A Loyal Reader asks:
“My OM gave me a new twist on copyright law today, one I’d not heard
before, and one I’m not sure is 100% accurate.“A local bar, called The Roadhouse, wanted to use the song by the
Doors to promote their establishment. Naturally I told them to do so
would be illegal. What they’ve done is take the karaoke version of the
song, with someone providing the slightly-altered lyrics, and supplied
us with that recording to use in their commercials.“Of course, that by itself is still illegal. But my OM sez that, since the
bar pays BMI and ASCAP fees for the right to play music in the bar’s
jukebox, we’re OK to use the song for the spot. I’m not sure I agree.
Your take?”
Your OM is absolutely, positively, 100% wrong.
No question, without a doubt, completely wrong.
And it won’t be the only local bar that is sued for copyright infringement; it also will be the owner of your radio station.
Comments on this entry are closed.
what? an OM is wrong? how can it be ??? hahaha….good post.
I thought ‘satire’ was OK… Am I wrong?
@Steve: Not dispensing legal advice here, of course….
If you mean within the commercial described above, I do not believe that would be protected as satire by the Fair Use doctrine.
Not only wrong, but a bad idea… to paraphrase Dan, never use anything in a radio commercial that the listener would rather pay attention to than the message. Such as… a really cool song by the Doors…
still speaking on the use of copy righted music in radio commercials; how do you get the people in sales to stop promising customers that it’s ok to use someone eles work for free.
@Steve:
From your question I’m guessing mean, “Even when they’ve already been told it’s illegal.”
If you actually mean, “How can we teach them?” then I recommend this book .
But if you mean they already know it’s illegal and that doesn’t deter them from agreeing to do it for advertisers: That has to come from upper management. Either the radio’s policy is not to violate the law, or it’s not.
I took a production director job in Harrisburg PA in the mid-90s. One of the required skills was a knowledge of music production and MIDI (which I had in bucketloads). I thought it was for producing custom in-house zaps, beds etc. Nope, it was so the station could continue its practice of vocal-zapping hit songs and laying new vocals on top for commercial clients. I voiced my objections immediately to no avail. I stayed there two years before heading to Washington DC and did my best to minimize this practice, but it was still part of the job I had to do or risk being fired and sitting out a six month, 25-mile, non-compete.
@Alan: If the station had fired you for refusing to engage in illegal activities on their behalf, there’s no way they’d be able to enforce that non-compete clause…
And the last thing they’d want to do is go public with their story in court.
What if I recorded commercials off of the air (TV or radio) and then used them on a website for discussion purposes?
@ Mark in OK: The reason I wrote the Copyright Laws book is to answer questions like that. (Although because you’re asking about using it on a website, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t be sure if the book would answer your question. But it does.)