ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

3 years, 6 months ago - Robert O'Neil

Hi, in addition to being a film maker, I'm also a songwriter with a publishing deal and work in the sync market for film & TV etc. The answer to your question is basically you can't. The idea a lot of film makers have, that just using 12 seconds or something is O.K. It isn't. Or using a song for a zero budget film without permission is O.K. Believe me, It isn't. Sync rights for films can be extremely expensive, especially for well known songs. Some artists don't even allow their tracks to be used in film and T.V. If you don't have the usage rights in place and your film went on to get traction, the owners of the song would want payment and/or a removal of the film from distribution. And infringement of copyright law can land you some serious problems. Even fees for unknown artists in low budget films require a sync licence which involves paying a fee to cover the master rights usage and the writers composition rights, usually split 50/50 between them. Even if you were to secure usage for nothing, the sync licence would still incur a fee to set it up as the writers of the song would be due PRS & PPL etc for subsequent broadcast or public performance of the piece, for which they'd require that licence to facilitate them being able to collect.

I hope that helps and I'm sorry if that bursts your bubble. But that's how it is.

3 years, 6 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

To use somebody else's work, you pay them. That's the short version. After all, you would want to be paid if somebody used your work.

A piece of music has two licenses you need to consider - the publishing rights (the musical score) and the performance rights (the performance of that score). Even if the artist who wrote and performed the song agree that you can use their performance for free, they probably don't own the publishing rights to their own music and so you would still have to pay those fees. That's how come you often get cover versions of songs used in adverts and movies. It's a minefield.

There are, of course, licenses like Creative Commons, but those songs are generally not as "well known". There are Public Domain pieces (generally pre-1923) although you would need to still license the performance of the music.

Robert gives some good detail above.

3 years, 6 months ago - Kevin Yeboah

Thank you guys, the replies have been really helpful!