OT- is it ok to use 10 sec of music w/o copyright?

I don't remember how much of a song may be used before copyright infringement occurs.

I seem to remember one can use 10 (or is it 20 seconds?) of a song without worrying about copyright issues.

What are the laws governing using a very short piece of music in a movie or broadcast?

How much of the beginning of the song may be used?

Does it have to do with lyrics or just music?

Can one use something from the middle or the end also?

Thanks.

> I don't remember how much of a song may be used before copyright infringement occurs.

That's easy. None of it.

The only difference is how much you'll get fined or sued for.

> I seem to remember one can use 10 (or is it 20 seconds?) of a song without worrying about
> copyright issues.

Where'd you get that? That's not correct as far as I know. "Fair use" only applies to, say, using music in a party. There's no "fair use" in film and broadcast.

I suppose the only area where "using a little" applies is writing. You can quote a "The" from a screenplay and you won't get into trouble. And I'm pretty sure the Sopranos pilot didn't have to pay the producers of The Godfather, Part III for having Silvio quote "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in".

However, that's also because they're not using the actual Al Pacino soundbite from the film. If they were, then even one syllable of Pacino would have to be licensed.

> Does it have to do with lyrics or just music?

That's a different issue.

If you use the actual song recording, it's called master rights. You deal with the record company, which either paid for the recording sessions (studio time, engineers, producers, musicians, the performing artists themselves), or paid whoever had paid for the recording sessions for the rights to distribute the recorded music.

More important than master rights is sync rights. That has to do with the writing of the song, the publishing, words and composition. The record companies usually have nothing to do with this. You are dealing with the publishing company of whoever wrote the song -- not necessarily the recording artist whose name is on the record. It's called "sync rights" because you are paying for the right to use a composition in association (sync) with your own images.

So, for example, if you want to use "Hound Dog" in a film, there are two possibilities.

a) You're using Elvis Presley's famous version, so you have to pay for master rights for the actual Presley recording from Presley's record company (RCA), and the sync rights from Leiber/Stoller's publishing company for using their composition. For master rights, you could also do something music licensers do all the time, which is license the master rights to a much less famous version of the song. For example, a version of "Hound Dog" from an Elvis Presley live album would cost less than the famous studio version which was #1 for 11 weeks; or

b) You're paying your composer to put together a new recording of "Hound Dog". You pay to hire the musicians and singer and they sign a work-for-hire agreement turning over all rights to you. You still have to pay Leiber/Stoller's publishing company for sync rights, because you're recording their song -- lyrics and composition. But you no longer have to deal with Elvis Presley's record company, because you're not using their master recording at all.


www.derekmok.com

Copyright infringment occurs when you use ANY part of a song. You cannot use 1 second of it without paying for it.

Sorry man.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
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Actually most of the above advice is NOT correct when applied to documentary films, satires or "news". Fair use can apply in 4 distinct situations including profit making films/videos:
[www.centerforsocialmedia.org]

i stand by derek and shane's advice. anyone making documentaries knows what an uphill fight it is securing music rights, even if everybody and their dog suggests it falls under "fair use." ask a filmmaker who's tried to use a clip of anyone (even in a documentary) singing happy birthday. it ain't free.
many a filmmaker has been sued or threatened with litigation because they were given bogus advice that the first two bars/ten seconds/three notes or whatever is exempt. think your case falls under "fair use"? don't let us be the final arbiter -- ask a lawyer.

thomas
cubanhiphop.tv

Roxbury310,

If you used your real name, I'd tell my lawyer how to contact you and set you straight.

The website that you cite (centerfor social media) is often referenced as the final authority for "documentarians" trying to get to use something for nothing. I hate to burst your bubble, but the views expressed on that website are NOT SHARED BY THE STUDIOS WHO OWN THE MUSIC OR FILM. You can try get away with it , but there are plenty of lawyers just waiting to pounce on you.

"Fair use" is an extremely narrowly defined circumstance. It simply doesn't apply to most documentaries.


Mark

Oh, shucks!

I remember somebody used to do a radio show and they used to play the first 10 or 20 seconds of the top hits, and he'd segue from one song to another. It was reported in a newspaper article of the 70s that he didn't have to pay anything. That was his whole shtick as I remember.

That's where I read it was okay to do that. I also thought that one could do the same with trailers or music videos, but this is just my own conjecture.

