Yesterday’s blog posting stimulated such an impassioned reader response that I feel obliged to issue this Declaration of Principle.
A radio station that knowingly, illegally uses copyrighted music in a commercial because “all the other stations do it” is akin to the liquor store that sells booze to minors “because all the liquor stores do it.”
A radio station that requires its employees to violate copyright laws (let’s be clear: TO BREAK THE LAW) or lose their jobs deserves the same respect people give to used car dealers who illegally “roll back the odometers” to cheat customers (and, again, to violate the law).
Those radio stations aren’t simply ignoring some nonsensical bureaucratic government dictate. They are stealing someone else’s property.
To those radio station owners and managers: You are law breakers. Your “My station will do anything if you give us money, even if it’s illegal” attitude disgraces the radio industry and insults the radio station owners and managers who abide by the law and respect other people’s property.
It should also shame you and your families. But some people will do anything for money, and some people will break the law for profit if they think they might be able to get away with it.
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If an agency does this using such a song as \The Lion Sleeps tonight\ then emails such material to other stations I realize this illegal. How would you suggest the station handle this uprightly with that Agency?
@Anonymous: I’ve written an entire book on the topic, so I’ll just give you the short answer here:
Tell the agency, “I’m sorry, the use of that music violates the copyright holder’s rights, so we can’t air it.” “It’s illegal” + “We don’t break the law” should be enough of an explanation.
For a look at other options (offering to check on the cost of licensing the music, for example — which usually gets the agency or client to drop the issue altogether), you might check out the aforementioned ebook.
The sad part is, if you’re an agency, you should know better to even ask a station to do this. Geesh, take some responsibility for your client.
So, Dan…are you saying this is wrong?!
I work for a Canadian station but I’m sure our laws are similar to yours. Do you think stations do this because it’s unlikely they’ll get caught? Can you give us a scenario of how a station would get caught…would someone from the record company hear it and complain?
By the way, I totally agree with you, Dan. I always tell clients we can’t use copyrighted music in an ad.
@John: Some of the ways that stations get caught:
* Copyright holder (often the songwriter) — or a friend or relative of the copyright holder — hears the commercial. One of the readers of this blog posted about the time Ray Stevens sued for (and collected) damages after hearing one of his songs used in a small market radio commercial.
* Someone (employee with a conscience, competitor, or outraged listener) sends a copy of the recording to the copyright holder. Publishing houses have legal departments devoted to protecting those copyrights.
* If the commercial uses part of the original recording (rather than rewriting and rerecording it), then often there’s more than one copyright being infringed upon: that of the songwriter and also that of the musical artist who made the recording being used. That doubles the odds that the station will get caught.
This is awesome. I just had a conversation this morning with a sales rep whose client wants to use a television theme song and can’t understand why I won’t.
OK, we do know — for a fact — that radio managers read Dan O’Day. So do salespeople. I’d like to see one of them defend decisions to use copyrighted material illegally — even if they do it anonymously.
How sad that you censor my posts without so much as a simple reply.
With so much good and affordable royalty-free music available, and for a little more money, custom jingles and songs – there’s really no good reason for producers to steal songs for commercial use. And for those convinced that their commercials or campaigns require a tie-in to some famous song, the Harry Fox Agency is happy to provide a license for a fee.
On the other hand, little guys like me have no recourse when large corporations choose to “borrow” our work (as Fender Musical Instruments Company did in 2007, with a slogan I created for a local music store in 2003). The intellectual property rights attorney we hired for $500 to write a ‘cease and desist’ letter to Fender concluded that unless we had very deep pockets, we didn’t stand a chance of prevailing and suggested we console ourselves with the knowledge that they thought highly enough of our work to use it themselves.
This isn’t about copyrighted music, but along the lines of this topic, and relevant with the Super Bowl coming up. The NFL holds the property rights to all phrases dealing with the Super Bowl (or any NFL game) for advertising purposes. Among the things you CAN’T say in a commercial include:
Super Bowl
Super Sunday
NFL, AFC, or NFC
National Football League
American Football Conference
National Football Conference
team names
And I had to explain this to an AGENCY person just today, who sent me a script for a restaurant and their “Super Bowl” carry-out special. Fortunately, she understood and didn’t fight to leave it in (a fight she would’ve lost anyway).
This is why you’ll hear (or at least you SHOULD hear, if they’re following the rules) a lot of ads referring to the Super Bowl and the teams as “the Big Game between Pittsburgh and Green Bay,” or something like that.
So, unless you’re “stealers” don’t say Steelers. =)
Hey here’s one to share with clients… not only is it illegal, but what a great tuneout for the station… I’m listening to a station in podunk Arkansas and several of the commercials have popular songs as the music bed. Every time I heard one, I turned the station because I liked the song, but realized it was part of a commercial, was frustrated and spun the dial… I’m sure I’m not the only person who does that… and more importantly, I remember nothing of the commercial itself.. a double loss for the advertiser and the station…