Music Copyright and DVD Slideshows...

dad_of_four said:

I think we need to try and come up with an example in photography
that is more akin to setting the B&G's music onto a DVD slide show,
so here goes

You sell the B&G a CD of your low-res shots, they then take and put
these into a DVD slide show. Is this a violation of copyright
laws? They are just transferring them from a PC screen viewer to a
TV viewer. Much the same as transferring the CD music to a DVD
music.

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Honestly, if I was offering the DVD slideshow as an available service/product I wouldn't want them to do this. Same as a musician who offered their music for other types of licensing wouldn't want me to use it in a slideshow without compensation or at least credit. At this point I won't do it, those music sites mentioned earlier will work pretty well. I do like my wedding video that was set to music that my wife and I provided though. It shows more of our personality since I was able to get some Grateful Dead into it although my wife and I have very different musical tastes (Grateful Dead and Nat King Cole next to each other??).

On a side note I don't think that most musical artists would have much of a problem with us using their music in that way - its the money hungry labels that rips off the musician and the customer. Sometimes I wish we had "labels" to help protect us.....

Thanks for all your help
Mark

Ed Bigelow said:

A current copyright lasts about 75years as of 1978.

You might try using out-of-copyright material, by doing some research.

You can start here - a site for music educators:
http://www.menc.org/information/copyright/copyr.html#duration

Note the penalty section just beneath.

Ed

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I'm pretty sure it is shorter on music...there was something about copyrights running out on a lot of Beatles music a year or so ago (at least European copyrights).

George

Daughare said:

Daughare said:

Honestly, if I was offering the DVD slideshow as an available service/product I wouldn't want them to do this. Same as a musician who offered their music for other types of licensing wouldn't want me to use it in a slideshow without compensation or at least credit.

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I agree. The point here is that if there is any money to be made, everyone whose work was involved deserves a cut. If by using a musician's work I am able to charge more, or it increased the number or possibility of my sales, or even enhanced the "buying experience" of my clients, then the musician deserves a cut. It it wasn't going to make me more money, I wouldn't do it, so the musician deserves a cut.

Daughare said:

Daughare said:

At this point I won't do it, those music sites mentioned earlier will work pretty well. I do like my wedding video that was set to music that my wife and I provided though. It shows more of our personality since I was able to get some Grateful Dead into it although my wife and I have very different musical tastes (Grateful Dead and Nat King Cole next to each other??).

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But then, that makes it a Grateful Dead music CD with some of your photos attached...unless you're more famous in your own right than the Grateful Dead. It's their personality, not yours. OTOH, if you chose some fitting--but unknown--music from a royalty-free site, then the whole product is still identifiable as yours and no one else's.

Daughare said:

Daughare said:

On a side note I don't think that most musical artists would have much of a problem with us using their music in that way - its the money hungry labels that rips off the musician and the customer.

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I wouldn't agree. I think if I said to any musician, "Photographer so-and-so has made 50 percent more profit using your music on his products," he would bristle and start dialing a lawyer.

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

Interesting debate. We're all in agreement generally, which is good. We're so exposed to someone taking our intellectual property without compensation that it's nice to hear these comments.

The digital age has made infringement on all the arts more possible to the uninitiated and the unscrupulous. So far, the answer to "How do we cope?" seems to be "Sell greater rights at the outset."

This is a tricky course to tread, though. As many on this forum say, even our retail customers are savvy enough to recognize that there is greater perceived value in prints, thus the proliferation of "value added" wedding packages which now include all the digital files. Brides are demanding it, we're meeting that demand, but at what cost to ourselves and our profit margine? I used to sell all the paper proofs at a great rate and get another $6-800 out of them after all else was said and done.

Now with digital, we're capable of devaluing ourselves!!! I just did it by accident. I'm currently trying to figure out how to save my bacon, but keep coming up empty.

I was just writing a commercial proposal for a client involving different methods of delivering 3000 images (already shot and paid for). One of the ways was all prints. Another way was DVD. Knowing that I had lower costs in DVD, I made a huge mistake in our lunchtime conversation and speculated on a lower price on the DVD delivery. As soon as I said it, I had the gnawing feeling I'd just screwed up. I did, but was too preoccupied with not revealing too much of my thinking. I just cost myself $700 profit on the prints. That's...profit! I focused on the wrong thing - cost - and messed up the profit.

