Monday, October 01, 2012
Just A Song (Fully Cleared For Public Performance) At Twilight...
livedesignonline.com: Obtaining rights for the use of copyright music in theatre productions, both in the US and in the UK, can be a tortuous task. Increasingly, major labels want to negotiate on a per-show basis, but their frame of reference is often limited to film or television, and their awareness of the state of most theatre companies’ financial affairs is virtually nil.
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6 comments:
This is a fascinating article that I think every theatre practitioner should be aware of. So often people get in the mindset that they can do whatever they want that Copyright laws are forgotten. I understand that music can really help a show but every time I see music in a script I cringe. I've often wondered how much work producers and designer put into making sure that copyrights are enforced.
Copyright laws are such a pain in the ass! Not that I think it's a bad thing that they exist - I certainly don't. Musicians and artists need those laws to protect them against those who are truly attempting to be detrimental to the profits they are making from their work. However, many of this conflicts and sharing of rights between companies can make the entire process a headache and difficult to understand. There are some people who just won't have a clue what they are getting themselves into, and I have seen people get in trouble for doing something wrong by accident. Granted, there are plenty of lower-income companies who steal on purpose, and should be punished if they are discovered, but a better way to make the lines more clear would be appreciated.
Take this cautionary tale VERY seriously. Copyright law is incredibly nuanced and complex, as the author of this article points out, and is therefore usually overlooked. Sadly, our copyright law is so out of date that situations like calling an office to TELL them they own the copyright for a piece of music is not uncommon. But there are also instances where the owner might be in the audience. So you have to beware, but at times you have to draw a line. Every theater should make an effort to engage a copyright expert to advise them on these issues, either on a show by show basis or to create general guidelines.
On another note, I wish this article, or some other article, would go a bit more in depth about how exactly you secure copyright- where do you start the research, what do the negotiations look like, etc.
I found this article quite intriguing. Scotch and Soda is doing a musical in a month which we wanted to start work on over the summer. However it took us 4 months to get the script and we didn't get the right to use it until a few weeks after school started. I understand the need for copyright laws, but I think they could probably rewrite them to be on a more situational basis. Its absurd that they would use the same pricing for theater as they would for movies and the like, especially with the budgetary differences. It also seems a little silly that only using a few words can be worth so much money, I understand it when it is a large part of a song or a direct quote, but 8 words? or even just a reference? I know nothing about copyright law but now I kind of want to, I feel like they need to scaled back a little.
I find this quite shocking. I knew that many plays have to deal with copyright issues to place music in their shows, but what I didn't realize was that the royalties could rack up suck a price. In truth I find it a little preposterous. Music and theater are so closely linked that there should be an easier way to mix the two together. I understand that people want to be paid for the work they create but there needs to be a little more logic in it. Whistling a song in a shower should cost thousands of dollars. further more you would think that artists would be happy to some extent when their music was used in a show, it is publicity to some extent is it not. An musical artist would be benefitting by getting their music in a show because it increases the number of people who have occasion to hear it. I am not saying that they should receive and compensation, I just think that the cost of using a song shouldn't be so astronomical.
We talked about this a little in Sound mini. (Look how learnings are overlapping with each other. Imagine that!) It's definitely something any director, producer, and sound designer has to deal with a lot.
Dawson's Creek on Netflix has a different theme song than the original aired show, due to copywright laws and royalty rates. (It's been years and I'm still mad about this. It completely changes the tone of this flawless show.)
My weird television drama obsession aside, I know a sound designer ETC graduate, who gets paid to create a plethora of sounds. I asked him why a company would pay him to make a (for example) gunshot sound they could download online, and he said that he actually sells them the rights to the sound, and in many cases, companies would prefer to pay upfront and own a sound rather than continually pay usage fees.
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