Is licence needed?

Knockieranlady

I am putting together a DVD of a recent event in the local area. I will be using music on it that is copyright. the dvd will be sold to people who were at the event approx 50 dvds at €20 each. Of this I will receive €10. If I need a licence to use the music, who do i contact and how much will it cost. I want to do everything above board as I hope to get into this area in the future. The DVD will not be sold in shops or general release, only to people who are in it. Any advice will be gratefully received.

rip2roar

Could cost you alot.I mean thousands sometimes.

The OP

Knockieranlady wrote:

I am putting together a DVD of a recent event in the local area. I will be using music on it that is copyright. the dvd will be sold to people who were at the event approx 50 dvds at €20 each. Of this I will receive €10. If I need a licence to use the music, who do i contact and how much will it cost. I want to do everything above board as I hope to get into this area in the future. The DVD will not be sold in shops or general release, only to people who are in it. Any advice will be gratefully received.

Don't bother. Just sell it. It's too smalltime to worry about at this stage.

monkeyfudge

You'll need to contact the record label directly.

It really will cost a fortune and some tracks aren't possible to get at all.

Perhaps have a look at something like http://www.freeplaymusic.com which has a simple licensing system and rate card in place.

There is also plenty of open source music out there on the web which you can freely use under the creative commons license.

Freelancer

It really will cost a fortune and some tracks aren't possible to get at all.

The are two responses here.

1) the "don't bother they won't notice". Is actually a fairly honest and pramatic approach. Provided a copy never, ever reaches someone from IMRA, or a music label. If you are doing this off your own bat, this "event" isn't paying you or getting cash from this, and they get hold of a copy, you'll be sued. Period. Record companies are sueing poor bastards over their Itunes collections they're extremely paranoid and aggressive at the moment. If the event is getting cash or paying you. They'll be sued as well. Sod it if its a charity, or your parish, they'll sue, and you could bankrupt them. A friend runs an amateur theatrical group in letrim and wanted ot put on a stage version of clerks, for charity, and wrote to viewaskew and asked permission to use the script and got cease and desist letters from both Miramax and Kevin Smith. They take this shít serious.

2) I've done it. Or rather more accurately I've worked on a job and we got away with it. And it was broadcasted. It was a UK piece, broadcasted, and there was a relelatively obscure B side from a pretty much non mainstream artist. We couldn't get clearance for on specific track, and just fuged handing in the music returns and claimed we'd used a different track from the same label. But it was a commisioned documentary and may stations have fair usage contracts with the music labels.

Not lying to you, you run the risk. If you try and approach the labels you will either get the brush off or get insane quotes. If you try and fly under the raider you may get an unpleasant summons in a few weeks/years.

Hmmm I don't know the piece the situation or the idea, but usually on this kind of amateur production music is used like a crutch, to pump up production values and as a self referential nod to the audience, is this the case here?

Lump

Just find some free music, it'd be too risky not to get clearance, and probably too expensive to get clearance.

John

Devinho

Lump wrote:

Just find some free music, it'd be too risky not to get clearance, and probably too expensive to get clearance.

John

Either that or go direct to the artists, they may be more open to your proposition.

Freelancer

Devinho wrote:

Either that or go direct to the artists, they may be more open to your proposition.

Anyone serious' music will be owned by their label. I worked on a documentary where we wanted to use "like a prayer" by Madonna. Turns out theres a dispute with Sony over who owns it, and we couldn't use it.

Knockieranlady

Thaks everyone for the advice, still not sure what to do, some of the video has scenery of the local area so I was going to put instrumental music on that, and another part is panning around tables at a function, there is too much background noise from all the people chatting so more music was going over that. think probably the best way to go is to use royalty free music, any advice on where to find it?

monkeyfudge

Well, as I've said something under the creative commons license would probably be your best bet.

Have a look at a site like http://www.jamendo.com/

And depending on the type of creative commons license you might be able to use a piece of music without charge.

Knockieranlady

Thanks monkeyfudge, I will check out the link now, this definitely seems the safest way to go, thanks again