I was thinking abou thow much cheaper it is as the cost of goods sold and lost sight of value!

Crud! (hey, forum safe swearing,OK?)
--
jrbehm

RDKirk said:

But then, that makes it a Grateful Dead music CD with some of your
photos attached...unless you're more famous in your own right than
the Grateful Dead. It's their personality, not yours.

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Not exactly, the choice of music tells a lot about how someone looks at the world and the kind of lifestyle they lead. Think "Deadhead" - that brings an image into most people's minds about the person. It's also our photos set too our favorite music, It makes it far more enjoyable to watch (my wife would watch it anyway, but I need the good soundtrack to sit through it)

But like I said, I never did do it, and I won't do it out of simple respect for the musicians and their creations.

RDKirk said:

RDKirk said:

RDKirk said:

On a side note I don't think that most musical artists would have much of a problem with us using their music in that way - its the money hungry labels that rips off the musician and the customer.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I wouldn't agree. I think if I said to any musician, "Photographer
so-and-so has made 50 percent more profit using your music on his
products," he would bristle and start dialing a lawyer.

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Maybe so, but I wasn't refering to me using a particular mucisian on ALL my products. I'm talking about a fully random selection that is provided by each customer individually. No one particular artist would be heavily represented (unless they were unbeliveably popular with EVERYONE). I guess my view comes from the type of music I listen to, where the majority of the artists support taping at their shows and encourage the distribution of those recordings (Grateful Dead, Dave Mathews Band, Phish, Widespread Panic, moe., etc).

RDKirk said:

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

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The people purchased the music,they're not redistributing it, they just want it put onto the dvd with a slideshow? I don't quite understand how this could be wrong. They're still using it for personal use....I'm not making a statement or anything, I'm just trying to make sense of it. It's an interesting topic.

Of course in the privacy of one's own home (or studio), you can do almost anything (so far), including putting your favorite music on your personal slide show.

The issue comes when distribute (send out physically or to the web), replicate or make any form of public showing with that DvD, for profit or not.

Ed

Tim Szczesniak said:

The people purchased the music,they're not redistributing it, they
just want it put onto the dvd with a slideshow? I don't quite
understand how this could be wrong. They're still using it for
personal use....I'm not making a statement or anything, I'm just
trying to make sense of it. It's an interesting topic.

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From what I gather, its the "synchronization" of the music (customer supplied), by the photographer, to the pictures on the DVD slideshow that is in turn sold to the customer. If the customer made their own slideshow and synched their music to it, it wouldn't be a problem - it would be their own private use. Its the addition of the photographer to the mix, and his/her creation of the slideshow that creates the problem. At that point it becomes the photographer using the music for a commercial use and he doesn't own rights to do so.

Or so I think?

Mark

Going back to my post the key issue as I understood it was that you are not allowed to charge the customer for putting the music on the disk.

You charge them for the DVD but make it clear that the music transfer is not part of the transaction.

Morally questionable ? Yes, Illegal? I don't know. I was only trying to answer the original post. It is an interesting one and I'll keep an eye on this one.

NL said:

NL said:

You charge them for the DVD but make it clear that the music

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transfer is not part of the transaction.

Morally questionable ? Yes, Illegal? I don't know. I was only
trying to answer the original post. It is an interesting one and
I'll keep an eye on this one.

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So you are selling a DVD slideshow and as an aside (or "under the table") you tell them you can set it to some of their music if they want? I would agree to the "yes" on "morally questionable". At that point, from a personal standpoint, I would have to go with the previous posters who stated that as photographers we should be taking the high road on any of these "questionable" instances in order to set an example.

Too bad there are no copyright lawyers hanging around here to clear this up.....

Mark

NL said:

Going back to my post the key issue as I understood it was that you
are not allowed to charge the customer for putting the music on the
disk.

You charge them for the DVD but make it clear that the music
transfer is not part of the transaction.

