Don't use copyrighted music

[jmorton]

Don't use copyrighted music

I was listening to a rock station several years ago and they were interviewing a well known and successful rock band that I cannot remember the name of. The DJ asked the band how they got their big break. One of the band members said that he was watching a movie once (and it was a very successful movie by the way,) and he heard one of their songs playing (and it later became a big hit) quite distinctly in one of the scenes. And he jumped up and said something like: "Hell! They don't have permission to use our song!" So they sued the filmmaker / distributors and got a lot of money and this is how they got their big break.

Anyone know who this rock group is and what the song was?

So when you become successful don't use copyrighted music unless you have permission or you could lose your shirt.

JM

[IndyFX]

Sounds a bit like urban legend but the "moral" of the story is very true:
-You can't use what doesn't belong to you-
And don't ever (ever!) even think about producing a commercial product without securing clearance, permission and copyright for any and everything in the film (actually the thing that makes this story sound like an urban legend is that feature films are cleared & insured through companies that specialize in copyright and trademark infringement, these are professionals who go over the movie with a fine toothed comb (including the origin of the soundtrack) before they insure (similar to title insurance on property)

Where problems sometimes arise is where an allegedly original sound track of a commercial or promo piece bears a striking resemblance to a published (copyrighted) work. This is the case with the recent dispute between the FooFighters and Marvel comics about a promo (ad) for the X-men cartoon.

PS http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdail...x-men-cartoon/

[CJDaniels]

Dude I once blogged a story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up three very lovely girls, all of them had hair of gold, like their mother the youngest one had curls.

Anyway long story short, one day this lady met this fella..

and I never saw a penny...

[IndyFX]

If you filed it with the WGA and/or BMG you could be...

Ah, think of the life....

Actually copyright is established by mere creation of a work, however registration is highly recomended

[Numbox]

The Kopyright Liberation front needs to act fast!

[jmorton]

Sounds a bit like urban legend but...

Well, I actually heard the interview on a classic rock station no more than 7 years or so ago. Let me take a stab at naming the group... The era when this is to all have taken place was in the late 60's or so and the film was not a big Hollywood prooduction but more of the early independent films that broke out and became quite successfull.

The song was not featured as part of the soundtrack but was incidental to the film and the scene and was merely playing in the background like someone had their radio on but according to this band member it made no difference: the song was still part of the movie and was heard pretty much throughout the scene.

I mean the group went on to be really big and so did the song. I can't say that this is the band but they became big and were young and fresh at the time of this infringement like Steppin Wolf in that period. Can't say for sure but it might have been them but it was certainly a group that later became big. I am positive about this: what I heard.

I'm going to go to some rock forums and see what I can find out.

JM

[ChannelReviews]

Ivan Reitman wanted Huey Lewis to do the ghostbusters theme, but he refused, so they hired the guy, can't remember his name, to do a Huey knockoff song, which we all know as the Ghostbusters song, but it was too close to another Huey song, and he sued and won and got a lot of money.

[IndyFX]

Wow you are reaching back... that was 1984 and the singer who "wrote" the ghost busters theme was Ray Parker Jr. (the song Huey lewis claimed was infringed on was "I want a new drug"... similar melody and chops when you think about it) It was settled out of court and both artists released a joint press release declaring the matter closed (no monetary sum or compensation (points) was announced in the press release (but was suspected to have been paid))
Again this kind of thing is very rare (figure this happened 25 years ago)

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

The title of this thread is misleading. You are allowed to use copyrighted music, just not music that you have no license for. For example, I am using Creative Commons "BY" music. This license is liberal enough that explicitly allows me to use it on my videos. But the CC-BY music is copyrighted. Copyright is a right in USA, *even* you have never sent the copyright form to DC to make it official.

In other words, what matters is that you use music that it's licensed in a way that's liberal and allows derivatives (e.g. CC-ND does not allow derivatives, and so you can't put together such a music track with your video). It has nothing to do with copyright though. More here: http://creativecommons.org/about/lic...t-the-licenses

I guess the confusion comes from the fact that commercial music is always copyrighted and no specific license is given. And so the people are just call its license "copyrighted music" rather than just "fully restricted music abiding to the most restricting sense of the copyright law". I guess it's shorter that way. ;-)

[ChannelReviews]

Wow you are reaching back...

Part of my charm. Throw out references that 1% of the audience gets.



And yes, Eugenia's right overall. You shouldn't use any music you don't have the copyright IF you're trying to sell the footage. If you use CC music, it's usually only for non-profit exhibition, i.e. you can show it freely if you make no money off it, but if you want to make money off it, you need to contact the copyright holder and work something out.

You're best bet is either get a musical friend to do the score who would do it for free or buy Sony acid music studio or Cinescore or if you have a Mac, Garageband and make it yourself.

When you have no money....it takes more work.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

This is not true. The CC-BY allows you to use the work on commercial adaptations, not just non-profit. That's why I use it. Because it's very liberal. You need no permission to reuse it for commercial works, you just need to do what the license says: give proper credit, among a few other small things. Look at my Stanford video's credit roll on Vimeo to see how use such music with the right credits.

Only the CC-NC does not allow commercial adaptations.

[ChannelReviews]

I've never seen CC-BY. All the CC music I've seen said "non commercial".

I've mainly used the website http://www.jamendo.com/en/

Where do you get your BY music and is there a "music" sticky post where we can get some links together for free music sources? If not, let's make one.

[1]

You shouldn't use any music you don't have the copyright IF you're trying to sell the footage.

