Licensing? Music? Where do I start? 3

[Pigster14]

I have something I would like to start on the side. I would like to take home photos and combine it with music to make slide shows, memory book on cd, basically. However, curious how buying the music clips and then putting them on the cd/dvd and re-selling it as a package works.
Especially if I buy a song once, use it multiple times and profit from each, do I have to buy the song as many times as I write it to a cd?
Looking into what I need. Don't know where to start.

Thanks in advance.

 

[johnwm]

Contact the Performing Rights Society (

http://www.prs.co.uk/)

for the UK. There must be an equivalent in other countries (Google should find them)

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[chiph]

In the US, there's two:
BMI (

http://www.bmi.com)

and ASCAP (

http://www.ascap.com)

Chip H.


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[Pigster14]

Thank you for the information it was very helpful.

 

[boxtyman]

For France it's

http://www.sacem.fr

though you can go via prs in GB who have deals with most EU countries.
Good luck.You could also use music +50 yrs ols for which there are no rights in most cases.

 

[clarkin]

You could also try contacting local bands / singers and offer them a deal where you get use of their music for free and they get a mention on your product.

You might get better/more unique sounds and at a budget price!

Posting code? Wrap it with code tags: [ignore]

[/ignore][code]CodeHere

[ignore][/code][/ignore].

 

[Pigster14]

That is a neat idea. Thanks....I know a few musicians.

 

[chiph]

Yeah, I fooled around a bit with GarageBand on the Mac to produce some sounds for the client's app. They decided to go with one of the other developers who recorded himself talking into his cell-phone.
{shrug} whatever.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[torandson]

Pigster14,
Whether you have to pay a per-use royalty or residual to a music copyright owner or not depends on where and from whom you get the music.

Some companies (mine, for example) produce what is sometimes called 'rights-managed' product. These music products are licensed and sold independently of performing rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI by means of a rights management agreement directly between the purchaser and the copyright owner.

Such products are similar in some ways to purchasing a CD containing clip art. Much of this that you might see in your local computer store comes only with the right to include the images in your business advertising, but not the right to include the images in salable product or product packaging, which is not what you would need in this case. There is, however, also higher-end clip art, fonts, etc., that you can purchase specifically for use in saleable product, where you pay a flat one-time fee for a nonexclusive right to use the material as often as you choose in marketable products. The same thing exists with music and sound libraries.

Essentially, you buy a license to distribute the music in the library as you see fit, subject to certain limitations--for example, within only a specified region and/or for only a specified period of time (as some software developers sometimes distribute their products). Sometimes there are no such time or space limitations (as is common with many high-end orchestral sound sample libraries) but in any case such a license agreement generally requires that you must include a substantial contribution of your own material in addition to the copyrighted material within any product you sell containing the music--i.e., you can't simply resell the music by itself on a CD or downloadable as a music file or in any way that effectively amounts to simply reselling the music to others for use as you are using it.

Radio stations, for example, purchase CDs of jingles which they may then use as components of advertising commercials to which they add voiceover talent. They're not free to simply duplicate the CD and sell it to other radio stations, but they may use one particular jingle in an unlimited number of radio commercials. Some videogame companies get sound effects and musical themes this way. Corporations sometimes get music for promotional or training videos this way, too. Small budget films and documentary or educational videos sometimes get soundtrack music this way.

If you're trying to evoke a sentimental memory to go with someone's family vacation snapshots turned into a multimedia slideshow, the high-amped garage rendition of your neighbor's kids' medly of original 3-string 'wannabe-hits' may not be the soundtrack you're looking for. Whatever you're looking for, though, it's likely available in the way I describe.

(On the other hand, you may just happen to personally know the next 'big' thing in pop music and help to put them on the map with your slideshows, so take my last comment with a grain of salt.)

--torandson

 

[Pigster14]

Well thank you for the information.