Morally questionable ? Yes, Illegal? I don't know. I was only
trying to answer the original post. It is an interesting one and
I'll keep an eye on this one.

Click to expand...

Yes, it's illegal without a synchronization release.

Why would I want to put music (whoever originally purchased the recording) on the DVD of photography that I'm selling to a client? Because it makes my product more salable. It increases my bottom line.

I've reproduced another man's work and increased my bottom line by doing so. It's irrelevant who bought the original copy.

Musicians say they want a cut of that. It's their right to determine how they're copyright is used because they own it. That's what "ownership" means. I

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

Yes, it is illegal. The musician owns the copyright, which plain and simply means...the right to copy the music. If you are caught they will make you pay. Musicians protect their copyright very vigorously. A non profit organization I work for was caught with unreleased music on a video. The video was never broadcast, it was just for internal use, but it was seen by someone. Fortunately, they just had to remove it, but if the musicians wanted to they could have held their feet to the fire.

Anybody got any ideas where you can buy the relevant copyright then?

Something tells me the costs would make it unviable

Frankly you are entering a thorny thicket...but here's a good place to start.
If you are selling for profit, the cost is not prohibitive.

http://www.harryfox.com/public/licenseeServices.jsp

Good luck,

Ed

One idea that occurred to me was for the B&G to download the music legally via iTunes? or some such service. If the music was then stored on a DVD with a collection of images then i don't see a problem. I assume that you are expected and entitled to store the music somewhere.

In fact the Australian Government has seen sense on this issue and will soon allow the "ripping" of music from CDs to harddrives, mp3 player etc to be legal. This is seen simply as a "common sense" solution: otherwise half of the Australian public are criminals.

BTW I am a Professional musician who has recently ventured into wedding photography.
Cheers.

Just say no. It's your butt the FBI will come after, not the client's.

A local photographer is advertising 72 images on a DVD with the client's music for $79. He can't be making money at that, and the music will get him in trouble.

Use a music library, like Gene Michael Productions, Soper Sound, etc. I highly recommend both of them for great music.

Expect to pay $75 per CD.

That's the way it is.

It's taking the tunes and creating a new work, the slide show, incorporating both the pictures and the tunes. If they want to play the tunes from their separate source while watching the slides, that's fine, it's the mixing as a single new work.

Godinflynn asked about using iTunes. First, it's still an illegal use. Next:

As a user of iTunes, I have some general observations, and other posters will have more specific facts, I'm sure.

iTunes releases the music with protection software encoded. I've read varying accounts of how many computers or emulations it will play on within the iTunes license, but it seems 5 has been stated often, though I've heard 3 as well. Meaning, if the B&G download to computer (1) copy to disc(2), give to you to copy to computer (3), burn to DVD with pix (4) and give back to them, the first time they play it on Mom's computer to show her, they've completed the 5. Leaving them with their own and Mom's as the only computers on which they can hear music with the images.

I'm sure someone has a more complete understanding than I, since I only use it on my computer and my iPod and haven't tested the limits at all. Frankly, I wish we photogs had something as sweet for the protection of our images and I respect what Apple has done to protect the copyrights of the musicians represented on iTunes.

I did burn a CD for my own use, but when I roadtripped with my brother, it would not play on his car stereo. That may have been related more to the fact that many 2003 and before GM vehicles could not read Mp3. Still, who knows what vintage the B&G's DVD player may be and how it reads an iTunes derived soundtrack.

Royalty free music is the best compromise for ourselves, the musicians and our clients. May not be perfect, but what is?
--
jrbehm

GODINFLYNN said:

One idea that occurred to me was for the B&G to download the music
legally via iTunes? or some such service. If the music was then
stored on a DVD with a collection of images then i don't see a
problem. I assume that you are expected and entitled to store the
music somewhere.

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If that was alright, then I guess it would be ok for the music companies like RCA and Sony to download your images and put them on their music CD's to accompany the music. Just because something is technologically possible doesn't make it legal.

If they paid for the pic and only put it on 1 copy of the cd that would be ok by me. I buy a song and put it on 1 copy of a cd......

I agree with you by the way, just playing devils advocate. Sometimes I like to be contrarian.

Mark