Are you deliberately missing the point? How can it be illegal if I own the recording?
As I said before. You need both authorizations. A film studio will not proceed without both licenses.
Yes, of course you can, and what would be the result? You would get the copyright royalties as song owner that are due to you!
NOT money for the use of the master recording because you donât own the master recording.
You donât. You have created a derivative work. Of my song. You donât own the publishing (U.S. definition here) for that song which controls any and all licensing decisions. You can create the derivative work for fun or for a hobby. You can not license it commercially. Creating a derivative work at your own initiative does not entitle you to anything but the privilege of listening to it.
Jonathan, are you being deliebrately argumentative? There is no âbothâ licenses involved. The original master recording is out of the picture. It is not under discussion. It is not in the frame. It does not even exist as far as the film company is concerned. They are only interested in my master recording - not yours.
[quote=âAJ113, post:103, topic:1135â]
Yes, of course you can, and what would be the result? You would get the copyright royalties as song owner that are due to you! [/quote]
No I get a lot more than that in this case. I get the licensing revenues that you screwed me out of, in addition to punitive, and statutory damages. DudeâŚthink about this. You just ripped me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sync licensing revenues! These are NOT royalties.
I own the publishing which grants me the authority to allow or not allow the film company to use it.
Read the wiki sync license link I posted.
âIn many cases, producers with tight budgets will elect to use a cover version of a particular song in order to save money on the master side.â
Meeting with legal representation from German graphics designer in 15 minâŚbrb
Weâre going round in circles. Iâll say again. No it doesnât. It grants you the right to collect the royalties. You have no control over whether the song is used or not. That is the point of the copyright system. Thatâs why it exists. So that when someone gains money from a song you wrote, you get a get a cut of that money.
OK letâs say I ask if I can use your song and you say no, but I go ahead anyway. What then? You sue my arse and I agree to pay your royalties before it even gets anywhere near a court. _Which is all I was requesting to do in the first place._The end result is no different to what would have happened if you had said yes. You donât get any money for the master recording because it is not being used.
[quote=âJonathan, post:106, topic:1135â]
I get the licensing revenues that you screwed me out of [/quote]otherwise known as royalties paid to the owner of the song. What other âlicensingâ revenues do you think would be due to you?
[quote] in addition to punitive, and statutory damages.
[/quote]There would be nothing of the sort. It wouldnât get to court, I would just happily pay you, because that was all I was requesting in the first place.
The main misconception here is that the ACTUAL damages (of the licensing revenues + royalties) are all you are liable for. This couldnât be further from the truth. There are firmly established preventive measures which severly penalize film companies far beyond the actual damages when they willfully infringe a music publishers rights.
Once again, in the US, these rights belonging to the publisher, as the publisher controls all licensing permissions, including those pertaining to deviate works. Youâre still trying to read the UK scope of publishing rights into a US legal framework.
In the US the end result will be drastically different because at that point your copyright infringement will caused the film studios to have far exceeded the minimum requirements for actual damages. They are now liable for compensatory, punitive, statutory and nominal damages in addition to restitution (aka actual) damages. In the UK you may get a slap on the wrist. Here you pay big.
Thatâs a songwriter royalty. The songwriter does not have a say in where the track may and may not be used unless the songwriter has retained control of their publishing.
In that analogy youâre the artist that re-made a recording of my song and licensed your version of the recording to a film company without having the publishing authority to execute that license? Then you screwed me out of the sync license which far exceeds any songwriter royalty that would have defaulted to me. And the film studio knowingly and negligently allowed you to do it. The reason that the master use license must also be acquired along with the sync license is because only the publisher can authorize commercial use of a derivative work.
See, thatâs why the film company pays ME for the master use license. AND they sync license. NOT YOU. Since you had no explicit authorization to even create the derivative work, you have absolutely no authority to license said derivative work.
You may not have to pay me anything anyway, because youâre not necessarily the party at fault. The lawsuit gets filed against the film company. They are should have known better than to use your version of my recording without my (the publishers) permission to do so.
Hey @bozmillar, remember that satire recording you made of âMy heart will go onâ? Do you think you could take that to a film company, and simply toss that recording into any movie with no legal repercussions? (other than maybe having to pay royalties later?)
@Chordwainer, you certainly know that you canât take those cover songs youâre doing and attempt to license them to a TV add without the permission of the artist⌠right? (regardless of your willingness to pay royalties later)?
⌠@AJ113 seems to think you can.