Of course, what I'm hearing from you guys: things must've changed or as usual my memory is starting to play tricks on me.

Thanks for the heads up though...

... There is another related issue.

What if you take a piece of music and modify it to the point that it becomes yours. I remember Stanley Kubrick did this with the Strauss waltz that he used in 2001, A Space Odyssey.

I read that they sued him, but he won ... because he had changed it. It sounded the same, but it wasn't.

So the article went on to say that if someone was going to use that same waltz (from the movie) they had to get the right from Kubrick!

lol

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Stanford University Libraries' section on Copyright & Fair Use actually seem to support what I was saying:

[fairuse.stanford.edu]

Unless Vic is producing a show which is like Ebert & Roeper, where they play clips from a film in a show which is a review of the film, or he's teaching a class, or his video is being used as evidence in a court case, then it's not fair use. Teachers in classrooms have been photocopying poems and short stories from anthologies to use in classrooms for years. That particular use gets a pass under copyright law.

> What if you take a piece of music and modify it to the point that it becomes yours. I
> remember Stanley Kubrick did this with the Strauss waltz that he used in 2001, A Space
> Odyssey.

Ask Negativland. U2's record company sued them big. And I didn't feel at all sorry for them. "Modifying" someone's existing work is even worse, in most cases, since you are misrepresenting the work. The artist/copyright holders didn't give you approval to muck with their property. If somebody took your actress from your film and pasted her face onto a porn film, and then claimed that you can't get them for copyright infringement because they had "modified it to the point where it wasn't yours", would you be mollified?

It can work out just fine if you ask permission first. Dido gave Eminem permission to sample "Thank You" for "Stan", and even appeared in the video. And she sold three million records more, while Eminem scored a huge hit. But if Dido had said no, Eminem couldn't have released the recording.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks, Derek, for your comments. I appreciate the trouble you took to explain this issue thoroughly.

Your analysis of this issue is amazingly thorough. I'm convinced.

I thank you sincerely.

I never said fair use can be applied to most documentaries, or that you can't be sued. Anyone can sue anybody at any time for anything. No need to have your lawyer contact mine, I stand by the lawyers who are wrote the document I referenced. I've been making internationally broadcast docs for over 20 years, and of course we always TRY to get releases for everything. In 4 very specific situations fair use DOES apply, and the attorneys in the article also offer free or low cost legal defence in fair use cases. Did anyone actually read the article???

[www.centerforsocialmedia.org]

It was written or endorsed by just about every major organization in documentary film/video - so maybe your lawyer should get with it:

# Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers
# Independent Feature Project
# International Documentary Association
# National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture
# Women in Film & Video
* Arts Engine
* Bay Area Video Coalition
* CINE
* Doculink
* Electronic Arts Intermix
* Full Frame Festival
* Independent Television Service
* Kartemquin Films
* National Video Resources
* P.O.V./American Documentary
* University Film and Video Association
* Video Association of Dallas
* Women Make Movies

Yes, I read the article... again! Still have the same opinion.

Note that none of the organizations that endorse this "policy statement" are studios or copyright holders.

I stand by my comments that this document takes a very "liberal" approach to copyright law that is NOT shared by the actual copyright owners. Should an unsuspecting documentarian decide to follow this advice, you may very well end up in court. I doubt that the many organizations credited for supporting this document would offer to pay for your legal defense.

Mark

In hip hop the remix is alive and well but all of them have payed. except the one who use a single sound such as a cleanly isolated kick or snare. even a single note of a guitar.
no one owns a note or hit made by a common instrument.

back in 2004 this was pushed to the limit with ' the grey album '. in this case a dj friend of mine took a single album ( the beatles white album ) and sampled the entire thing into mostly single hits and a few 1-4 second samples. hey then made hip hop beats and put jayz's lyrics on it.

he was sued by the beatles. they argued that he had sampled so much from the album that it was obvious that it was thier music.

danger mouse argued fair use.

read more about the grey album here

the article does say definatively the outcome but in most many places you can still buy it.

and my friend hasn't payed a cent.

there is plenty of info out there about it.

""" What you do with what you have, is more important than what you could do, with what you don't have."

