Apr 26, 2011
Posted by Mike in Video Production
3 Comments
Music Licensing – Why Do I Have to Pay?
You’ve been working with a video production company on an on-line video about your company’s services. The shoot went well, the video editing is well underway, but all of the sudden, they’re being sticklers about something they call music licensing… I mean, I bought the MP3 of the latest number 1 hit, just use it… no one will know.
Caveat
I am not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV. This should not be construed as legal advice. Please consult an attorney for advice for your specific circumstances.
You Want Music With That?
When I do an estimate for a video, I always ask if the potential client wants music in the video. It’s a seemingly simple question, but it leads to a number of complexities. Basically, if you want to use music in your video, you’ll need to license that piece of music. This will cost you money, and no, we can’t “just pretend we forgot” to pay for it.
Musicians, songwriters, composers – they all work for a living, and have likely become accustomed to living in some sort of shelter and eating on a regular basis… so they should be paid for the work they produce. Yes we can get into an argument over the relative “evils” of record labels and industry groups, but in the end, I’m not dealing with the latest song from Lady Ga-Ga, I’m dealing with a piece of music written by someone who’s not making pant-loads of money from the biggest selling whatever this month.
Here’s my thinking on it: I hate (hate, HATE) doing a video without some sort of soundbed, whether it’s a song performed on actual musical instruments or just plinked out on someone’s Casio synth; Music adds a layer of polish to a video that can not be achieved through other means. So whether you commission a full score for your video, or use a royalty-free piece: if your video uses music, pay for it.
Kinds of Rights
Your video producer should be able to explain these in more detail as they relate to your video, but Broadcast Music International (BMI) has a great overview of the types of Copyright Licensing on their web site.
Generally speaking there are two kinds of licenses you need for using a piece of music in your video:
- A Mechanical License – This gives you the right to use a specific song from the publisher of that song. The money from this license is paid to the publisher, and a portion is paid to the song writer(s) through royalties.
- A Synchronization License – this gives you the right to use a specific recording of a specific song performed by a specific artist. The money from this license is paid to the publisher and a portion is paid to the recording artist(s) through royalties.
So if you want to use Telephone by Lady Gaga & Beyonce in your sales video, the producer will have to research the publisher, contact them and negotiate the Mechanical and Synchronization rights, and bill you for their time, as well as the licensing fees. If you want to use your nephew Melvin’s Bouzouki rendition of Telephone, that just needs Mechanical rights.
But there are all of these videos on YouTube of people lip-syncing songs, they all pay for rights? No, they don’t, but there’s a big difference in using a song to help sell your products, and a 14-year-old goofing off in front of her web cam. (Again, I’m not an attorney, and I don’t make up the rules, I just try and follow them.)
Your Options
Part of the reason you’re hiring a professional video production company is to handle the details of all of this licensing stuff. Maybe that specific recording of that specific song isn’t as important as you first thought after seeing the licensing fees. There are a number of other options available:
- Commissioning Music – Want something unique? Hire a composer/songwriter to write and perform a piece specifically for your video. It’s a fairly expensive way to go, but you can get exactly what you want musically, and keeps the composer well-fed.
- Rights-Managed Music – This category of music is (as far as I can tell) relatively new. Composers & songwriters produce a piece of music, record it, and allow a third-party company to license it for various purposes, geographic areas, and lengths of time. The quality of the music is generally pretty good, and puts the cost of licensing “real” music within the budgetary reach of most projects.
- Royalty-free Music – Don’t concentrate on the word “free”. Royalty-free music (also known as production music) is licensed over and over, and is usually sold as part of a library of music to video production companies. Royalty-free music has gotten a bad reputation ion the past as “fake” music because it is sometimes produced by a single person on a synthesizer specifically for bulk sales. I’ve used royalty-free music for a number of productions, and like much of the music on the radio these days, quality varies greatly. The advent of affordable, digital production has also increased the amount of high-quality royalty-free music available too.
So why can’t I just download an MP3 and use that? Well, that $0.99 you spent on the Lady Gaga/Beyonce recording of Telephone is actually just a license fee for you to listen to that song for your own enjoyment. (Read the End User License Agreement from iTunes for example.) It’s really no different than the old days when you would buy a CD/cassette/LP/8-track, you still only had the right to listen to any of it for your own enjoyment. Any reproduction or transmission required licensing.
So, in the end it comes down to: use a piece of music; pay the proverbial piper.
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