You misunderstood what I meant by two licenses. I understand the scenario. They are interested in your version of my song. The âbothâ licenses here refer to a âsynchronization licenseâ, and a âmaster useâ license. I never said anything about the original recording. Those two licenses are necessary for using your derivative version of my song in the movie. Those two licensing permissions are granted and controlled by me. Doesnât matter if its your master. I as the publisher still control have complete control of both licenses by law.
It goes back to my original point. You making a derivative work and having a version of my song in you possession does not grant you permission to license it. To anyone.
Called a âmaster useâ license because you own your master recording. You donât own mine. I have ownership of my own recording. What I do with it is no concern of yours.
As long as I credit you as the composer and you get the appropriate royalties, what other rights do you think you have?
As I asked earlier, please explain this, itâs from wikipedia and it describes exactly the scenario we are discussing:
âIn many cases, producers with tight budgets will elect to use a cover version of a particular song in order to save money on the master side.â
Look at this way:
Stan Halen writes a song: Ode to Brandon
You record it and it goes to number 1 in the charts. Very nice, you get a boatload of money and Stan gets a little kicker too.
Then I also record Stanâs song and it is used in a movie. I get a boatload of money, and Stan gets a nice little earner too as the song owner. What do you get? Nothing, it is nothing to do with you, since your master recording is not involved. I donât need your permission, I donât need to contact you, I donât care about you, because all you have is master rights to your own recording. All Stan needs to do is make sure his publisher collects the right money from Harry Fox. All I need to do is buy a new Merc.
Then what happens? Because the movie is so successful, my version of Ode to Brandon enters the charts and knocks your version off top spot. What do you get? Nothing. See above.
You seem to think that owning the rights to a recording somehow gives you rights over all other recordings of the same song. It clearly, and demonstrably does not.
OK movies arenât my area of knowledge, and I wish youâd chosen a more simple example, nevertheless, I will say yes he could. What legal repercussions do you think there would be? The only rights involved here relate to the songâs ownership, i.e. James Horner and Will Jennings. The owner of the Celine Dion recording has no say in the matter, because that recording is not being used.
What artist? You think that just because someone records a song it somehow gives them some sort of control over who else can record it? Thatâs just crazy talk.
AJ, hereâs how this actually works. There is a music supervisor who reports to the director. His job is to clear the royalty arrangements, sync licenses, master licenses, with any and all other music source contributors. He also makes sure the legal arrangements with the film composer are fair.
The director assigns âcuesâ for which he needs borrowed music. Say you have a scene where a character walks into a bar and thereâs a band playing. Lets say that band is playing something outside the scope of what the film composer is obligated (or unable) to write. The film supervisor starts receiving âsubmissionsâ based on director criteria for that cue. The film supervisor may approach a publisher and request two licenses (sync and master) for âKaty Perry Fireworkâ. Or he may approach a publisher for âFireworkâ, but request to have the actual song re-sung by Taylor Swift (lets assume Taylor agrees). Now the publisher authorizes the film studio to commission a limited use derivative recording using Taylor as the lead vocalist. But the publisher can say âPlease do use the song Firework, but absolutely not with Taylor singing itâ.
So the publisher of Firework said no to Taylor singing lead. Does that mean poor Taylor canât record the song? Of course not. She pulls open her laptop with Reaper and simply records it anyway. Does that mean Taylor canât perform the song? She certainly can perform the song where and whenever the hell she wants. Does that mean Taylor herself couldnât submit the song to the music supervisor anyway? She certainly can.
What that means is that the film company is prohibited form using Taylors master recording in that specific movie.
Ah, so now we really are talking about the songâs ownership, and its publisher, as opposed to the master rights of a recording. That is at least a step forward.
I mean, you are now only a little bit off what I have been saying all along, except that I donât believe that the copyright owner of a song can âprohibitâ anything. Sure, permission is sought as a courtesy, and if itâs not granted, the refusal is usually observed, again as a courtesy but, copyright laws only ensure that copyright owners are paid their dues, they donât cater for prohibition of a songâs use, and that is demonstrably true.
So the film company ignores the publisher and goes ahead with the Taylor Swift version anyway. Now what?
In the UK, you might. Again, sad to see those rights go unprotected. In the United States you merely have a recording in your possession. You do not have the right to issue a commercial license to anyone unless I as the publisher gave you that permission to begin with.
[quote=âAJ113, post:114, topic:1135â]
As long as I credit you as the composer [/quote]
In this case Iâm the composer and the publisher.
