Task 4
Royalty Free Music?
In this project we have been asked to produce a film/video strip
of are images to tell the story of the day in the life of the objected we have
chosen. We have also been asked to accompany this film with music from the web
or of our own creation. For this task I have been asked to find out what ‘Royalty
Free’ music is and how it will affect the choice of music I will be using.
So what is ‘Royalty Free’ music?
The simplest and most
straightforward interpretation of ‘Royalty Free’ music is that it is a type of
music licence that allows the purchaser to pay only once of the produced. They
can then use the music for as long as they wish and as many times as that want.
For example if you purchase some ‘Royalty
Free’ music for video your YouTube video, you would pay one single price and be
able use the music for a month or ten years if you wish. This is only a simple definition,
so I will explain more about the way this type of music licencing work and how
the term can be misunderstood.
Now the term ‘Royalty free’ music simply means that the
music you are playing is free of royalties. The opposite term to this is called
a ‘Rights managed license’ where the product purchase has a fee (royalties)
according to the number of times it is played.
This type of fee-based licensing is also called ‘Needle drop licensing’
which means you pay for every time the ‘Needle’ is dropped to play the record,
whereas in ‘Royalty free’ music you only pay for the purchase once. You can then play the music as many times as
you want without having to pay royalties to the artist or creator of the piece
you are playing. Now just because the music been used is royalty free this
douse not make it FREE. For this type of licensing there is no set price as it
is not something that is price structure. It is only a licensing model. Most of
the time the music if affordable, but it all depends on what the artists think
there work is worth. Do worry there are other ways to get ‘Royalty free’ music
for no payment. This happen when a person offers their music for free (Royalty
free or not) in exchange for listing/crediting their work when you use it. I think
this system works best for people wanting to get free publicity for their work.
Royalty free music is not stock music although, most royalty
free music comes from stock music libraries but, they are not synonymous. Stock
music libraries offer music already in stock. That is already made and ready to
be licensed. Some people consider stop music in a negative light and see it as
cheap ‘canned music’. This is not the case. With stock music you have a full
range of musical from amateurs to high quality professional music tracks on
offer. It is opposite to custom-made music that is created for specific product,
like an advert for television. Many stock libraries offer their music on a
Royalty free bases, but others can offer them on Rights managed basis so be careful
when agreeing to type of licencing offered. The choice of music licensing has
nothing to do with the quality of the music itself. Like with any music, ‘Royalty
free’ can be from any genre of music.
Now even though
royalty free music is free of royalties and can sometimes be offered free of
charge. It is not copyright free as there isn't really such a thing as
copyright free. Whoever created the piece of music automatically owns the
copyright for the piece. In order to qualify for the right to hold copyright
and the individual has to create a piece of work that should be original and
show a degree of Labour, skill or judgement. If the creator says anyone can use
the music for any purpose, then the copyright owner is giving you the ‘right to
copy’ music for any purpose. So it may be free to use but not copyright free.
This does not mean that the composer has given you the ‘performing rights’ to
the piece. This means that if the work was used in a TV ad the owner of the
work can receive composer royalties for the public performance of the music.
The copyright of the music covers the sound recording and the lyrics used
within the piece. Even public domain music is not copyright free, even if the
composition is copyright free the actual sound recording isn't. The copyright
duration of the music a piece is 50 years from the end of calendar year in
which the work was created, or if the work is released with that time. Then its
50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the work first released.
The only time copyright is not automatically given to the individual who
creates the work is if the creator is working through a company which has hired
them to compose a piece of work for them.
Now I've brought public performance up in the last paragraph
and that basically means that when you buy royalty free music, that music licensing
does not include you us it for a public performances such as TV. If the piece
was publicly performed the royalties paid to the composer when the music is
aired. These royalties are not paid by you, but the network that is
broadcasting it. So, for you the music licensing Royalty free, but Royalty
maybe paid to the composer though the PRO or performance rights organisation.
In a nutshell copyright ownership basically gives the creator of the right to
control the way in which their material is used.
The penalties for
breaking copyrights vary depending on how you had infringed on the copyright
law. For example if someone found out you were using their music without
permission they could send you an email to politely ask you to remove your
video from whatever website it is on, or in extreme cases if the copyright is
infringed to the degree that the person's ‘stealing’ the music (or anything
under copyright) and is making money on it. Then they can be taken to court and
actually served prison time. The current copyright law is the copyright design
and patents act 1988.
Article by: Gilles Arbour
YouTube and Copyright
Now there is a possibility that my work may be put up on YouTube,
so I thought I would look into how they deal with copyright on their website. YouTube
uses a system known as the Content Identification System to recognize videos that
contain copyrighted audio or video. The ‘fingerprint’ of the media used in the
video is compared with the database of copyrighted work. If flagged the
copyright owner has the right to block the video or add an advertisement to the
video. They also have the right to track the viewing statistics. If your video
is removed for braking copyright then you will receive a strike. If you were to
get three strikes then your account would be forcefully removed from the
website.
