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IAC
Information (British)
People are constantly asking me about the possibility
of Copyright infringement when using music in our productions (video/film/slide-tape).
The quite usual remark is " I only give my productions a very limited exposure..."
Well, we all tend to ignore regulations that we don't like, or consider to be
unreasonable...how many of us break the speed limit in our car trips every day!!
Nevertheless, laws are meant to be adhered to and not broken. IAC
offers the necessary Copyright clearance licences at very reasonable rates and
it is our responsibility to abide by the conditions of these licences and to see
that all our productions are covered at the time of compilation. Incidentally,
it is necessary to obtain Copyright clearance BEFORE dubbing the soundtrack and
NOT after the production is completed!
It is thought by many that no action
is ever taken by the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) or the other
licensing bodies, but this is by no means the case! As
I am constantly reminding people, there is no such thing as 'Copyright free music'
only possibly, Royalty free...in that a fee is included in the purchase price
of music issued by some publishers. I
also quote from the Internet:
"What is Copyright?
It is an unregistered
right (unlike patents, registered designs or trade marks). So, there is no official
action to take, (no application to make, forms to fill in or fees to pay). Copyright
comes into effect immediately, as soon as something that can be protected is created
and "fixed" in some way, eg on paper, on film, via sound recording,
as an electronic record on the internet, etc.
It is a good idea for you to
mark your copyright work with the copyright symbol © followed by your name
and the date, to warn others against copying it, but it is not legally necessary
in the UK.
The type of works that copyright protects are:
1. original
literary works, e.g. novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, lyrics for
songs, articles in newspapers, some types of databases, but not names or titles
(see Trade Marks pages);
2. original dramatic works, including works of dance
or mime;
3. original musical works;
4. original artistic works, e.g. paintings,
engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, works of architecture, technical
drawings, diagrams, maps, logos;
5. published editions of works, i.e. the
typographical arrangement of a publication;
6. sound recordings, which may
be recordings on any medium, e.g. tape or compact disc, and may be recordings
of other copyright works, e.g. musical or literary;
7. films, including videos;
and
8. broadcasts and cable programmes.
So the above works are protected
by copyright, regardless of the medium in which they exist and this includes the
internet." Finally,
you may be interested in a communication that I have had from MCPS: "We've
had a few different cases of copyright infringement recently actually. The main
one I can think of is a video/DVD product released by an amateur video producer
that contained a number of tracks from one popular band and was being sold on
the internet. Not only did MCPS stop the sale and further production of the product,
the stock was destroyed and the copyright owner's solicitors also got involved
to apply a fine.
I believe the producer paid out a significant sum after royalties
and a fine on top of the costs of producing and manufacturing the product." Yes!
action can and IS being taken and members should not ignore the Copyright laws,
they are, after all, there to protect the interests and livelihood of the composers
and musicians to whom some our licence money eventually finds its way. Gerald
Mee
IAC Copyright Advisory Service -
IAC web site |
