Butts In the Seats: Entertainment lawyer Gordon Firemark and Tamera Bennett recently did a podcast episode addressing some intellectual property and copyright issues which had been in the news. One of the problems they covered was the controversy over music licensing rights during Olympic skating and other routines.
7 comments:
I find it a little shocking that NBC is not responsible to clear the music for routines and instead that is left to the athletes to sort out. That feels a little unfair to those athletes who probably have other more important things to worry about while competing in the Olympics. They shouldn't have to become an expert in music clearance just so that they can perform. I don’t know what the budget is for the olympics, but it feels like maybe they should start to include clearing this music as part of that, especially because this article makes it sound like NBC is the one who started encouraging people to use non public domain music in the first place. I really hope that skaters don’t start using AI music, that would be really disappointing on all fronts if some giant network wasn't willing to pay artists for their work and instead chose to use fake AI knock offs.
This is so wild to me! In the big 2026, this should not be an issue! With the internet, copyright infringement has just skyrocketed. Artists have fewer and fewer ways to protect their intellectual property. I am not blaming these skaters at all, they have absolutely done their parts. They have been securing the proper level of rights that apply to THEIR sphere. NBC must take accountability and get the proper right for their sphere too! They can’t expect the athletes to secure rights for world wide broadcasting, when that has nothing to do with them. I am honestly not sure why this has been such an issue, when it seems so clear cut to me. This is so disappointing because figure skating is such a unique art that combines athletics, music, costumes, and choreography to create something so unique. Fans of the sport should be able to enjoy recordings of past programs with no issue! This should have never fallen to something that the athletes need to worry about, and I am sure this is all because NBC does not want to spend the time and money needed to secure said rights.
I consider myself a D1 Olympic figure skating fan, and I find it absolutely bananas that there isn’t a more streamlined process for the skaters to acquire licensing for music. It’s a hard battle to fight because they don’t need licensing before they go to the Olympics, but getting licensing potentially years in advance on the off chance that they may go to the Olympics complicates the process. The piece about skaters potentially using AI music to skate to is insane to me. To me, that removes so much of the beauty and artistry that comes from figure skating as an art form. It’s a synthesis of dance, athleticism, and musicality, and I think it would really take the point out of it if the music could be AI. For most skaters, their music has some sort of specific meaning, and a routine is supposed to be completely intertwined with the music–it’s not supposed to be meaningless spinning and jumping on ice. AI music would, in my opinion, remove a lot of the care and artistry.
The rights of music used in the Olympics, particularly with the figure skating routines was something I had been wondering about. Back during the winter Olympics, a friend of mine and I had a conversation about how the athletes are able to license the music they use, and neither of us really had any sort of good answer. I know that in some cases, artists are really excited when their music is used in routines. One example of this is Alysa Liu, who used the song “promise” by the artist Laufey in her short program. After this performance at a concert Laufey brought Alysa Liu on stage with her. For her the fact that a popular athlete used her song in the Winter Olympics was a valuable opportunity, as I’m sure the song spiked in popularity afterwards. The differences also in obtaining the rights for normal competitions versus the ones that are televised internationally must be crazy. I also cannot stand the idea of AI music, and I'm sure most of the artists and athletes would agree.
The fact that the proposed solution here was to use AI generated music is insane to me. That is so much worse for everyone involved. I’m sure there’s money issues involved, but shouldn’t the artist/producer want their music to be played at the Olympics? I also don’t see why the artists should be responsible for figuring out the rights, they certainly have more pressing matters on their hands to focus on. And they definitely shouldn’t have to worry about being named in a lawsuit after performing in the Olympics. I saw a story about a skater who did a minion performance during this Olympics. Last minute there was a concern about the copyright, but it seemed like because he went viral on tiktok, he was able to get the rights. That step shouldn’t be necessary. These athletes are doing really cool things and rights to music shouldn’t have to be a factor. If it is, I definitely think that NBC or someone else could assign a person to figure that out for the athletes.
i’ve always been confused about copyright and copyright laws and this didn’t help at all. I thought that since it was the Olympics that people were just like OK with them using the music because it’s really good advertisement it’s really good marketing because the entire world sees the Olympics, I didn’t realize the day had to get the right specifically NBC had to get the rights. And I think that it’s odd that NBC is being like flaky doesn’t really wanna spend the time or the money to secure these things. They’re the broadcasting service that the Olympics is on. They should be the one tell responsible. I understand that Olympic athletes make a lot of money, but they make that money through athletics not through copyright law not through going to court and settling infringement claims got through doing paperwork and it’s weird that there’s no like process for these athletes, especially some of them were so young and have really no way to do this other than for their kosher to do it for them or for them. what if they end up like not going to the Olympics? Or if they ended up going in the place with someone like last minute, how do you get the rights in that situation? It takes years and assume to get the rights
This was such an interesting read since I agreed so much until the suggested alternative is using AI music. I think the better alternative here would be helping athletes get the rights to the music they are performing to, or do it on their behalf. I think this expectation puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on athletes, to both appeal to a certain audience but then also have the hassle of needing to source their own music and the rights to it on top of all else they are stressing over. Additionally, using recognisable licensed music just to appeal to a younger generation has seems like a very capitalistic approach- hear me out. The first thing that comes to mind is the minion themes at this year’s olympics. Yes it was fun and playful, it also served as promotion for the new movie coming out. Not to say it’s bad, but this could evolve from friendly competition into using these athletes as the face of a brand- which we already see quite often.
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