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Using an artists music..... Paying for a track

A

Absolution_Films

Hi Guys,

I will try and explain my situation as best I can,

I have recently produced a short promotional film for an important client. The original brief was that the finished video was to be distributed privately amongst the company and wouldnt enter the public domain.

So I edited the film and as I knew it was staying private somewhat, I used a track from a national recording artist in the USA. I sent the film to them and they absolutely loved it and now wanted to put the film online and make it public, I obviously mentioned about the track and not having rights to it, they wanted to proceed anyway and upload it to YouTube, they uploaded it and EMI blocked it straight away as I knew would happen.

I told them I could re edit with some royalty free music, which I did.

They have now come back to me and said they want to use the original song and video still because they think it perfectly conveys the mood and approach they were going for.
They are asking if I can pay a one off fee to use the track or if there are any ways around it like using a cover version of the track?

Just wondering if any audio people have the best idea of approaching this problem?
 
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Absolution_Films said:
Just wondering if any audio people have the best idea of approaching this problem?
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Deep pockets is the only approach.

If it's EMI, you are going to have to pay them a licence fee to use their recording, expect this to be seriously expensive, at least in the tens of thousands and possibly well into the hundreds of thousands of £s, depending on the artist/song.

If you make a cover of the song you'll still need a licence from the composition/arrangement copyright holder, just hope that's not EMI again! Although you will have to factor in the cost of the musicians, recording studio and producer costs, this route is likely to be cheaper, providing the composition/arrangement copyright holder doesn't mind you making a cover version.

Either way it's going to be a lot of money. The cover option will be cheaper but you may not get what your client expects and almost certainly won't be hassle free.

G
 
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Hi

Thanks for your reply!

I actually contacted EMI Publishing today and had a long chat with them, they want to quote me £2000 for a years licence.
I stated the video is non profit and im not even getting paid to produce it. BUt i dont think that will matter unfortunately.

The client has even offered to link the track so people can purchase it.

£2000 is a ridiculous sum of money.... and they wonder why people pirate these days?

What frustrates me most is that people can upload crap to youtube and use a song and it doesn't get picked up, but when you try and do things the right way and with the artist being relatively unknown here and you would think they would like the exposure... you get penalised for it.

Oh well guess its royalty free loop music for me! haha
 
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Be very careful...you can have a lawsuit. Get all applicable licences and copyright holdings. You need deep pockets or you can go to creative commons and look for royalty free tracks.
 
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Absolution_Films said:
£2000 is a ridiculous sum of money....
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Yes, to be honest I'm shocked too. A national recording artist under the EMI label, I thought it would be way more expensive than £2k. I was expecting a bare minimum of £10k and probably more than 10 times the £2k they've quoted you!

It's entirely feasible EMI spent $5k to record, produce and master the track you want to use and possibly more when you factor in marketing and other costs, yet they've only asked you for £2k. £2k is almost certainly a bargain and you're complaining and wondering why people pirate?!

I'm wondering on the other hand, how people can be so stupid as to believe that expensive, high quality products should just be given away for nothing or next to nothing!

Seesh!

G
 
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I completely see your point about recording artists needing to recoup costs but at the same time I personally feel in this current climate with media, we all need to work together.

Im not expecting to pay £10 but say they quoted me £500 i would definitely consider it... For that they get a sum of cash and promotion of their track to a wide audience that may have not heard of it or them before...

I think there must be a happy medium, if film and music work together on every run of the business ladder, it will benefit us all.

I guess as well im just not keen on royalty free loop music.

Im going to look into unsigned artists
 
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Absolution_Films said:
..at the same time I personally feel in this current climate with media, we all need to work together.

Im not expecting to pay £10 but say they quoted me £500 i would definitely consider it...
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So, you think the solution in "this current climate" is to create a product for say $5000 and then sell the licence for that product for £500? If they sell a licence to you for one year, that means they cannot sell an exclusive licence to anyone else during that period. Your suggestion sounds like the recipe for bankruptcy to me.

G
 
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Ah ok, this is where my ignorance kicks in....

If they sell me the licence for £2000 no one else can sue that track for the next year is what you are saying?

I was purely meaning with the £500 comment that whoever wants to use the track must pay £500 for the rights... for example if 10 companies pay £500 each they cover their £5000 costs.

Referring to the original post i made, im not looking for exclusive rights to the song. Just the ability to use it?
 
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What APE means is that an "exclusive" license is worth much much more and them giving you a "non exlusive" license negates their ability to sell an "exclusive" license since... well... it wouldn't be exclusive!
I'm also surprised they only want 2k for the song... That artist must be doing really badly at the moment for it to be so cheap.
 
