Music for Weddings. HELP!!! :)

[David Stembridge]

We use Kevin MacLeod (Royalty Free Music) he has royal free music and just asks for a credit. There's some great instrumental music which mixes nicely with weddings. There's quite a few musicians that do some great background music out there! Kevin so far has been our favorite!

[Ray Pegram]

As Chris has pointed out in Australia we have a system where we can pay about $400 and legally use commercial music for weddings on DVD/Blu Ray's which is what I use also.

However one can also form an argument that if you request songs from your client and they supply the CD of those songs and have paid for their rights to listen to that piece of music in the privacy of their own home then as the DVD containing that song will not be used commercially and only privately as well then would it not be lawful to have a copy of it on your DVD? We see this alot with computer software where you purchase a license and the license covers you for not only one computer but also a second.. i.e. a laptop as well.

I dont know what the answer would be but I think it would be interesting.

[Nigel Barker]

Nice try but that won't fly:-) Copyright is literally the right to copy an original work & copyright is owned by the creator of that work. You must have permission of the copyright holder before you copy or otherwise use that work. There are some limited examples of "fair use" where permission is not required but copying a song onto a DVD without the copyright holders express permission is not "fair use". With computer software it's explicitly spelled out in the T&Cs that use on a laptop as well as a desktop is permitted although in the case of Apple software at least this is limited to one or the other & you cannot for example use Final Cut on both your iMac & MacBook simultaneously.

[Adam Forgione]

My take is similar to don.
If the record companies gave the wedding cinema industry a reasonable rate, lets say $2000/yr for flat annual licensing fee, we woudnt be put out of business, we would still use the same music we are now, and the record companies and artists could get compensated.

compare a song toyota licenses on a national commercial for millions to view for $25,000 compared to a wedding cinematographer who uses the same song for a highlight reel seen by 200 people.

[Patrick Janka]

Originally Posted by Roger Van Duyn

To keep my clients (and me too) out of trouble and keep things simple, I've been building up a library of buy out music, mostly from SmartSound and Digital Juice.

I use Digital Juice, as well. Great stuff, although their Juicer software is a bit buggy, especially when installing software. I live in Orlando, and they're located in Lake Mary, which is right up the road, so it's cool to support locals, too.

[Chris Davis]

Originally Posted by Patrick Janka

it's cool to support locals, too.

Even though those "locals" are actually in India! :)