MUSIC & SOUND DESIGN

More to come to this page.  Check out what is here and revisit this page again soon.



MUSIC USAGE & RIGHTS

You may not use existing copyrighted music in your PSS unless you get permission from the owners of that music. Copyright laws forbid the duplication and use of someone else's creative output. There are 2 basic kinds of rights that must be obtained (although the terms and specific rights needed may vary with each piece of music).

PUBLISHING RIGHTS - The lyrics are owned by someone or some entity. It is important that rights be granted for the use of the words before any music is used.

MECHANICAL RIGHTS - The actual recording (performance) is considered a separate ownership issue. Quite often the Publishing rights and Mechanical rights are owned by separate entities. An example:

A number of years ago the publishing rights to the Beatles’ songs were purchased and eventually ended up in the hands of Michael Jackson. Jackson had sole discretion as to the use of the lyrics and words of the Beatles songbook. However, the Beatles retained the rights to their actual recordings (mechanical rights) of these songs. The Beatles had a strict policy of not allowing their recordings to be used for other media, such as in movies (did you ever notice that actual Beatles recordings are not used in movies, commercials, etc?). However, the lyrics were in play. The film "Across the Universe" was created around of the words in Beatle's songs, but the actors sang the songs; not one Beatles performance was used.

What this means for you is that you would need to obtain both the mechanical rights and publishing rights to any song. They may both be owned by the same person, possibly not. If not, then both owners must be negotiated with.

This does not mean you cannot secure the rights to a song you feel would be perfect for your project, but it will take writing or calling or Emailing the proper parties and presenting them with your proposition. Your proposition would include:

• Use of the song for a specified period of time (3 months, 1 year, perpetuity).

• Usage (how it is going to be used). In your case the use is non-commercial school related activities. You might want to include the rights to exhibit your film in film festivals.

• Distribution possibilities: Educational use; possible use by one of the organizations you came in contact with and similar groups (must be non-profit); the web (this might be difficult to get due to the large number of people who would have access to the film); fund-raising ; non-theatrical, etc.

• No cost. The owners would have to agree to not charge you for the music. This is not impossible as you are students with no resources.

One place to start to find out who owns the rights to a song is to search and/or contact one of the large publishing houses. The biggest ones are ASCAP & BMI.

If you personally know a musical artist hat would make securing the rights a lot easier, unless they don't want to give permission. It is also possible to contact recording artists directly but reaching them can be difficult.

The advantages you have if you wish to go down this route are:

YOU'RE A STUDENT.

YOU DON'T WISH TO MAKE MONEY FROM THE SONG'S USE.

YOU ARE DOING THIS FOR A WORTHWHILE CAUSE (probably).

If you want to look into obtaining usage for music then see your filmmaking teacher for more details.

As for other types of music, there is royalty free music where you pay once and use it forever. Copyright-Free music (although little of this exists and is probably older music) and music that composers put out there for free use for a mention in the credits. Searching this sort of music is best done on the internet.  Below are sites that have music to use for free:

      incompetech

      uncopyrightedrock

      FMA (read this info to make sure you may legally use music from this site)

      freepd (PD stands for Public Domain, meaning no one has rights to this music and can be used in any 

                     way the possessor wishes).