Re: Music Rights and internal communication

[Frank Otto] "If a client signs a document that claims to have licensed the material, it is up to you to do the due dilligence and verify the veracity of the document. If you accept, "bald-faced" the document and it turns out to be false, then you get to be a party in the action."

I think you are absolutely right; but taken to extremes, this policy can be too careful.

If you think the client is wink-wink-nod-nod signing a document he/she knows to be false, then I'm with you 100%. If a client brings me material and his/her claim of ownership does not seem to be dubious, I don't ask for documentation. For example, for clients who bring in factory-labelled buy-out music libraries or image CDs, I'm not going to demand documentation.

But if a hypothetical client were to claim that his copy of the latest Rolling Stone CD is licensed for his/her use.... maybe my editing system would suffer an inexplicable sudden total breakdown, and "you might want to try another shop." Fortunately I don't have clients like that. But if they were that unethical, you wouldn't want to have them as clients anyway.

Wedding videographers do this all the time, right?

More to the point for documentaries, what about incidental music playing on a jukebox or radio, in the background of an interview?

-- BC