Music in films

[miker]

You will be infringing copyright. Go straight to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect ?200.

Of course, there's no such thing as bad publicity ....

IANA

[will88]

Ah...

So what's my best option when it comes to adding music to my films (that isn't going to get me sued)?

[richard.fisher]

This really should be a sticky, as it seems to come up about once a month. Without permission you cannot use someone else's material. I beleive they don't even need to have gone to the trouble of copyrighting it, they just need to be able to demonstrate that if there was a copyright, they would own it. By the same token I don't belive it's absolute that the permission they give is in writing, but of course it makes it very difficult indeed to demonstrate they gave permission without something written down.

Of course the law only exists in as far as it is enforced. If you put out a five minute short on google videos, that had a sample of a green day track in it, you would technically be breaking the law. But it's very (very very) unlikely indeed that green day's label would go to the trouble of sueing you. At the very worst you might get a reprimanding e-mail, but i doubt it.

Disclaimer: as Nigel has said before me 'I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.'

[will88]

Hey,

After showing our first short film to several small audiences, myself and the co-director are looking into putting it out on the internet.

However, for the music in our film we used excerpts several tracks from existing film soundtracks (notably, About Schmidt, The Theory of Flight and the latest Wallace and Gromit film) and were wondering what the copywite implications of this might be?

This may seem like a pretty stupid question, but this is our first film so we're pretty naive to how these things work. Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Will.

[eidde]

The sure fire easiest way to ensure you dont
infringe music copyright is to get someone to
compose and write the music for you (or do it yourself). Either that or write - send an email to
the composers of the tracks you have used - outline
the film, outline how the music is used, outline
where the film will be seen/shown - and ask for their permission.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 10, 2006 05:13 AM: Message edited by: eidde ]</font>

[richard.fisher]

Originally posted by eidde:
send an email to the composers of the tracks you have used - outline the film, outline how the music is used, outline where the film will be seen/shown - and ask for their permission.

<font color="#a62a2a"><font size="1">[ July 10, 2006 05:13 AM: Message edited by: eidde ]</font></font>

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Have you ever had a reply? I haven't.

[eidde]

yeah I have, 100% success rate - did it twice.
These weren't 'Big' names BTW.
I looked up the bands website and contacted them as directly as possible.
Always best to try and contact a direct member of the band rather than a manager or their pr.

Ive also contacted a lot of musicians through http://www.archive.org
True these people have put creative commons licencing on their work, but Ive found them all to be really helpful and open to using their stuff - for just about anything, even offering to compose an original soundtrack, or re-mix their tune for my film.

But personally I prefer to work with people I know/can meet than through emails over the web. That way you can get together and talk the music through over a flask of cider or 6.
Also means there will be another bum on seat at the Premier ;-)