Music licensing legal question
by Chris Taylor
on
Oct 30, 2009 at 6:58:07 pm
I'm going to keep everything anonymous here so I don't get in trouble before doing anything.
I work for a video production house who has a contract with a music licensing company to use several hundred songs of our choosing over the next couple years. It cost us a few grand.
Outside of this job, we're working on a short film which naturally requires a good soundtrack that I'd like to use this same licensing company for. We priced out a few songs which came to well over a thousand bucks for usage (well over our buget too), which suprised me quite a bit considering all the other sites out there with far cheaper and almost equally good music. The problem is, we've grown pretty attached to the music we tested on there before pricing it out and it would be a sad, sad thing to have to start over.
So with the go ahead from my actual employer who already owns the rights to this music, could I simply credit them as a producer to facilitate the contract.... or is it more compex than that? The contract says we can use the music for whatever we want, commercial or non, for an indefinite amount of time.
I know there are loopholes around pretty much everything. If it's just not possible so be it, I'll move on. It's just really difficult to part ways with a few tracks that just seem to fit perfectly! What can I say, we've developed a relationship.
Re: Music licensing legal question by Marco Solorio on Oct 30, 2009 at 7:15:54 pm
A) I'm not a lawyer or copyright lawyer.
B) I do not know the details of your contract.
C) I'm not an authority in the matter.
With that out of the way, my *assumption* is this: More than just adding a credit to the person or production facility that owns the license, it would be my guess that they would have to be credited as the actual production agency that made the film. Likewise, said production agency would have to agree to those terms. With that in place, I'd guess the use of the music would be completely legal under the contract.
The only catch is, if the movie sucks, the producer/facility is stuck with having their name tagged on it, LOL.
Re: Music licensing legal question by Stephen Vidano on Oct 30, 2009 at 8:15:58 pm
Sounds a little "slight of hand" to me. The fact that you're even asking the question means there's enough uncertainty to not go through with it. (Or call the music licensing company up and ask them what they think about the situation. :) I'm guessing you're not going to do that. Hence the post on Creative Cow.)
I would also ask which production company is "behind the movie"? Who's project is it, truly? If they are the ones with the music license contract then you're good to go. If they're not...then I'd question going through with it.
