should invest some money in lobbying Congress to pass a "small commercial use" compulsory license fee, which would solve everything. |
May 16th, 2003, 02:45 PM | #35 |
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As I understand it, the foundation of current copyright statutes is based on laws enacted to protect the rights of piano roll producers for player pianos. Obviously times and technologies have changed.
In my, no doubt, highly biased view the record industry has succeeded in progressively accumulating rights that it has no right to, exceeding comparable protections in the publishing industry. Its attempts to block new technolgies and extort royalties from those that it could not block has been reprehensible. (The RIAA's recent attempts to claim royalties on used CDs strikes me as merely bizarre.) I certainly agree about the DMCA. I am not sure how one can reconcile the DMCA with the First Amendment. I suspect WEVA, the wedding videographer's group, has just decided to lay low and muddle on. Attempting to lobby against RIAA is probably a losing battle under any circumstances. I think WEVA prefers to try to stay under the radar. I am told that there are competitions for best video and so forth at yearly WEVA conventions. I've never been but I am told that every one of the competitors invariably use copyrighted music. |
May 16th, 2003, 03:02 PM | #36 | ||||||
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May 16th, 2003, 03:22 PM | #37 |
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I wrote that sentence very badly. Of course the copyright statutes predate the founding of our country. I was referring (very unclearly) to the Supreme Court ruling of 1908 in favor of White-Smith Music Publishing Company against Apollo Co., maker of player piano scrolls, opining that piano scrolls were not copies and therefore did not infringe, which the Congress reacted to by amending the Copyright Act to include the "new" technologies such as piano rolls and sound recordings. Appropriate that what initiated the changes to the law were "new" technologies.
As far as WEVA goes, I am not a member and I can't speak for it. Lobbying Congress against the likely opposition of the RIAA hordes, seems to me like a bad bet. To my knowledge, WEVA is entirely silent on the issue of copyrighted music in wedding videos. |
May 16th, 2003, 03:29 PM | #38 |
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Rick, when I owned my production company I frequently purchased what was called "Sync Rights". I purchased them upon the advice of my intellectual property attorney. These rights are owned by the music publishers and are paid directly to them. I typically paid between $25 and $100. If the work was for a non-profit or I was donating my services (which I frequently do) many times the fee was waived. These rights allowed me to use an existing recording and synchronize visual images to them and onto another medium.
To the best of my knowledge these rights still exist and represent a reasonable way to pay the necessary fees. I always paid for them over the phone (with credit card) or they would invoice me. I haven't had to purchase Sync Rights in over 8 years. I know there have been several revisions of the copyright laws since then. Paul, would these be applicable to wedding videographers producing tapes with images synced to music? Does anyone know what the going rate for Sync Rights is?
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May 16th, 2003, 03:36 PM | #39 | |
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May 16th, 2003, 04:21 PM | #40 |
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How about this situaion.... When I'm filming a wedding there is always music in the background - usually popular music that the DJ is playing. So its fine (legal) to have the music playing that was recorded on the actual video, but not legal to substitute the same background music for a more clear (copied from the CD) version?
Annie C |
May 16th, 2003, 04:22 PM | #41 | |
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May 16th, 2003, 04:27 PM | #42 |
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But theres no way to take the original background music out of the video without taking out whatever is being said at the time... If that is also a violation of copyright there is nothing most of us are going to be able to do about it.
I sure am learning alot about the subject though... Annie C |
May 16th, 2003, 04:31 PM | #43 |
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If I am not mistaken you also need a mechanical license in order to "publish" the tape or DVD. I think this is where it all breaks down. Harry Fox sells licenses for no less than 500 copies which covers the music publisher, then there is BMI or ASCAP who represents the peformers and basically can't be bothered.
If this has changed or there is a new and easy way to do this I would love to hear it. |
May 16th, 2003, 04:44 PM | #44 | ||
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Note this, though: I'm not anyone's lawyer here, and none of this is legal advice. Particularly with respect to copyright law in the context of incidental reproduction, there is certainly no bright-line rule. In fact, there are very few reported cases that deal with this at all. Since no one wanted to go to Google and see what I've already written on this, I've copied my post below: Quote:
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May 16th, 2003, 04:50 PM | #45 |
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My understanding, from 15 years ago, was the Sync Rights covered subsequent copies. This may have changed and maybe Paul or someone else can comment on the validity of my comments. The example my attorney used was Sync Rights purchased for a scene in a motion picture. The rights extended to the copies used for showing the movies in theatres. Rights for reproduction to rental tapes or DVD's might be separate, I don't know.
If copies of the wedding tape are not included, then it would be up to the B & G to make copies for personal use. My understanding of the mechanical license was that would be needed if I wanted to produce a CD of music. The Harry Fox Agency is actually the ones that suggested Sync Rights as applicable to my usage. A producer of mine contacted them to obtain rights to a song. They informed her to use Sync Rights and to contact the publisher. At that point I contacted my IP attorney and he advised me to buy the Sync Rights. But again, this was some years ago.
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