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Can I buy songs to get rid of the copyright issues?
So this is another spin-off from the youtube copyright thread.
Does anyone know if it's possible to buy the rights to use a specific song without buying the whole WMG etc 🙂 ?
I'd be willing to pay a little once in a while to get around the blocking.
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8 Replies
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One song can cost you anywhere from over $100 to thousands of dollars.
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Wow, almost like buying the whole WMG then 😉
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It is ridiculous. I was looking into purchasing music to play in my studio and ran into issues with PROs. It would have been cheaper for me to just pay the PROs in the end if I was going to buy music. I currently work with musicians who have given me permission to use their music in my studio and in any videos I produce to post on YouTube. If you can develop a relationship with the actual artists that are producing original work and they allow you to use their music then that is your work around.
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Ok I see. I don't know how it is here around with these things as I don't have a business. Seems to be a difficult situation if you have to develop a relationship with the artists even if it would be have been nice sometimes;).
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It is very, very unlikely you would be able to buy the rights to a song. Firstly, there are many different types of copyright in one song. I'm guessing (as this is the spin off from the yt thread) that you would want to buy the rights to broadcast and disseminate the property amongst the public. Secondly, as someone else mentioned this can be incredibly expensive. Thirdly, it is unlikely someone would give you the rights to the work they created without getting anything out of it themselves…the reason bands give up some of their IP rights to record companies is because those record companies then help the band out with promoting etc. this is obviously a very oversimplified explanation
What you should do, depending on your actual cisrcumstances is look into paying royalties to use the song. For instance, most retailers would pay a fee to the relevant authorities each year. That authority (I am only familiar with Australian law, so I don't know the name of the American authority) would then give the money back to the artists as 'royalties' for their song being played. This is kind of like renting out the IP rights.
The other option you have, is one that Kobajo84 suggested and that is to get exclusive permission from the copyright holder to use their work. Smaller bands are usually more than happy to help out with this, becuase it means their songs get played and people get to listen to them. They're usually not in a bargaining position to demand royalty fees because they're not well known.
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I think what you just explained about royalty is more what I meant from the start as I'd not be interested in "owning" anyones song, just borrow it. I know so little about this obviously.
So if you wanted to pay such a royalty for a specific song, how would you do it in Australia? I'm in Sweden so it may not be really the same but anyway knowing how to do it anywhere could be a start 🙂
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paying royalties is how you get around buying the rights.
The actual methods may be slightly different, but I think for the most part copyright has the same legal principles regardless of jurisdiction. (A quick google search tells me Sweden is pretty similar to Australian copyright law)
So let's assume you own the copyright in a piece of music (and it gets complicated here, because there's a few different types of copyright in each music piece). You have the right to prevent people from copying your work (e.g. illegal downloading comes into play here). You also have the right to control how your music is broadcast and who gets to listen to it.
The basic principle is that if you have worked hard on creating this great song, you should be able to have your rights protected so you can make some money off that song as a reward. So, in Australia there is an agency called APRA. If you plan to play music to the public (most common example is a retailer) then you pay APRA a fee every year and they give a portion of that fee to the musicians, or the copyright owners. So in this sense, you are "borrowing" the right to use that music. Because you don't actually own that right, does this make sense? If you did own the right, then you would be able to allow other people to play the music.
So if you want to play songs that are on the radio, you would need to pay a licencing fee to do so. If you just want to play music and don't care what it is, then I would look into asking local bands if you can play their stuff. This is the same principle; they are giving you the exclusive right themselves to play the music.
So, the above principles will apply, it will just be a matter as to who the agency is that you pay the licencing fee will be.
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Ah, thanks a lot for the information. It could be worth looking more into!
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