OK – I’m a musician and I can assure you that it’s NOT a little problem. 

Even if you intend it for personal use, it is still in a public forum and the fact is that you do not own the music.   The people who DO are required by law to defend their copyright.  If they don’t, then someone can make a case in a court of law that they have “given up” their right to the property and then they can lose ALL rights to it.

I know that copyright applies to visual art (including your photos and videos, by the way) for a limited number of years after the artist’s death. I think it’s at 74 years now. The copyright is owned by the owner, or the estate. After that, it can be considered in the Public Domain. That’s why you can make a Mona Lisa mousepad and not get sued, but a David Hockney beach blanket will probably get you into trouble without perm. It doesn’t matter if you add a credit line unless it’s the approved credit line sent to you by the rights owner.

My Question for wendyzski is: Is there a time limit on public domain for music too? I used the Brandenburg Concertos behind a video of my bunny. I know the music is old enough if there is, though I thought I read that the orchestra recording it might have copyright on their version. Is that true?

Would you know where to find music for backgrounds on our home videos that is strictly in the public domain? Any websites?
Thanks

Copyrights in this country (USA) are essentially infinite.  Most copyright for music is owned by the record labels, not the artists, and every time Mickey Mouse comes close to becoming public domain, Disney gets the copyright extended, so they are basically infinite.

I do not know about FaceBook, but I have some experience with YouTube.  They have some kind of scanning technology that artists can register their songs with, and YouTube will identify the violation and send you a message.  I have had 1 video flagged in this manner, but the good news is that the copyright holder allows use of their music on YouTube.  I never credit the music directly, and YouTube figured it out by analyzing the sound track.

even tho i did give full credit to the artists in my video and was NEVER trying to pass off the music as my own, i realize now that the issue is that it was compiled without the owners knowledge or permission

That’s pretty much the issue.  A lot of independant musicians are happy to allow you to use their work – for promotion and proper credit.  But you do need to ask first.  If someone posted a striptease video to one of my songs and then misspelled my name on the “credits”, i’d be pissed.

About the Concertos – it would depend on who is performing the work. 

There are 2 kinds of issues involved here – the first is “copyright”, which belongs to whoever originally “wrote” the piece, or their heirs.  The second is IPL which is your “version” of a song.  In the case you mentioned, the work itself is probably in the public domain (I think it’s 50 years?) but the IPL belongs to whatever orchestra is performing it.  I don’t know what kind of time limits there are on IPLs as I’ve never had to deal with them.

I have a new CD at the factory right now, and I had to document BOTH the copyright and IPL for all the tunes before they would agree to manufacture it – they don’t want to be sued as an accessory to the fact.  I had to sign a statement that I had permission from all the creators, and relieving the factory of all responsibility.  I had to negotiate what is called “mechanical licensing” (the license to produce a physical product) with all the copyright holders, and have to pay most of them a royalty fee as well as credit as per their specifications.  Once the disks get to me (around the 15th) then I have to send a copy of the CD and a payment check to a bunch of people – including two in England.  And the pound is SO high compared to the dollar, it’s costing me more to do those sons.  But they re SO pretty….

Slightly different legalities are invoked for “use”, and the issue of “fair use” of music you have purchased physical CDs of is still being hotly debated.  It’s an evolving field of law, but most of the larger hosting sites are erring on the side of caution when it comes to copyrights.

BTW – if you’re interested in hearing and/or purchasing my music, go to http://www.merrymeasure.com

It does get interesting. I have the same restrictions in my work.

I do a lot of freelancing and a few years ago I had done a drawing of a doll’s head for a lady and she contacted me that another doll maker had ‘stolen’ the logo I had done for her, and worse yet was dragging HER into court for copyright infringement.

I was called in to testify that I had indeed been paid for creating the logo and doing the drawing for the lady. It pretty much cinched the imposter as a liar when I quickly redrew the doll from memory….lol. She had to pay damages to my client and of course, stop using the drawing.

WOW!!! 😮

This is all very interesting….And confusing!!! :s

As a professional programmer, all of my designs and code are copyrighted.  The copyrights (rightly IMO) belong to my employer because they are paying me and own the product of my labor.  In software there is a movement toward what is known as FOSS (Free/Open Source Software), where the source code and the software made from it is freely available to anyone.  You may have used some of these products without realizing they are open source, things like FireFox, Linux, Thunderbird, The Gimp, etc.  FOSS is *not* the same as public domain, because I can take a piece of public domain software, repackage it, and sell it royalty free without providing source code to my customers.  FOSS is specifically licensed so that I have to supply source code to any derivative work.  There are other FOSS licenses that allow you to modify, sell, whatever you want, you just have to give credit to the original work in your documentation (for any of you who have experience with running web sites, the Apache web server is licensed like this).  This is all highly confusing, and keeps lawyers in Silicon Valley and other technology hotspots busy.