> > > Knowledge + Action = Wisdom - J. Corbett 1992 """"

the 2001 waltz does not count in any of this as it has NO copyright any longer. it is public domain.

the PERFORMANCE and/or RECORDING is under copyright.

you don't have to change the music. just re-perform yourself. is that a word?

I'm kinda with roxbury on this. it literally depends on the specific non-hypothetical situation. also just because a lawyer pounces does not mean the lawyer is 'correct'. pouncing itself can simply be a strategy. the act of a CIVIL lawsuit does not imply law breaking.


with all that said, filmman - no. also don't think that you can even screen at a film festival where no monies are exchanging hands. basically you can use the music and show it to yourself. in your house. that's it.
fp

> the act of a CIVIL lawsuit does not imply law breaking.

But a civil suit can stop a project dead in its tracks.

This topic has been revisited over and over. People always forget that the first act of a copyright lawsuit is an injunction against the film. Doesn't matter if you're right or wrong -- if it takes five years of litigation to prove that you didn't commit copyright infringement, you won't be able to do anything with the film while that's going on. That's why production companies and studios tend to make sure the film is airtight. You do not want a film to be "mostly obeying" copyright.

> it literally depends on the specific non-hypothetical situation

I think you're mistaken on this, Frank. The situation is clear: Can a filmmaker legally use a short part of a non-public domain music recording without permission from the copyright holders? The answer isn't "depends". It's "no". Let's not cloud up the issue -- I don't think it's healthy to learn copyright law based on "what you can get away with". I'm with Mark when he writes:

> I stand by my comments that this document takes a very "liberal" approach to copyright law
> that is NOT shared by the actual copyright owners.

That article also makes a crucial error: Copyright has nothing to do with censorship. If it did, First Amendment lawyers would be all over it. Copyright has to do with protecting intellectual property. This is the mistake most non-professionals make. It's not about the big bad government and studios clamping down and not letting you say what you want. It's about preventing you from saying what you want using means that don't actually belong to you. If you drove my car to New Mexico without my explicit permission, then you're stealing -- it's not a matter of violating your freedom of movement amongst the states. It's a matter of you violating my rights to my property while exercising your freedom of movement.

When I took a course with an entertainment lawyer focusing on copyright, he made this comment: "Copyright law in America wasn't designed to emphasize protecting the artist. It was designed to give more freedom." He goes on to comment that American copyright protection actually lasts shorter and has fewer provisals than, say, the French one. (I'm paraphrasing him; I don't have enough legal knowledge in the two arenas to compare) If I remember him correctly, he also brings up the French "droits d'auteur", which provides that the copyrighted works must be kept in the same spirit as the author originally intended -- a provisal the U.S. doesn't have.


www.derekmok.com

"if it takes five years of litigation to prove that you didn't commit copyright infringement, you won't be able to do anything with the film while that's going on"

that's actually my point. it may or may not be copyright infringement and it doesn't matter as per above. I can argue that "fair use" is as important as copyright protection. but as per above, it's rare that we ever find out if it was fair use or not.

in terms of studios bending over backwards. it has nothing to do with obeying but everything to do with the above. Studio legal departments have no interest (and why the heck would they) in copyright 'discussions'. they have interests in NO litigation. that would be from the legitimate to the "hey they read my thoughts through my protective tin foil hat" litigation.

let me be clear. 99.9% of what people that come HERE are talking/asking about DOES consititute infringement. I just have issue with the blanket:

The answer isn't "depends". It's "no".

it feels more accurate to say:

In REALITY it's always no. In theory, once in a blue moon, it depends. But who has time money or effort for theory?

fp

That's a preposterous statement, filmman --whatever modification Kubrick made, however slight, it's still Strauss. It doesn't matter if Kubrick toyed slightly with intervallic relationships, proposed some oddball harmonization, he wouldn't have gotten away with performance rights, publishing, etc.

On that note. I cut a show last year that included a pound of footage shot of Elvis in Memphis that has never been seen anywhere, all on a Portapak (one fitted with primes and a moded out sound pkg: it sounds good!). The bulk of it was a medley of hymns that were PD, but because Elvis "arranged" them, they were argued as Elvis' copyrighted music when we brought the material to the attorneys. (There are five attorneys working in this town, solely on EP's copyright issues.) In the end, we worked out a deal with them, using only a small amount of the performance(s).

BTW, this was a "documentary" and there was a ton of music licensing.