Re: Dance Recital Question

Look, by no means do I claim the title of professional ethicist or legal counsel.

But a major rule of thumb to look at that has always worked for me is: "did any money change hands at any point?"

If it did, that's the place to begin looking at liability issues. Anybody who turned over a buck in the perpetration of the copyright violation could potentially get dragged into the mess.

If the dance school charges tickets or admission, they are in trouble potentially because they got money in exchange for performing the work without all the clearances. If you say all you were doing was documenting the event, and you recorded uncleared music, and they paid you to record that, you may still be in some lesser amount of potential trouble, at least you're going to get hit for the amount you were paid.

You may say that this is so unlikely as to be in the category of lightning strikes. Fair enough. But I remember an incident that was relatively famous. A New Jersey corner bar owner had Bruce Springsteen on his jukebox. An ASCAP guy stopped in to have a brew. Next thing you know, the bar owner gets a CAD letter from Bruce's attorneys. A local theater recently was having public audience sing-alongs to a popular TV show (the all-singing episode of Buffy The vampire Slayer, a show that's not even on the air any more) just as a goof and a fun charity fundraiser. Killed by the Fox Network and production company, the charity barely got away with being able to keep what had already been raised. An Italian restaurant had "Sopranos Night". Cancelled by lawyers. Same with another such place playing Sinatra over the PA.

Nowadays, there are any number of people that would like to make a fast buck turning in violators for a bounty. Or what if some lawyer or paralegal in the audience gets miffed that his 200-pound daughter Elsie didn't get the lead in the Swan Lake bit, had to settle for being in the chorus, and decides to anonymously turn in the school as revenge? You think things like that don't or can't happen? You can bet on human nature, friend, it can and does.

I read in some music magazine a while back about a guy that made a demo video for one of the big music expo shows to demonstrate some product, and he used uncleared Pink Floyd music for the big screen, big sound system demo. Guy comes up to him at the trade show and hangs around a bit, making admiring comments here and there about how nice the music seemed to cut with the images. It was David Gilmour. AWKWARD!

Okay, so you're not making any demos like that. What about stuff for your OWN demo reel though? Do you think showing clips with the uncleared music is going to impress a prospective boss? Or show him you don't know what the score is professionally. Meh, maybe it won't make a difference. Then again, it might. Feel free to call me over-anxious on this. When you get to my age, and have more to lose, lots of things that are minor risks end up being less worth taking, from hanging out of Jet Rangers with no safety line, to betting my income and savings that somebody with an axe to grind will not take the time to rat me out to some corporation with a lot of money and legal resources I can't afford to fight.

Hate it? I do too. Defying or ignoring the law is not the answer here; the answer is to change what's wrong or unjust or plain impractical in the law. Make your legislators aware of your problems and feelings about the state of copyright in this country. Tell them we need some intermediate step, maybe something like the system in Australia that basically allows wedding video makers to use the copyrighted songs in limited ways for a reasonable flat fee and no 9 months of paperwork and contacting different rights holders who each have different rules and amounts they want. We need some kind of middle ground that respects and preserves copyrights but reduces the more ridiculous barriers and threats of lawsuits. Right now, media company lobbyists like Disney and Sony run the table on how the laws are made and whom they serve. You need to start talking to legislators as voters, as an industry, as a constituency needing remedy. An election year is the best time to get their attention.