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Have you ever used ripped music for your film?


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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Did you have any issues? And I am talking about art films, not commercial films. (Although if you used some ripped music for commercial use, feel free to chime in.)

I was wondering if using old punk music would be a problem? 

I acquired a collection of old punk handbills from obscure groups. Wanted to make a video of the bills and thought punk music to go with them would be apropos. 

I'm thinking music copyright must not be valued as much as visual copyright. Why would they make audio rip programs mainstream, yet copy programs to copy movies are illegal? 

Thanks

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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You can expect to be pursued by copyright holders if you publish your films in any way. Youtube, for one, screen all uploads for copyright recordings but that's actually for revenue purposes. Money talks, but even artists have to respect copyright.

Short extracts might be alright in the US under fair use, if you can afford to defend them. Other countries' fair dealing expections are much narrower.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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yes it varies from country to country and in some countries the copyrights will expire in a specified time but in others they will not. Also the "fair use" can work in some countries but for example in Finland there is no such thing as a "fair use of copyrighted work" and you cannot publish it if you don't have a release or the copyrights are not expired (there is some exceptions if you are doing TV programs or political satire for example but that's about it and you still need to pay even then)

on the other hand, we have generally pretty good copyright licensing system here which makes most of the local music easily licensable for most uses because there is national copyright management organizations which represent most of the copyright holders and you can get permission from one or two places and there is fixed prices for most normal uses (not like in some other countries like US where you may need to ask every artist performing on the song and other copyright holders of it separately and pay separately to each and every one... there may be 10 of them or more per single song so it can be an absolute nightmare and any one of them can say no to your use which will ruin everything ) 

In some cases it may make it easier if you are doing a documentary or similar stuff but you really need to know the local legislation extremely well before using anything. If using the songs only as a background music there is probably tons of alternatives which could be used so it does not matter if someone denies permission to use something...you can as well ask them, would be much easier than trying to do illegal stuff without getting punished ?

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Even when copyright is cleared ripped content is used all the time.

I use to work on those "100 Greatest Movie Moments" , "Top Best Songs of the 90's" - typical list shows that would go out on mainstream TV. All the clips and music would have to be cleared individually or under blanket license,

Once the license was approved you'd hope to be send nice copies of the broadcast master tapes, some times you were lucky and had them in your library. But for short clips it wasn't worth requesting the distributor shipping an expensive master copy  of "Dumbo" for the 15 seconds its used in the compilation. We would just drop down to HMV buy the DVD, dub the section needed to to digit-beta or rip the file directly and cut into the show.

No one spotted the minor drop in quality, some times the shop purchased DVD looked better then the in house master tape.

Fully legal because we we had permission to show the footage and how were sourced the footage didn't matter.

Many cinema screenings have been saved by DVD/Blu Ray because the studio couldn't provide a decent 35mm copy  

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In terms of fair dealing music you can use it for free but it has to be for journalistic purposes. So if you played a short section of copy right music and then discussed/reviewed it afterwards thats fine.

If your just using the music on your sound track with no commentary thats not fair dealing and a copyright violation

Or do what every else does:

Itsssss freeeeeeeeeeee

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I mean I make senseless and pointless videos for youtube all the time. I got so tired of the copyright infringement issues, I started paying for music. I use Audio Network Music and for youtube video's, which I believe are $19.99 for legal use on the internet. I think there is a lower cost if you do just for youtube/vimeo. If you do festivals, it's a bit more like $39.99, but even that is pretty cheap. 

Where I understand its nice to use someone else's song because it's in your head and you like it. At the same time, it can come to bite you in the ass in the strangest ways. I just find it's better to be legal and free than be illegal and have to worry. 

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I like the threads where I feel like an expert. Been using tons of copyrighted tracks in my Youtube shorts for as long as I can remember.

First off, 0% of a pre-recorded label published track is allowed in a short film without permission, people made up the 15% law because people like to make up pretend laws to feel justified for breaking real ones. Now that statement goes out the window if you have gone out of your way to make contact with the track's original publisher.

FAIR USE is a defense, not a right. The best argument for fair use is if the short is a documentary on the song itself.

Now the law, an owner choosing to pursue an infringement, and Youtube's automatic content ID system are 3 entirely separate entities ALWAYS REMEMBER THIS.

That being said, unless you're making tons of bank or the original publisher has an issue with you, no one is hitting you with a lawsuit. You aren't worth the time and money in legal fees. They like to say they pursue everything, but that's because scaring people from doing something is a lot cheaper than suing people.

Youtube will usually hit you with a content ID strike, where they take the profits of your ad revenue and keep the video up. An old punk song from a dead label probably won't have their song submitted to the copyrighted media database, so my guess is you'd get away with it.

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Honestly; just want to say none of the above is legal advice, myself and no one I am aware of on their forum are legal experts or actually allowed to practice law, and are only offering opinions based on personal experience.

To really know what's what with your specific project, you need to actually start looking at who owns copyright to your tracks and GER AN ACTUAL LAWYER to weigh in on the legal ramifications of things for you. If you are planning to do anything, at all, with your video, then get the clearances.

 

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On 11/17/2019 at 8:56 AM, Adrian Sierkowski said:

Honestly; just want to say none of the above is legal advice, myself and no one I am aware of on their forum are legal experts or actually allowed to practice law

 

That's what you think, buddy!

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/18/2019 at 1:28 AM, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

I just got a copyright claims notice from YouTube on some ancient country songs. 1930s - 1940's. 

 

 

Copyright exists on all music for a certain period and there are rights belonging to the composer and performing rights. These hold until a certain period after the death of the people involved, so a 1940s country song could easily have a lot of rights still attached to it. For example, in the US Hank Williams songs from that peroid will still be in copyright.

Edited by Brian Drysdale
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