Question: I have been emailed by a PRO regarding the background music on my website. Do I need to contact them about it?
Answer: Well, that really depends. As I do not have your web address or know your location, it is hard to provide a specific answer, but two scenarios could be the reason for them contacting you.
Scenario 1 – You are being contacted because they have identified the background music track as one that is in their database. If this is the case, I suspect you are using a piece of music by a high-profile mainstream artist, such as Britney Spears or Madonna, one that is easy for them to find in search engines.
If this is the case, they will keep trying to get hold of you until you either remove the music or pay the license fee they feel is appropriate. I guess that if you ignore them and keep using the music, they may contact your Internet Service Provider to pursue it further.
Scenario 2 – The music you are using is not mainstream, but they want to enquire about it. Maybe you licensed it from a royalty-free music website or a Creative Commons license, or even got permission directly from the composer or your friend’s band. If this is the case, I believe that they do not have any right to contact you.
There are many PROs worldwide that collect performance royalties on behalf of composers. The PRO can charge royalties for use of music that the composer has registered with them. If the music is not registered, they have no right to charge a royalty or, in my opinion, even contact you regarding the origin of the music (unless they are certain it is in their database). They are just organisations like any other company; they are not the police and do not have any legal power themselves.
If you choose not to respond to them, you may get more contact attempts. My opinion is that if you know you have a valid license agreement or permission, you do not need to give them any information. However, to prevent them from contacting you again, a quick reply explaining that you have a valid license/permission should be sufficient. You do not need to justify yourself by giving them a copy of your license or track/composer details. You have no obligation to answer any further questions.
For the PRO to take things further, they would need to prove that you are using an unlicensed track from their database and would have to employ the services of a legal practitioner.
So remember…
If you have a valid license/permission, you are doing nothing wrong and have nothing to prove. However, if you are knowingly using a mainstream or unlicensed track, you are heading for trouble.
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Hi Lee – as always your info makes fascinating reading.
What about the situation I often find myself in where I have voiced a commercial, the agency use music they pay for, but pass a copy on to me for my demo showreel. This was fine when distribution maybe only on a few CDs, but if I put it on my website it’s possible to hear it anywhere in the world.
Also the recent New Zealand proposal to cut off broadband supplies following guilt by accusation makes this even more worrying
Hi David,
I am glad you like my content and thank you for your comment.
I know exactly what you mean, many voice-over demos are compiled entirely of such material.
I consider that you are doing nothing wrong as the license fee for the commercial use of that music has already been paid. I don’t know any voice-overs who pay additional fees for use in a demo reel.
I know that some would consider this to be ‘fair use’, although this is one of those very grey areas and to my knowledge there is not even a definition of this in UK copyright law. Here is a link to a useful site Copyright Law: Understanding Fair Use http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p09_fair_use
Also, here is an interesting related news item about fair use http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/22/google-calls-for-uk-copyright-reforms
I won’t mention names, but I met with a high profile intellectual property specialist a couple of years ago to discuss this issue. At the time, he was advising Google about their online usage policy. His advice to Google was to be reactive to any copyright issues that come along as being proactive and trying to cover themselves for every legal eventuality was not practical. He suggested that they should just get on with it. Good advice I think, especially as everything is so complicated and in a state of constant change.
It seems that they did this. An example would be YouTube (owned by Google). Apparently, YouTube now pay a blanket PRO license, whereas for quite a few years they did not. I would guess that this means any YouTube videos embedded to a site are covered by YouTube’s license as it is streaming from their server.
I guess if it came to it you could offer a short compilation on your site without music (or you could include royalty free / CC music) and provide the main show / demo reel material as a zip’d selection of folders containing all your demos. You could request an email address and send it to them. This way there would definitely be no performance royalty issues and you would be capturing an email address which is good for keeping your potential clients updated on your availability 🙂
I hope that helps,
Lee