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Music Copyright


Manu Anand

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I have a friend who recently made a short film and had no money to legally license any music. Now he claims that he used music pieces upto 30 seconds and for that he doesnt need licensing. I have heard this before but am not too convinced .

Is this true ?

Also if you loop the same 30secs does it still count as 30secs or more ?

 

I know music licensing usually varies from country to country.

Am just curious if this 30 sec loophole is true ?

 

Manu Anand

New Delhi

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Thanks Rob,

Wonder where this rumour started.

Now that we are on the subject of copyrights. just have one more question.

 

Say I am making a short film in which i need to use some footage say of a John Woo, silent films, archival footage, some news casts etc etc.... any visual content is there a minimum amount i can use without infringing copyrights.

 

Like copyrights over books expires; maybe i'm incorrect publishing rights expire a certain time after the authors death; is there anything like this in the world of cinema.

 

Does cinema ever become public domain?

Manu"its 4:00 am" Anand

New Delhi

 

PS. Did some research before posting.

 

http://reason.com/0003/fe.jw.copy.shtml

 

http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp067.htm

 

The Sonny Bono Act is being reviewed this year.

Mmmmm Is there absolutely no amount of work(in terms of time) i can use(not even 6 frames)?

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Hi,

 

Oh, for crying out loud - here we go again. The answer to these questions is "No." It's always no. It'll always BE no. Not for thirty seconds, ten seconds, or five seconds. You are absolutely not allowed to exploit other people's rights. Look, this is really very simple. If someone else made it, they control it, and this is fair and just.

 

The only exception to this is fair use. Fair use provisions generally designed to prevent people from using copyright law to suppress people who are ciiting them in criticism - so you can say "I think person X is an idiot because he said...." and then quote them without being sued. Fair use is also mentioned in the previously-linked internet article on music promotion. There is absolutely no possible interpretation of fair use which allows you to use other people's work as part of your commercial TV or film project unless it is a documentary on the subject of the work in question, and even then it's extremely tricky. Fair use equates to having a very expensive copyright lawyer. It is almost certainly not going to allow you to do what you want to do.

 

I have discussions on this subject so often it's getting seriously boring. It's always "no."

 

Phil

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There is material that is in public domain but it is all very, very old and generally of limited value. It is usually material that no one bothered to renew the copyright on because of its relative content. So for your purposes you might be able to get some ancient silent film material, but then you'd have to go through an agency in order to find the material that you are allowed to use.

 

If someone spends time, money and effort on any material then it is theirs unless they choose to sell it to others. That simple. In these times of ripping CDs and downloading movies the concept of ownership and and artists' rights, producers' rights and saleable commodities appear to be lost on some people. But if I made it then I own it unless I sell or gift it to someone else. And if I choose not to let you use it or to charge you a load of money, then too bad for you because that's my right.

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just out of curiosity, when you see a film with bresson or ozu playing on a tv or screen in the background, does that mean rights were obtained, or are there small provisions for "incidental" use.

 

phil please don't yell at me i'm drunk.

jk

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First of all this was all hypothetical.

only asked because there is misinformation.

 

 

 

"Oh, for crying out loud - here we go again. The answer to these questions is "No." It's always no. It'll always BE no. Not for thirty seconds, ten seconds, or five seconds. You are absolutely not allowed to exploit other people's rights. Look, this is really very simple. If someone else made it, they control it, and this is fair and just."

 

Second

If you read the first link that i posted its not all fair and just .

Especially when corporations manipulate governments to extend copyrights.

There is a danger when copyrights extend for so long. Works that corporations deem to be no longer profitable will just disappear because they will not reprint or release them and wont let anyone else release them either.

Long after the creators death even.