The video that got flagged used the old Police song “De Doo Doo Doo, De Da Da Da” as the soundtrack.  BMG (I think?) owns the copyright, but allows people on YouTube to use the music.  I think this is smart on their part because they are not really in competition with poor quality audio streams from YouTube, and maybe someone sees my video and remembers the song and buys a CD.

There is also the issue of licensing organizations, like ASCAP or BMI.

If an artist is represented by either of these entities, they are the ones who are likely to “go after” infringement, to protect their investment in the work.   For example,  and bar that has live music or a DJ is required to have a “public performance license”, which they pay to one of these entities  for the right  to play  represented music.  Same thing with places that have “Muzak” – they pay not only for the equipment but also for the licensing.

I had this issue several years ago when a venue (The Michigan Renaissance Festival) informed us 2 days before opening that any ASCAP or BMI fines would be charged to the performers.  Ummm – no.  A quick check of the web clearly shows that they are the responsibilty of the venue.  Also adding clauses like that unilaterally to a signed contract … also ummmmm – no.

And it is these agencies and the major record labels who are behind the demise of internet radio.  They have instigated draconian fee structures against small niche streaming internet stations, supposedly to “make sure the artists get paid” – except that NONE of these fees go to the artists.  They go to the major labels.  Those of us without labels will never see a dime AND we’ve lost our single most valuable marketing asset.

I was on a panel at a convention in Ohio a few years ago about “Ethics and the Creative Artist”, where we all talked about these kinds of issues.  It gets complicated in visual arts as well.  For example, we had a panelist who sells T-shirts with artwork on them.  Who owns what (the design, the silkscreen, the finished product) at what stage is very confusing.

This lecture is entertaining and relevant:

Talks Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/187

‘The Net’s most adored lawyer brings together John Philip Sousa, celestial copyrights, and the “ASCAP cartel” to build a case for creative freedom. He pins down the key shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws, and reveals how bad laws beget bad code. Then, in an homage to cutting-edge artistry, he throws in some of the most hilarious remixes you’ve ever seen.’

wendyzski,
Thanks for your reply. That’s really interesting. I have seen the arguments over the years intensify in print about copyright issues, and it all seems to be difficult for all parties involved. I’m sorry to hear that it’s now hurting independent artists using internet radio.

I had worked for a museum that featured the work of illustrators of the 20th century, so we did a lot with copyright perm. from the artists’ estates. The issue for them always was the ownership of the original, and the ownership of the copyright. The works were made for publication, were works for hire, so the copyright would go to the publisher. Example: the Curtis Publishing Company held the rights for the Saturday Evening Post with covers painted by Norman Rockwell, J. C. Leyendecker, etc. The original paintings for covers might stay at the publishers (where some lucky editor might get it, and now have a collectors piece) or they just gave it back to the artist. That’s when it went to the artists’ heirs, or estate. If someone wanted to reproduce one of these published images, they needed to contact Curtis Pub. Co. for permission because they were the rights holders. If they wanted to borrow the original painting of the cover, then they contacted the estate, and Curtis only to reproduce the image on pieces like invitations and brochures. It’s very confusing.

Illustrators and designers today have smartened up to the fact that the copyright ownership is important. Wherever possible, they can put into a contract that the image is being purchased for a specific use (say a new CD cover) and only that. If they want to publish it in a poster, back to the artist to get permission and pay more $. Naturally, the business hiring the artist will load up the contract with permission ahead of time to use the image they are buying on everything they can think of, electronic, hard copy, mouse pads, whatever. The artist gets screwed again, because if artist doesn’t agree to it, they often can lose the job. Staff artists have no rights since everything they make while on someone’s payroll is usually contracted to be the employer’s property immediately, as stated above about the architectural drawings.

But really, isn’t this traditional treatment of artists? I mean, did Michaelangelo really get paid what he was worth by the Pope, not to mention his cartoonist assistants, whose names we never knew but who went home with backaches too?

P.S. I went to visit your website and got this message    “You don’t have permission to access /~hsapiens on this server.”