Video Content Royalties

[dave singleton]

I tried searching for this but I'm not 100% sure I quite got the definate answer I was looking for.

 

Basically I'm Technical Director for an un-coming show. The show is a dance show themed as "Moving with the Movies". The theory is that between each routine there will be video content from the film cut together to give a brief overview or the most popular scenes etc, then a piece of music (or several) from the film used for the routine.

 

The show isnt from a professional company, however as per part of our contract with the theatre we pay a certain percentage of the box office income to PRS. I'm not 100% sure where the legalities come as far as royalties are concerned. Could anyone shed somemore light on this for me?

[ImagineerTom]

You'd have to source rights to show clips from movies separatly to any music clearance - it's not somthing the PRS would deal with. There are agencies that deal with licensing movies for comercial use (such as in nightclubs) BUT because you're using the footage as a key feature rather than background their licenses wouldn't be appropriate.

 

You'll have to contact the film distributors / owners for whatever country you're in and specifically get clearance rights.

[dave singleton]

Hmm, I've seen it done before and wonder whether or not the people tried to bother licensing what they were doing.

 

I'm not too worried about cost and naturally want to play by the rules, but even a healthy google search doesnt seem to throw up much. Filmbank.co.uk are the only people who seem to do roughly what I want, however not for theatrical use which I suppose this is (although its a dance show).

[Wuddy]

Hmm, I've seen it done before and wonder whether or not the people tried to bother licensing what they were doing.

 

I'm not too worried about cost and naturally want to play by the rules,.......

 

You should be very worried about the cost of not playing by the rules and getting found out. Infringement of copyright is taken very, very seriously with fines of several thousand pounds per infringement.

 

I think that the film distributors are likely to take a dim view of you editing their films, I base this on our local independent cinema who used to show films the old fashioned way with an interval about half way through, when the film distributors found out about this they ceased to supply films until the cinema guaranteed to show them without a break, the distributors said the films were made to be shown in their entirety and the cinema inserting an interval destroyed the continuity. So if the distributors are unhappy at an interval destroying the continuity will they be happy with you editing great chunks out?

[Ynot]

I think that the film distributors are likely to take a dim view of you editing their films, I base this on our local independent cinema who used to show films the old fashioned way with an interval about half way through, when the film distributors found out about this they ceased to supply films until the cinema guaranteed to show them without a break, the distributors said the films were made to be shown in their entirety and the cinema inserting an interval destroyed the continuity. So if the distributors are unhappy at an interval destroying the continuity will they be happy with you editing great chunks out?

Interesting comment...

But one wonders about when films get on to the TV and commercial channels stick anything up to 7 or 8 breaks for, well, commercials....

[gyro_gearloose]

Yes, and we have to put intervals in really long films (anything over 2 hrs 45 mins) as that is all our projector tower can store on one spool. While its rare that we show films that long, whenever we do we contact the film companies to find out the best place to put a break. No one has ever complained about us doing this, and for one of the Harry Potter films there was even an 'intermission' film segment which we could have used if we had needed to.

 

Anyway, to get back on topic, just because some people may not play by the rules regarding copyrighted material doesn't mean that you will get away with it as well. Yours may end up being the show that gets checked, and if you were to be found out the fines would be severe.

[paulears]

My experience is that asking for permission is not always expensive. It's the asking that is important. If you are aiming to make a profit as in a commercial venture, expect to pay. If it is a small scale show, perhaps losing money, or in aid of some charitable cause, you might discover they won't charge you.

 

I asked one very large company how much it would cost to use 3 minutes of one of their works. I got an email, and a phone number and contact. After a short chat, describing what daft thing I had planned, I was told that the clearance fee would, based on my use be small - in fact smaller than the cost of drawing up a contract - so it was best that "I didn't tell them" - we played around on the phone with general comment until he was sure I understood what was meant. In the end I just had my verbal conversation, a name and a email address - which I considered enough to use the material safely. My request for 35 seconds of another 1970s product cost me about £50 (from memory).

 

post script

 

My local 'young peoples pub' are in the news. Showing Sky Sports/Movies without the £9000 commercial licence. The licencee was in court this week after months of wrangling. Her husband turned up and gave evidence that it was him who did the connection, and he was totally responsible, not is wife. Case dismissed after months of legal work. The best bit is that they can't prosecute him, because too much time has passed! They got away with it. It seems that the FACT people and Sky do have teams of copyright police out and about.

 

Copyright is broken all the time. I'm pretty sure that none of our end of season dance shows did it properly.

[djw1981]

Does the responsibility fall on the promoter, technical team, producer or venue?

[dave singleton]

I think ultimatly the responsibility lies with the Producer/Admin team. For us this will be who sorts it out anyway.

 

After having a chat with a friend who has done something similar, he contacted the companies direct. However most of which didnt require a fee, but he made sure of written permission. Only one asked to see in which format it was to be used before the public viewing happened.

[the source]

Very interesting topic Dave,

 

Should the use of film extracts be any different from the music they are including... A lot of shows can have some 20-40 different songs, and I often wonder what the school or company has done about copyright.

 

And, if a letter arrives to a venue asking for a copy of its license to show that all these musical or film clips have been cleared, does one point them towards the company putting on the show? I imagine in the terms and conditions that are signed when hiring a venue, it will state that the company hiring the venue admits all responsibilty that all copyright material has been cleared. Then again, the theatre you mention say you have to pay a cut of the box office, so perhaps they are taking full responsibility.

