Limited Licensing

[Lmarrie]

Good day,

 

I was wondering this as I lie awake last night, what type or level of licensing would be needed if we planned to do live events on location where there was a possibility that some copyrighted material may be picked up in the background? For instance if we broadcast live from a party where a DJ was playing and that music got picked up in the background.

 

Is there a type of limited license that is needed or could be acquired? Also, if that is needed would it really be more cost effective just not to do these types of events which we wouldn't do often anyway?

 

Last question, is it true that if you have someone working for you who has a license, such as a dj, that you can operate under that license?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Vanlen]

Copyright laws are changing in every country and not for the good I'm afraid. Hopefully more people will chime in but on a few of your questions

 

Since you are in the U.S. there is still the fair use clause which is very confusing. So if you are broadcasting from an event that has music playing in the background but it has nothing to do with your live feed as in talking about issues or other things then I can't see a problem. However if you are picking up the music as the focus of, in your case a party, then that could be an infringement as the DJ at that party only has rights to play at the event he's employed at.

 

If you have a DJ that is licensed to play their music but it's on your station? Then you would need the license as you are the licensed entity providing the content.

 

I'm no lawyer but these days the bottom line everywhere is just plain greed when it comes to copyright for the little guys like us so be very careful.

 

Cheers

[Lmarrie]

Thanks for the response!

 

I totally agree that it's all about how much money "they" can make. We stick to playing independent artists, however, we have some folks who would like to join our network in the future and they would like to play licensed music.

I will do more digging into the background music issue.

 

I know as far as Youtube goes they have yanked videos down like crazy if there was even one note of copyrighted music in the background. Matter of fact they even tried to take down a video with music my fiance wrote because (they said) I didn't have the rights.