[quote] and you get the appropriate royalties, [/quote] In the case where the artist does not hold the publishing rights, you pay the publisher, not the artist. The publisher then pays the artist a performance royalty and the composer a songwriter royalty, unless they were contracted as work-for-hire. Licensing is not royalties in the US. The publisher keeps the licensing revenues, which are huge, then pays the artist and performer shit.
I have the legal authority to block or withhold many different forms of publication, broadcasting, film, theatrical, and educational licensing deals related to your master recording of my song. You donât get to use your version of my song anywhere unless I let you. I can also stop you from circulating karaoke versions of it or throwing it on a microchip and putting in greeting cards if I want. Under American law, those are all functions of publisher rights.
Explained below in the Katy Perry/Taylor Swift example. Just swap out Taylors name with yours.
Thatâs completely backwards, which means you still donât understand the relationships between the publisher, the licensing agency, and the songwriter, and the performing artist persuant to U.S. law. Based on what you said, I am (in this hypothetical) a performing artist on the record, and apparently the owner of my own âmaster rightsâ. The only thing Iâm getting here, is getting cut out of the deal. In the other scenario I was the publisher.
Now in your scenario, Stanâs publisher (since you implied Stan signed away his publishing), has the authority to veto the film companies decision to include your derivative work. Stan publisher could even go as far to prevent the film company from using STANâs own work. Stan still does need to make sure his publisher pays him his songwriter royalty, but even Stan has effectively no say in weather his work gets used or not since he does not appear to be the publisher in this case.
Nope. Thatâs not what I said. Owning the PUBLISHING RIGHTS to a song gives you rights over LICENSING PERMISSIONS of all other recordings of your song. One of those licensing permissions includes authorizing the commercial use of DERIVATIVE WORKS.
Thatâs incorrect. Universal owns the publishing, and Sony (who is now merged with Universal) administers the publishing on Universalâs behalf. Not will and James. Will and James are credited as composer, and will receive songwriter royalties. If Boz takes that track to a film studio that is affiliated with UniversalâŚwho knows what the hell theyâd do. If Warner wanted to use Bozâs recording of that track, Universal would bill them out the wazoo for the sync license and the master use license. If Warner coughed up the cash and decided to pay for the two sets of licenses, Universal would then retro-actively issue approval for Bozâs recording of âmy heart will go onâ as a limited use derivative work.
[quote=âAJ113, post:116, topic:1135, full:trueâ]
Ah, so now we really are talking about the songâs ownership, and its publisher, as opposed to the master rights of a recording. That is at least a step forward. [/quote]
Sort of. Youâre getting closer. Weâre talking about copyright (U.S. definition) and everything it entails. There are many different parts. The authority to grant specific usage of either the musical composition part or the sound recording part of the copyright (either way which licensing), is again, the function of the publishing rights. The publishing rights all fall under copyright.
Here:
Intellectual property = All things related to copyright, patent, and trademark, in any way.
| - (thatâs supposed to be an arrow)
v
Copyright = all laws that protect ownership rights of anything that isnât a trademark (brand name or logo) or a patent (an invention)
|
v
-Publishing is a part of copyright (its the part that controls licensing)
-Composership is a part of copyright (that identifies the writer of the song)
-Duplication, distribution, authorization of derivative works etc⌠is a part of copyright
-Royalties are a part of copyright
[quote]
I mean, you are now only a little bit off what I have been saying all along, except that I donât believe that the copyright owner of a song can âprohibitâ anything. Sure, permission is sought as a courtesy, and if itâs not granted, the refusal is usually observed, again as a courtesy but, copyright laws only ensure that copyright owners are paid their dues, they donât cater for prohibition of a songâs use, and that is demonstrably true. [/quote] Not in the United States. They do a lot more than that here.
This:
Ok show me in your law where it says that you can prohibit me from recording and monetising (or licensing if you prefer) my recording your song.
Then tell me exactly what you are going to do about it if I go ahead anyway.
[quote=âJonathan, post:118, topic:1135â]
There are firmly established preventive measures which severly penalize film companies far beyond the actual damages when they willfully infringe a music publishers rights.
[/quote]Youâre not infringing rights if the appropriate money has been paid. That is the whole point of having rights - so that you are paid the amount you are due. Willful infingement of rights would (for example) be an attempt to claim the publishing royalties for a song for which you do not own the copyright. (Which incidently is what our record label tried to do).