Who thinks it a coincidence that the day Ellen announces her new role as American Idol judge, her show is sued by several record companies?
True, they were in discussions with the show’s producers for months about the lack of production licenses for music used on the show.
But, her show’s bank skyrocketed with that announcement.
What does that mean to you? It means you should brush up on music licensing law — because if you skirt the law now, you might become an attractive target as a defendant in the future if you ever come into some cash.
We all know not to download illegal music (hopefully), so when is this realistically ever going to affect us?
Ever make a home movie or photo montage and sync it to your music? Guess what, that’s actually a legal gray area. Even on your own computer with your own music for your own private viewing. A sync license covers the use of music synced to photos or video.
Most likely that will never bite you on the butt. Gray area simply means you could be sued, but it’s doubtful that the recording companies would actually win. They could make you rack up thousands of dollars in legal fees in the process, though.
As I was recently told by a music executive, the recording industry doesn’t sell as many CD’s or records any more. Their money comes from licensing and lawsuits.
What about when you show that same movie to others in a public venue – say a wedding reception, funeral home, or family reunion? Now it’s no longer a gray area – it’s flat out illegal.
Most funeral homes will no longer allow you to bring in a homemade photo montage with your own music. They know it’s illegal. That’s why they offer you their own premium photo montage service with a premium price. They don’t want to be sued.
Reception halls have been slow to adopt the same policy. With any luck, they will continue to avoid lawsuits.
Oftentimes, you’ll hear people say, “it’s fair use of music I already own.” Wrong. The recent Tenenbaum case in Massachusetts greatly restricts the definition of “fair use”.
In fact, if you look at your iTunes user agreement, your content is for personal use. You might be able to get away with stretching your personal use to include syncing the music to photos and showing it to family and friends. But, I’m no lawyer.
The fact is, that the recording industry will probably never look at any video montage you produce and show to your family. But, if your family winds up on some reality show and that montage is rebroadcast, both the reality show and your family can become defendants in a legal case.
So what are your options? Royalty free music are tracks that you can legally use without paying royalties per use to the recording industry.
The quality of this music ranges from stuff my 2 year old could produce to high quality soundtracks. The prices range from free to $500 and up (per song per usage).
Here are some companies which offer a good selection of royalty-free music:
- The Music Bridge caters to independent film studios, non-profits, etc.
- Freeplay offers a wide range of songs with modest rates
- RoyaltyFreeMusic.com offers a limited assortment of high quality free royalty-free tracks
Another option is the more adventurous route. Search out independent recording studios in your city. Contact them about obtaining a sync license for their artist’s work. If they are small enough, they’ll be happy to hear from you. This can usually be done quite affordably.
If you are musical, you can use a program like Garageband to create your own music loops on your computer. I list this as a last resort as it could turn into one of those should-have-been-easy-but-really-took-80-hours projects.
In summary, it’s somewhat, quite possibly, illegal to sync your own music to your own photos/video and show them in a public venue. Unfortunately, the recording industry has set up no legal way for you to use popular music in a photo or video montage.
This is similar to the days when you knew it was illegal to download music, but there was no legal way to do it. Along came iTunes, and the record companies suddenly had another avenue of income. And we now had a legal way to download music.
If the recording industry were smart, I know it’s asking a lot, they would also open up this avenue of income by offering sync licenses to consumers.
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