Will Head
Music also plays a big part in the impact a video can have, but including it in your productions isn’t as simple as just dropping your favourite track on the timeline and hitting the Export button.
Just as any video you produce is protected by copyright, so is music. Buy a CD and you only own the physical disc, not the rights to use that music as you see fit. So you can listen to the disc, but not put the music in one of your videos.
If you do want to include music in a video, unless you’ve made the music yourself, you need to obtain a licence from the copyright holder. However, there are a number of different rights involved, which further complicates the process. The main rights are the publisher rights to the song and the rights associated with a particular recording.
For example, if an artist writes a song and releases their recording of it themselves, they then own the rights to the song itself and that specific recording of it. If another band then covers the song and releases it, the original artist still holds the publishing rights, but the second band holds the rights to that specific cover version. In order to use a particular song in your video, you need to ensure you’ve obtained permission from all the rights holders.
If the track you want to use samples another song then you need to make sure the person from whom you’re licensing the music has permission to use the sample as well, otherwise you won’t be covered.
When it comes to video specifically, then you may also require a synchronisation or sync licence, which allows you to use the music only when it is synchronised with video. So, you can’t release the music on its own but only as part of your own video projects.
This only covers the rights concerned with actually making your video. If you then want to actually show it to someone – which is the main aim with most video productions – you could also need to pay performance rights for the music as well. These rights cover each performance of the music – and someone watching your video with the music in it is considered a performance, so if 100 people watch if you could have to pay for each one.
Organisations such as the Performing Rights Society (PRS) exist to collect payments on behalf of their members. So if a musician signs up to the PRS and a radio station plays their song, the PRS will request payment from the radio station and pass it onto the artist. The same applies for video productions, so you may need to contact the PRS to get a licence depending on whose music you’re planning to use.
Factor in things such as putting a video on the Internet, where you have no idea how many people will watch it in a set period of time and you could be forgiven for thinking that using any music at all is more hassle than it’s worth.
However, there are companies that make it much easier to pay the appropriate licences up front, so you can ensure you’re covered legally and without it costing you an arm and a leg.
While you won’t find well-known tracks from top-40 artists available this way, you’ll still find plenty of usable music that will enhance your productions. In fact, unless you’re making feature films, chances are well-known music from established artists would be overkill anyway.
This type of music is known as royalty-free music, which means once you’ve paid for it you can use it in your own video productions without paying any additional licence fees or royalties. Tracks obviously cost more to buy up front, but that’s the only fee you have to pay in terms of publishing rights.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t also cover performance rights, although many places that sell royalty-free music only accept work from artists that don’t belong to a performance rights collection agency. Despite its name, iStockphoto.com is a useful resource when it comes to purchasing royalty-free music for use in video projects. iStockphoto initially started as a royalty-free image site, but it has since expanded to sell audio and video content, too.
Audio purchased from iStockphoto can be used for anything from your office on-hold music to TV and film, and the licence covers DVD replication, TV broadcast and web and mobile use. You can read the full licence on the iStockphoto site but it should cover most uses you’ll encounter (istockphoto.com/license_audio.php). In addition, the licence specifically states: ‘iStockphoto has used reasonable efforts to ensure that the suppliers of Audio Content aren’t members of any performing rights, mechanical rights or any other similar societies (such as SOCAN, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, PRS, MCPS, SACEM, SDRM, JASLAC, GEMA, and so on) and that no performing rights or other royalties are required to be paid to any such organisations.’
iStockphoto uses a credit system for purchases – the more you buy in a single transaction, the cheaper they are. For example, 12 credits costs £13.75, which works out at £1.14 per credit, while 120 credits will set you back £131.25 or £1.09 per credit. Full tracks cost around 25 credits so it’s a very cost-effective way of obtaining music and ensuring you’re covered legally.
If you can’t find anything suitable in the standard collection, iStockphoto also offers tracks covered by its Pump Audio licence. These are full-length tracks by independent artists that you can licence for specific projects, and while the licence is more restrictive than the general audio licence, it’s still pretty lenient. Any tracks covered by the Pump Audio licence aren’t exempt performance royalties, though.
There are, of course, other royalty-free music sites out there, but when it comes to using any music in your videos it’s important to double-check the small print. Music licensing is far from straightforward, but if you know what you should be looking out for, you can find music for a reasonable amount and be sure you’ve purchased the correct rights to cover you.