Jack Stevens Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 joerogers1970 wrote: I need to chime in here. As a songwriter, recording engineer and music producer, I earn a living by people buying my music.It is beyond me how people spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on lights, controllers, extension cords and power but refuse to spend a friggin dollar to legally purchase a piece of music.We're talking about what, 5 pieces of readily available music. The guy who wrote the sequences told you the artist and song title and still, it's nothing but please send me the audio files. It's for personal use so it should be free.I don't show up at your business saying that I should have something for free becuase it's for personal use. Why don't you ask for the LOR hardware and software for free being that it's for personal use only? What, it doesn't work that way? Maybe I should go to my local car dealership and ask for a car for nothing. Not even for cost. It's for personal use only.Buy the friggin copyrighted songs people. In 25 years they'll be public domain and you can probably get them for nothing.joerogers1970 -Agreed. I've been buying my songs, prefer them on CD as a way to prove I have a legitimate copy, where possible. I've been trying to get a copy of a TV theme song (Addams family) that matches the timing of the sequences I've downloaded, but tha't been the extent of my downloading without purchasing. I believe the copyright has expired on that, anyway. I did have one Christmas song that I downloaded and was sequencing. I had to adjust the timing when I got the CD, but the rip off the CD is much clearer than the version I downloaded, so it's worth the effort.What works have you been involved in? Anything that would sequence well? And where can we legally acquire it?I've also asked this question of several labels, and never got a response. You may not know the answer to this. How would someone legally acquire a license to use a song in a video to be posted to a site such as YouTube? Not for commercial purposes, just so the video isn't removed or silenced? Any idea if it would be legal for a co-op to buy such a license? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joerogers1970 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 Jack,I' don't have any holiday music out there per say but I've worked with acts like Kiss, Guns and Roses, Bette Midler. I've written and perfromed on numerous TV/Radio jingles, industrial's and the like.I don't solely make a living on royalties, far from it. I maybe get a years worth of car payments out of it each year but it does contribute to my bottom line.http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/music-licensing.htmthis is a pretty good article on licensing music. Unfortunately, the biggies like ASCAP and BMI are the main avenues for licensing. In order for you to be able to show some on YouTube for example, you would have to acquire a license (which would be based on the total number of expected listeners) and provide proof of the license to Youtube. It would be far easier for Youtube to work out a licensing deals with the publishers which they are doing. In fact, Warner music and YouTube are close to a deal to allow Youtube to "broadcast" music from the Warner Catalog.What you need to ask yourself when broadcasting music is this - Who benefits from it. If you're advertising a service (say holiday lighting), then you are benefiting from it as the business owner. In the case of YouTube, YouTube is the benefactor as they sell advertising.I've posted slide shows of kids birthdays and such that were synced to music and had the music stripped out. I own a legal copy of the song however, me owning a CD doesn't give me the right to broadcast that song over an electronic medium to other folks.For playing the song as part of your show to the few dozen extra folks that may be looking at your house in person can be likened to playing the CD at a party.Being that you are in essence re-recording the song and braidcasting it is where the issue takes place. Here is an excerpt from the FAQ at ASCAP.com5. I want to record or videotape a song or record. Do I need permission, and how do I obtain it?If you want to make copies of, or re-record an existing record, tape or CD, you will probably need the permission of both the music publisher and the record label. A music publisher owns the song (that is, the words and music) and a record company owns the "sound recording" (that is, what you hear... the artist singing, the musicians playing, the entire production).If you plan to hire your own musicians and singers and create an original recording of a copyrighted song, then you need the permission of only the music publisher.ASCAP does not license recording rights. Recording rights for most publishers are represented by the Harry Fox Agency:Harry Fox Agency, Inc.711 Third AvenueNew York, N.Y. 10017Tel: (212) 370-5330Fax: (212) 953-2384www.harryfox.comThe name and address of the record company should appear on the record label. The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade organization for record labels, can provide you with more information on the rights of record labels.Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)1020 19th St. NW, Suite 200Washington, D.C. 20036Tel: (202) 775-0101Fax: (202) 775-7253www.riaa.com You could probably do the legwork, contact these folks, tell them what you're doing, provide a copy of the final product that you will broadcast and what your anticipated total audience or viewcount would be and assuming you don't mind the red tape, they would probably just give you a license for the work. My guess is that it would take a while and a lot of back and forth though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joerogers1970 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 BTW - Do I agree with all of this, not too much. Do I think that you would need a broadcast license so that you can post some videos online for friends and family to see, not at all but unfortunately, the practice of "sharing music" is so widespread that it has cost the "industry" billions of dollars. Publishers and record companies have been on the majority side of that but the folks that work to create the music have been hit hard too.Someone asked me what the breakdown would be for who gets paid what when you download a song, here's my best guess and it is negotiable for each rcord co, publishing house, band, etc...