 

"When the government tells us we can't use those scraps without permission from Disney, Fox, or the Sherwood Anderson Trust, it constrains our creativity, our communications, and our art. It tells us that we cannot draw on pop songs the way we once drew on folk songs, or on TV comedy the way we once drew on vaudeville; it says we cannot pluck pieces from Star Wars the way George Lucas plucked pieces from foreign films and ancient legends. The consequences are staggering. Imagine what would have happened if, 100 years ago, it had been possible to copyright a blues riff. Jazz, rock, and country music simply could not have evolved if their constituent parts had been subject to the same restraints now borne by techno and hip hop." Jesse Walker from http://reason.com/0003/fe.jw.copy.shtml

 

 

 

Sorry to bore you further Phil :P :rolleyes:

 

Manu Anand

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From what I recall being always taught and told by professionals in this department, even taking a riff can lead to a problem (if you use the intro to Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin for instance). The problem is not just lawsuits per say, it's the demands of the Errors and Omissions insurance companies that won't insure your film without making sure that you have a signed paper for everything that you could possibly be sued for (and no E&O insurance means no distribution).

 

Most music cues are under a minute and a half. 30 seconds is pretty significant, I can do an entire cue easily in that range.

 

Copyright exists for an important reason. Take a look at countries where piracy is rampant - their film business is in horrible shape, the cast and crews can't be paid enough because the revenues from the films go into the pockets of pirate mobsters. Since these mobsters don't pay off production or publicity expenses, they are able to charge a lower price and still pocket more sometimes than the distributor. In places where people make a mere few hundred bucks a month at best, pirated cd's and vhs's are a very enticing option.

 

Bands and musicians in general spend a lifetime building up their name and careers, not to mention developing their talents and creating their work. Its only fair they be compensated. It's also important for them to protect their work, they may not want the music to be used in one kind of film, versus another, and that's their right. Also, lets say theoretically if they gave it away or made it cheap, their work could suffer from "overexposure", in other words everyone would use it to death.

 

When I cut my film and use temp tracks (and I often use music I couldn't even dream of affording - which is good because it prevents me from falling in love with the track and trying to secure permission), I try to avoid very well known pieces of music and go for something less common. If Scorcese used a song for his movie, I don't want people comparing my use of that music to his use of it - even if it's a temp track. Music has baggage, it has associations, you have to be careful with it.

 

As a student filmmaker everything's open to you, storefront windows, people on the street and indoors, music of your choosing, etc. But as soon as you decide to go somewhere serious with it, you realize just how constrained you are. "Did we clear that?". "Is she visible enough in the shot to require a release?", "He doesn't want to be in it. Now what do we do - we shot him already!"

 

I think without question some copywright laws and clearance requirements are ridiculous. Some of it, in my view, inhibits free speech (i.e. the idea that by showing your villain chowing down a Burger King big mac before he machine guns a library can land you a lawsuit from BK, as can having him before a large storefront and so on). This "casting aspersions" nonsense is really the product of paranoid retailers and hungry lawyers. There are also very tricky slander rules, which also can get to the obscene. A filmmaker shouldn't have to "clear" their film before the whole world, that's not what making art is about, and its surprising sometimes how many double standards apply to these categories.

 

- G.

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  • 1 month later...

Where does news fit into this?In over 2 decades of covering news,I've seen this redefined several times and have thus had to attend something like 5 or 6 legal seminars on what we can and can't show.

I've got enough common sense to know that if I'm doing a piece about child molestation and I need generic video of kids on a playground while the reporter quotes stats,I know not to use anything that ID's one of the children.Yet if a truck on a high speed chase plows into a Burger King, we are now told NOT to ID BK.We have to shoot around any logos and whatnot.For crying out loud,that's what happened!I'm not doing a fictional peice,I'm covering a real event.Has the case for paranoid retailers gotten this far?

As for music,I worked at one station that used copyrighted music for news special series and it came under the umbrella of the dues they were paying to BMI/ASCAP.As long as it was for a news piece and not a commercial it was OK.Now I'm at another station and we are told never to use any popular music,but to pull it from our library.I think the station Im at now pays dues,but apparently either laws have changed or this station has a different agreement.Anyone have any more knowledge on this?

Marty

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