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Hepabst has a good point there, it's something you get -all the time- on TV. Ever felt "oh I feel like I recognise that song" but you don't? Often it's because the brief for that song was "I want something that sounds like X song". I've worked with TV music libraries before and that was the most common brief type.
 
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Absolution_Films said:
If they sell me the licence for £2000 no one else can sue that track for the next year is what you are saying?
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MetalRenard was absolutely correct in his reply to your question.

To put this all this into perspective: Roughly 14 years ago I was working on a major TV drama series in the UK. Each episode was 4 hours long (2 nights at 2 hours each), the first episode attracted 11.9 million viewers, which for our American colleagues, represented nearly a fifth of the UK population. In the second episode the director wanted to use about 20 secs of a well known artist's song, just quietly in the background, playing out of a dukebox during a pub scene. The record label charged £50,000 for the non-exclusive licence!

Hepabst's suggestion probably represents the cheapest option, next to sourcing free use music from the net or paying a relatively small fee for commercial library music. But, you're not going to get anywhere near the same sound quality on a recording costing a hundred or two as an EMI released recording which probably cost 20+ times more. Also, the "sound-alike" song can sound vaguely similar to the original but too close to the original and you are running into the intellectual property (copyright) of the composer again!

To be honest, using a commercial recording in your edit in the first place was a mistake. Even for private use, regardless of the fact you thought EMI would never find out about it, you still technically broke copyright law. That mistake is now going to cost you one way or another because your client has that song/edit in their heads and any solution you come up with (except for paying the £2k) will likely cause some level of disappointment. Not something you ever want your clients to feel about your work!

G
 
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Hi APE,

I completely take on board your comments, and yes it was a mistake in the first place to use the track.

Basically the client is a very good friend and I filmed an event for his organisation and he just wanted a short video to commemorate the event, it was going to be distributed amongst maybe 5-10 people within his company, it was all done for free.

I obviously know about copyright law and know about using music for commercial use, but i guess in my naivety and for the purpose of this video I felt it would be ok this time.

I have a video production company and every time but this one I have used stock music. I think its a bit unfair to stand on a pedestal and say I've broken the law... have you never burned a CD for a mate? Showed a movie to a group of people?

As soon as I found out they wanted to take this tiny project and make it into a bigger thing is the point I knew I had to make a choice pay for the track or re-edit.

Subsequently I cant afford to use the track, the client/friend fully knows the situation and I shall re edit in my spare time like I did before... for free.

And learn from the experience. :)
 
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Zensteve said:
People don't pirate music to avoid paying a £2000 licencing fee for a single song's commercial use. :rolleyes:
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Oh come on.... Ive found this forum very informative in the past and it has helped me out a great amount... including posts from you steve but I posted originally in the hope this community could help me out not pick apart everything I have written....

I thought this forum was more than that...
 
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Absolution_Films said:
Oh come on.... Ive found this forum very informative in the past and it has helped me out a great amount... including posts from you steve but I posted originally in the hope this community could help me out not pick apart everything I have written....

I thought this forum was more than that...
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I would hope people post what they're willing to stand by.

Look, man. You were off to a great start. You've raised a very interesting topic. One that should be discussed, and it's very relevant to a large percentage of the indi filmmakers on this forum.

Does the music industry need to change it's licencing practices? Sure. Will they eventually? Probably. I mean, just look at SAG. Try legally getting a SAG actor in your lo-budget short-film or feature five years ago, and you'd be SOL. Today there's more than one type of agreement available to make this extremely posible, and in some cases you don't even have to pay the SAG actors! Yes, change is possible and more industries need to find that new media middle ground. The music industry hasn't found their happy place yet.

Just don't slam the brakes on your own rolling train by suddenly introducing non-sequitar, hyperbole & a classic red herring out of the blue. It does nothing to help your argument, and yeah... people will notice. I'm not "picking apart" what you've just written. I'm reading everything, and calling out the BS.

At any rate, I hope the thread will get back on track. For what it's worth, I'd like to see new licencing options out there, as well.
 
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Absolution_Films said:
I think its a bit unfair to stand on a pedestal and say I've broken the law... have you never burned a CD for a mate? Showed a movie to a group of people?
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What I've done in the past is irrelevant and has no baring on the fact that you knowingly broke copyright law. I've personally never found using someone else's intellectual property (without permission) to be gratifying and I've also seen that doing so often has a nasty way of coming back and biting you in the a*se, sometimes in unforeseen or unexpected ways.

In this particular case you haven't lost much; EMI is not trying to sue you and your client is a good friend who's being very understanding. So, you can just chalk this up as a useful learning experience. But there is no cheap and perfect solution to the situation you've placed yourself in.

G
 
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