You know, there is something to be said for the idea that non-compliance of an absurd law often forces the issue. Not saying that's how I approach life, but it's interesting to think about how history has proven this over and over again.

I also think you're greatly mistaken when you assume that it's simply 'more difficult' to operate a wedding videography business when you don't use the music the couple wants. You've proven your lack of experience and knowledge of our industry over and over again, and you've just done it again. I'll say it once more .. if you're going to tell couples that you have to use stock music instead of the first dance song they spent several weeks/months selecting .. you're going to go out of business. That's a bit different than 'more difficult'.

I think the primary argument here is that anyone can go out and film some footage and go back to their house and set that footage to a song and watch it on their TV and no one is going to care about that one bit. The difference is that not everyone has the ability or the equipment or the experience and they choose to pay someone to do it for them. The fact that this suddenly equates to law-breaking is absurd. You can do it yourself but it's illegal to pay someone to do it? Absurd.

The law needs to be amended and it's not going to happen even if everyone suddenly switches over to stock music. If anything, if that magically happened, there probably wouldn't be any reason to change the law anymore, right? Thus non-compliance could eventually force the issue.

Sorry to go briefly off-topic here, but just wanted to point out that speed-trap laws vary from state to state, and in Texas they are indeed legal, but only under certain conditions and then only up to a point: there is a maximum cap on annual revenue earned by any municipality from running a speed trap -- and yes those small towns (population 5,000 or less) are closely audited by the state. See http://classic.speedtrap.org/stetlaws.htm#Texas%20Law

At any rate, this thread went south at post #4 and the whole thing in general has crystallized a realization for me that I've been suspecting for awhile now: that we need a Wedding / Event Video forum overhaul. Stand by for some re-tooling; as a former wedding videographer myself, this particular DVi group is very dear to me and critical to the site, and I'm committed to improving the forum experience here.

More about that to follow separately; but for now you can stick a fork in this thread 'cause it's done.