[SML] Music licences

[Joe Wilson]

I just finished a non-scientific survey about this with theatres in my
region, and online.

Here is what I have found.

1.  Music licensing for live performance is complicated and difficult.

2.  Most of the people I interviewed (sound designers and TDs, mostly from
academic theatre) have serious misunderstandings about how music licensing
works.

3.  The rules are not clearly defined or spelled out very well.

Let's get this out of the way:  The "fair use doctrine" does not apply,
will not apply, and has no bearing on live performances.

For BACKGROUND MUSIC, that is presented in a NON-DRAMATIC CONTEXT, you need
"Small Rights."  These are the blanket clearances that you can get from the
big clearing houses (BMI, ASCAP, SESAC.)  They cover music played ONLY in a
NON-DRAMATIC context, so background music, pre-show music, etc is covered.
These rights are secured through BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC and the final cost
depends on the size of your venue and other factors.  They all have
different songs in their catalogs, so unless you plan on restricting
yourself to the works available in only one catalog, you need to have
licenses with all three.

The vast majority of designers and TDs that I spoke with operated under the
assumption that these blanket licenses provide permission to use that same
covered material in shows.

It does not.

Any use of copyrighted music that is used in a dramatic context, including
thematic and transition music between scenes in a play (or in dance, or any
other situation where you are applying meaning to the music) must be
cleared under "Grand Rights."  These permissions are NOT secured by the big
three Performing Rights Organizations, but are negotiated individually with
the publisher or copyright-holder of the work in question.  Size of venue,
number of performances, ticket cost, context, and amount of the material
used are all considered.

It can also be REALLY FREAKING DIFFICULT to figure out who owns the rights
to a particular song.  Thankfully, the big PROs have online repertories
that you can search to find that info for MOST songs.  That, plus Wikipedia
and CDDB are quite helpful.

In my venue, we have been having a similar discussion about going legit.
Worries about being able to cover costs, being on the radar, etc.  We have
had blanket licenses forever, but we DO use music in dramatic context and
have decided to make the attempt at licensing the usage properly.  (So far,
we have reached out the copyright owners of the music used in our upcoming
dance showcase, but only one organization has returned a phone call /
email.)

Using a personal Spotify account for BGM, while holding a blanket license,
will NOT get you in trouble with the copyright holders (I think.)  However,
it IS a violation of Spotify's TOS, so you might get some backlash from
them.  I know they offer a "Spotify for Business" package that bundles
blanket licensing with permission to use their software in a commercial
setting.

We use Spotify personal for work music during build calls and things of
that nature, but use CDs (well, music ripped from CDs) for live event BGM.

If you intend to use Spotify exclusively, I'd just go with the "Spotify for
Business" plan.  However, before you do anything else, check with your
student activities folks.  Your college may very well likely already be
paying for blanket licensing for your campus in order to cover music played
in other spaces (public gathering spaces, the gym, sporting events, etc).
At my institution, we share the costs of the blanket licensing with our
Student Affairs department.

Cheers!
~joe


On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 1:16 PM jdunfee12--- via Stagecraft <
stagecraft at theatrical.net> wrote:

> I don't know about licensing background music specifically. But, for
> invitation-only types of events, those are private evens that don't need
> performance royalties. So, you can use your own music library, or one of
> the on-line streaming services.
>
> For public events, those need to be licensed. Whether the event is free or
> paid, doesn't change that. The exception would be if a license holder gave
> permission for some particular library of songs to be used for free.
>
> -Joe
> ____________________________________________________________
> For list information see <http://stagecraft.theprices.net/>
> Stagecraft mailing list
> Stagecraft at theatrical.net
> http://theatrical.net/mailman/listinfo/stagecraft_theatrical.net
>


-- 
_________________________
Joe Wilson, ATD/Sound
Indian River State College

Adding one more "me too" to the
collective internet consciousness.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://theatrical.net/pipermail/stagecraft_theatrical.net/attachments/20181005/52a7f459/attachment.html>