That's a dangerous statement, and I misread your post completely, at first.

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

>I've never seen CC-BY. All the CC music I've seen said "non commercial".

Then you don't know CC very well. You didn't bother to click the link I provided above that explain the most common CC licenses in plain english, please do. Also, another link of interest: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/0...videographers/

>Where do you get your BY music

Here: http://www.jamendo.com/en/creativecommons
The first batch of albums (147 of them right now), the ones that are listed under "Attribution", are CC-BY. Music from these 147 specific albums can be used in commercial projects (as long as they don't defame the author, e.g. you can't re-use CC-BY works for a porn movie), and they only ask back for attribution in the credits. Again, here's a video of mine that has the credit roll properly done in a way that's acceptable by CC-BY: http://vimeo.com/366681

Just a word of caution. If you go to the "Attribution" page on Jamendo and you sort via another way (e.g. newest albums), the site loses the license and shows CC-BY-SA albums instead of just CC-BY, so don't re-sort.

[MithrilFox]

Agreed completely.

In fact, it's one of my pet peeves. Although I'm known for shouting the "right of fair use" from an ever-so-popular thread, I really have a dislike for the rampant use of copyrighted music in videos.

A couple reasons:

1) It's a cheap way to rip someone else's work and make yours better because of it.

2) It almost always fails, because the person just uses whatever song they like, with near-total disregard for what fits the scene/video.

3) It's illegal...

As for "incidental" music caught in a movie, I find it hard to believe that even an amateur film maker would let that slide (a huge portion of a commercially copyrighted song being included). A filmmaker is generally very much in control of the setting (or at least likes to think he is), and so there is little need for accidental "incidental" inclusion of music. Besides, I can't imagine any filmmaker of any decent quality just using whatever song happens to be playing at the time...

[ChannelReviews]

That link is vey useful. I've never downloaded an album off there that was CC-BY. I mainly search for themes or styles. Only 147 out of thousands is a low percentage. I got Sony Acid a while back and stopped searching.

Somebody needs to make a sticky post with those links Eugenia posted.

[canuck88]

Then again, the dude that made the ipod touch ad used copyrighted music from a brazilian band, and the video got re-worked and used by apple and they all made a lot of money (not to mention the band got exposure they would otherwise never have had)...

Of course, if you're ever doing something for commercial purposes you should always get permission. But for non-commercial personal use, I'll use copyrighted music every time.

[Lance Campeau]

Occasionally I will use copywrited music without permission in my videos. I always try to follow a few guidelines...

-Never use copywrited music in a video that contains controversial subject matter. That's a recipe for a lawsuit.

-provide details about the artist, album, recording, publisher, website etc...

-Try to encourage people to buy the music from a reputable source.

-Promote the band or artist in a way that is positive and mutually beneficial.

[PTravel]

Occasionally I will use copywrited music without permission in my videos. I always try to follow a few guidelines...

-Never use copywrited music in a video that contains controversial subject matter. That's a recipe for a lawsuit.

-provide details about the artist, album, recording, publisher, website etc...

-Try to encourage people to buy the music from a reputable source.

-Promote the band or artist in a way that is positive and mutually beneficial.

What do you think these guidelines accomplish, other than establishing a prima facie case of intentional copyright infringement?

[mattias]

what does porn have to do with defaming the author? just curious. there are many pieces of work that can defame people much more, yet porn is always dragged out as an example. many people actually like porn, and even the pc crowd who say they don't generally have nothing against it either. more people hate horror movies than who hate porn, in my experience. so, my real question is, say you release something into the public domain, who are you to decide that porn isn't part of that domain, and is it even true for the creative commons attribution license?

/matt

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

I personally don't like to be associated with porn. According to the CC licenses, you can sue if the artist's moral rights are violated. Now, just like with Fair Use, this is something that only a judge can decide. So while someone can use my CC-BY footage on a porn movie, exactly because it's debatable if porn is immoral or not and defame to artist, you sue or not. And the judge decides, based on the license's wording and the damage that might have been done. Don't forget that when using the CC-BY license, the licensee has to attribute you. While you might not care if your name is in the credits of a porn movie, I do care. If they didn't attribute me at all (hence, not following the license), it might actually be better than attribute me in this case.

For you, it might not make a difference if your name is in the credits of a porn movie. But for me, who I come from a very traditional country where women have to be moral and virgins until they get married, it can put shame to my family. And then, I sue.

Make sure you read here: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/0...ove-the-video/

[jmorton]

...I come from a very traditional country...

I went to the site and signed up. Can you tell me how to access just the CC-BY albums?

Thanks.

JM

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

You didn't have to sign up anywhere.
I already say above how to find the CC-BY albums. You click the link that gets you to the albums that are under the "Attribution" header, you click one by one to open a new window that playbacks the songs on the album, you find which song you like, you mouse-over the song, and then you click the down-arrow icon, which downloads the specific song on your drive. If you like the whole album, you can download it in a zip file too.

[jmorton]

You didn't have to sign up anywhere.
I already say above how to find the CC-BY albums...

Sorry. My eyes naturally go right to the album cover images since they are so striking and I was basically blind to the much lighter "Attribution" rule.

Thanks.

By the way, I'm originally from Fremont.

JM

[mattias]

if you don't want people to use your work, don't release it to the public domain. how can you moralize over free speech? it's not about whether you like porn or not, it's about whether that matters of not. if you require other licensing terms than a creative commons contract can give you then write your own. i gladly give permission to people to use my work, but they have to ask first so i know what i'm being associated with. simple as that.

/matt