$1.00 spent on iTunes:$.20 to iTunes$.12 to ASCAP/BMI/Etc...$.20 to record CompanyThe remaining $.48 would be split according to the contracts that are in place between the songwriter, recording artist, musicians, managers, producers, etc... The songwriter would probably get the largest percentage but there are usually at least 15 people who get paid out of this and possibly hundreds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Stevens Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 joerogers1970 wrote: You could probably do the legwork, contact these folks, tell them what you're doing, provide a copy of the final product that you will broadcast and what your anticipated total audience or viewcount would be and assuming you don't mind the red tape, they would probably just give you a license for the work. My guess is that it would take a while and a lot of back and forth though.I may try doing this again, using the information you provided. They did not repsond to my web-based form input requests.What you put there is why many commercial displays are done months/years in advance, to give the 'red tape' time to work its way through. I don't think posting a Christmas display in June or July would be that effective, although it would probably take that long to get all the permissions done.I was just wondering if they'd be open to a co-op or something similar; a group of light show enthusiasts willing to pay a licensing fee up front and signing an agreement that they would not use the music in any negative manner, so they could get the video on-line while the display is actually up. I would think that the anticipated physical display audience would be in the low thousands at most, and more realisitically in the hundreds. I have no idea about the YouTube or Vimeo audience as of right now.Somehow, though, with getting 150 to 200 DMCA violation complaints per day like I do, I don't think they'd really be open to that. Many of those complaints include a demand for money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joerogers1970 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 What do you do that you have to deal with 200 DMCA complaints/day? Do you work for a hosting providor?It may be possible to form a co-op of sort that could bulk license material. This would only be valid for folks that post videos of their personal displays online. There will probably be some overhead with the hosting site (Youtube, vimeo, etc...) being given a copy of the license, user ID's of members of the Co-op, etc... Folks that host their own videos on their own sites could simply display a link to the licensing authority or something like that.For folks that are just broadcasting the music in front of the house (or via low power FM), I would doubt that the RIAA will be showing up. If they did, All that you would need to do is show them the CD and/or license from itunes or whatever. It's still a personal use thing (again, not unlike playing a CD at a party).As for contacting people, pick up the phone. Call the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC office closest to you and see what happens. For a bigger headache, you could make a list of artisits that you want to use and call their management companies individually and get permission directly from the artist and record company (as the artist owns the song, and the record co probably owns the recording).It is a very tangled web that exists between many organizations that are either in competition with each other or really don't like each other. Such is life with poorly written copyright and performance rights laws. Again, I don't agree with the level of BS that needs to happen but I do firmly believe that the people that were responsible for creating the performance do deserve to get paid for their work. I'm not a fan of the RIAA, ASCAP, SESAC, Record labels, etc.. but they're here (for now).An alternative is to work with public domain music (http://www.pdinfo.com/listPDsongs/PDChristmasSongs.htm) or work with independant artists (Judy Pancoast - House on Christmas Street). If you could find an artist willing to perform the song and a studio willing to record a PD song, you could take the midlemen out of the equation. Who knows, you may be able to tailor things a little bit more to your liking (tempo, key, etc...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Stevens Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 I'm a network engineer/system admin for a telecommunications company that provides broadband and other Internet access to a few million people. Being a Jack of all trades, and a master of a few, I know how to correlate a timestamp and IP being complained about with a radius log entry showing the corresponding broadband connection. So, our legal department forwards many of the complaints to me to identify "who" is doing the peer-to-peer file share. It's amazing how quickly some of the DMCA violation companies can detect when someone running P2P software comes on line; some times it's just a matter of seconds. It's not my only duty, but AUP is a major one.It's interesting that you mention Judy Pancoast. I have her permission to do postings of any sequencing I do to her songs, as long as I send her the links to those postings. My wife saw a YouTube display of "The House On Christmas Street" and I was told that I'm doing it as well.I'll work on the co-op idea, but we're going through merger woes right now, and my available time is limited.DISCLAIMER: Any statement of law I make is accurate to the best of my ability, but up to verification. Any opinion I state is my own, and not that of my employer or any civic or social organization to which I may belong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joerogers1970 Posted October 2, 2009 Share Posted October 2, 2009 I feel for ya Jack. I remember having to sync firewall logs with application logs and such to figure out what certain folks were doing. I now work for a software firm that has some log analysis and correlation software but I'm not in sales so I won't hit you up with a pitch.I have a very strong feeling that the copyright and IP laws in the US will be changing in the next several years. It's become far too expensive to properly enforce so I would think that there will be a bit more wiggle room in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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