 

From a filming point of view, it would bankrupt me if I had to pay to clear the content. And probably much like a venue, I don't want to go down the path of spending days tracking down licenses. Surely, it is all down to the Company putting on the show. So, I make sure they take full responsibility. But to be honest I don't know if that declaration actually does clear me. And will soon be looking into it a lot more. Perhaps there is a blanket license, that covers a venue, so they don't need to get individual licenses everytime... quite how the money is then passed on to the respective artists I don't know, as every song/artist would have to be filled in and sent away with the money... who knows?

 

Interestingly, as far as music is concerned, I did read on MCPS or somewhere that there are some strict guidelines. For example, you could not have songs from 2 artists that were formally in the same band... quite bizarre, or I think multiple works from one artist. There may have also been an issue with using different forms of the same content, such as showing a film clip, acting out a scene from the film, playing music from the film, and having lyrics/dialogue projected on a screen... Have you searched around the MCPS website for starters, Dave?

 

Is this a common role for a Technical Director, are you employed by the venue, or by the company putting on the show. Good luck finding your answer, I look forward to finding out too.

[Olie]

If you search enough I am sure you will find a licence that will allow you to show the clips you want. Buying a licence that covers a range of film companies is probably the easiest way. I do not know of a licence for theatre as all the theatres I have worked in already had licences and all I had to do was check that the clip I wanted to show was included in the licence. In church we use a CVLI licence which covers pretty much everything we would want to show.

[ImagineerTom]

With respect some of the posts on this are very ill informed - as some have pointed out the penalties for getting this wrong are very serious.

 

The venue is ultimately responsible for any performances that illegally use copyrighted material - however the hire contract useually includes terms that transfers the liability to the hirer / producers.

 

If you're using footage from films you need the permission of the rights owners for THIS SPECIFIC application. There are blanket licenses to use film footage in nightclubs, licenses for schools / local authorities / groups, licenses for churches etc but when you're using footage as the main purpose of a comercial show (as has been described by the OP) you need to seek specific permission. As others have pointed out it's suprisingly easy as somthing like 95% of films are managed by half a dozen distributors/agents.

 

MCPS / PRS / PPL license fee charged by venues is a totally different issue - thats for music/audio only. You need the specific permission of the owners of a piece of film footage you're actually using - for example you might have licensed the soundtrack album from a film but you couldn't then use an audio feed from a video of the film because thats owned by a completely different licensee.

 

TV shows, Radio shows & films have people who are employed full time to do nothing but work out the incredibly complexe matter of rights clearance to make sure that anything that is used is fully cleared.

 

As an example....

 

If the show has background music playing as the audiance comes in, the show then starts with a video montage of scenes from a musical film, the screen goes up and a live orchestra then play tunes from the show whilst dancers dance on stage. Maybe later on some people sing songs from the show as well either to backing track or to live music accompanyment.

 

You'd need to have....

Legitimatly purcased a CD/MP3 of the background music and ensured you have permission to use that version (MCPS / PPL blanket license stuff generally)

Payment to PRS (useually a percentage of box-office)

Permission/clearance from the owners of the clips of film footage used (and they will themselves have agreements with the hundreds of sub-license holders that make up the creative team that created the film). If you choose to over-dub the montage with another piece of music then you'll also need specific clearance to use that track.

Legitimately bought / licensed scores for the orchestra and appropriate license from the music publishers for this useage situation.

Legitimately bought and licensed the backing tracks that the singers use for this useage situation (most backing tracks are licensed for "club singer" situations and wouldn't cover inclusion as part of a specific theatrical show) - if you're using the live orchestra then again the use of live singers and the libretto in a theatrical situation must be part of your license.

 

On the face of it it's a complicated situation but the industry is geared up for it so once you start things moving it all works - that said just think for a moment about how often you've seen a live show that does use archive footage as described..... it's time consuming and very few people have the time.

t

[dave singleton]

Tom,

 

Excellent post. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it.

 

Having spent ages looking for info on the net and not coming up with much (maybe because I'm using the wrong keywords etc) I'm at a bit of a loose end.

 

Do I look on the credits of the films in question etc and go direct to Sony/Universal/Fox etc (or whom evers' name is on the credits) and ask them for the use or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Wuddy]

As an example....

 

If the show has background music playing as the audiance comes in, the show then starts with a video montage of scenes from a musical film, the screen goes up and a live orchestra then play tunes from the show whilst dancers dance on stage. Maybe later on some people sing songs from the show as well either to backing track or to live music accompanyment.

 

You'd need to have....

Legitimatly purcased a CD/MP3 of the background music and ensured you have permission to use that version (MCPS / PPL blanket license stuff generally)

Payment to PRS (useually a percentage of box-office)

Permission/clearance from the owners of the clips of film footage used (and they will themselves have agreements with the hundreds of sub-license holders that make up the creative team that created the film). If you choose to over-dub the montage with another piece of music then you'll also need specific clearance to use that track.

Legitimately bought / licensed scores for the orchestra and appropriate license from the music publishers for this useage situation.

Legitimately bought and licensed the backing tracks that the singers use for this useage situation (most backing tracks are licensed for "club singer" situations and wouldn't cover inclusion as part of a specific theatrical show) - if you're using the live orchestra then again the use of live singers and the libretto in a theatrical situation must be part of your license.

 

.....and if as usually happens, someone wants to video the production so that all the participants can have a momento of the event, then you'll require the consent of all the above in order to do it.

[ImagineerTom]

You need to speak to the distributors of the film - they'll either license direct or point you to the appropriate agents. Don't be scared by the big names - the uk offices are relatively small and friendly and are used to dealing with licensing requests.

 

http://www.launchingfilms.com/links/index.html covers all the distributors and look around that site for lists of when films were released and by which distributors.