Re-render a musictrack and use it, legal?

[Mr. Tunes]

have you even tried to contact the composer yet? if you're work is non-profit, then explain that to him. if it is for profit, then explain that to him too and offer him some money!

If you get your friend to perform his piece on their own system, you are still infringing on a copyright, just not the original mechanical that is his recording on the cd.

[tarun_don]

Thanks for the answer. Yes, I am currently trying to contact him. Not very easy as all info about him is in Korean. But hopefully I'll find a way soon.
I am not sure any offer that I can make would even buy his daily sugar, he's pretty big I guess. Hopefully he'll let me use it because it's non profit short for festivals. OR I might fit in a similar music.

BTW Welcome to Cgtalk :thumbsup:

[malcolmvexxed]

Thanks for the answer. Yes, I am currently trying to contact him. Not very easy as all info about him is in Korean. But hopefully I'll find a way soon.
I am not sure any offer that I can make would even buy his daily sugar, he's pretty big I guess. Hopefully he'll let me use it because it's non profit short for festivals. OR I might fit in a similar music.

BTW Welcome to Cgtalk :thumbsup:

I wonder sometimes if the era of lawyers has made people only think about things from a legality standpoint and not common sense.

If you drew something and somebody else looked at it, copied it exactly and then said they drew it and used it for something they wanted to do would you accept that or be upset?

[jbo]

having a friend perform the piece won't magically make it legal (unless it were public domain) but it will often make it a lot cheaper to secure the rights.

[Per-Anders]

Legally afaik it's still the copyright holders property. And technically even doing "covers" is in fact illegal without permision, of course that's only enforced if a recording is made and sold of the cover generally (otherwise so many pub bands would cease to exist).

[tarun_don]

Thanks for the kind responses. I read on some sites that

I can use "Beethovan" or other old classical music pieces whose composers are long dead without infringing any copyrights. Is it correct?

Tarun

[dbates]

I can use "Beethovan" or other old classical music pieces whose composers are long dead without infringing any copyrights. Is it correct?

Sure. I don't know when the cutoff is for public domain, but Bach / Beethoven / Mozart definitely are. Also check out the lesser-known classical composers. . . your piano friend might find a not-so-well known piece that fits the mood of your film perfectly. (Piano teachers are a good resource, too).

[tarun_don]

Thanks dbates. Would be cool to hear from someone who has used such classical stuff for personal work and didn't run into trouble.

[serge animation]

Actually, I'm doing my own music for a 3d short i'm doing. It's a classical song by Chopin (1800s), and I will play it myself. If you have an easy to moderate-skilled piano song in mind, and it's already legally public domain, then tell me about it. Maybe I can help you out.

[tarun_don]

Thanks serge animation, that's a really kind offer. Right now I have a friend who is gonna do it, but I'll keep you in mind, just incase. By the way, the track is "beethoven- piano sonata 21" just the first 2 minutes and was composed in 1803-4.

[bperry]

I recently hit a similar snag. A relative of mine is a musician/composer. He offered to let me use his music for a short project. However, just because he's the composer doesn't necessarily mean he owns the actual copyright. His record label owns the rights to every song he's recorded with them and I had to obtain the rights from them. It helped to have the composer's permission as he was able to convince them to lower the price (by foregoing his cut), although it took so long I ended up going with another piece.

He has rewritten his contract now so that he has the right to play or re-record any of his own songs, but a lot of artists don't have that luxury. It's all in the contract agreements.

(This is the chief reason you never want to write a particular song into a script, as you never know if you'll actually get the rights to use it.)

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