Music Copyright

[Black Lab]

This topic has been brought up many times, but clear answers have not been so plentiful.

Following is an exerpt from an article in Videomaker magazine:

"But what would the law be without loopholes? In the case of copyright law, there are a few that may help you. But before I get to those loopholes, let me suggest that you consider bellying up to the bar and requesting that the copyright holder allow you to use the work. The copyright holder may grant you the right to copy the music for very little or no money. It's worth asking. Just remember to get that permission in writing.

As for the loopholes, here's the first one: no work created before 1922 (movies, recordings, sheet music, etc.) can be under copyright. That's the magic date at which all previous registered copyrights have expired. So you can find old music books or musical scores, for example, and play the music on your piano or your guitar for your videos. You can't use a recent recording of old music, however, since the performers or their publishers would have rights to the copyright to their specific performance.

Here's another loophole: if you plan to use someone else's copyrighted work without permission, you can do so as long as your intent is to make a video for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research. That's called fair use. Unfortunately, wedding videos, school performances and entertaining scenarios do not generally fall within one of the categories above."

The entire article can be found here.

[sjj1805]

I have copied this to the existing thread
Music Copyright.

Rather than having a second thread going I shall lock this one.
The other one is already in our FAQ index.