Copyright question

[wadio]

To the best of my knowledge local advertisers don't use hit songs in their commercials because the licensing fees are far too high. Instead they use stock music. If you hear a Beatles song in a radio or TV commercial, odds are good it's for a major national advertiser.

So what explains the "Living Better with Laura Smith" infomercials on WABC opening and closing with the Beatles "Getting Better All the Time?"

I believe talk stations pay royalties based on the amount of music they use for bumpers, etc., but I don't think that covers use in commercials. This Laura Smith stuff is clearly paid for by the advertisers who appear as "guests" on the "program." And the "Living Better On The Go" short-forms that run both on the air and on the Internet are clearly ads for "My Pillow." So who's licensing the music -- Laura Smith, WABC, My Pillow? How do they afford it?

 

[reelyreal]

It's an "incidental use" and is allowed.

Here's some reading, but it's pretty dry:

http://accounting.musicreports.com/...+of+Music+Used+In+Teasers+and+Closing+Credits

 

[wadio]

According to this: (scroll up a little to the bottom of p.299)

http://books.google.com/books?id=i4...opyrighted music in radio commercials&f=false

... for commercials, copyright law trumps the blanket ASCAP/BMI license. You need a synchronization license to use a pop song in a commercial. That's what I've always believed. Have a look.

 

[Bob1370]

All talk stations use bumpers of 59 seconds or less because that's the limit of the fair use exemption. There is one other practical loophole although it's rarely invoked because most stations don't have much occasion to use it...if you're interviewing an artist and he either lets you use a longer snippet of his work or encourages it, you have clearance to use as much as he or she will let you, at least in the context of that show.

 

[wadio]

The urban legend is that 30-seconds or less constitutes fair use but even that isn't clear. The issue here, however, is the use of a copyrighted piece of music IN A COMMERCIAL, which is an entirely different matter.

The law seems to be sketchy about "fair use," but not about commercial use. If WABC, Laura Smith, My Pillow, or whoever, is using a copyrighted song as a commercial music bed without making special clearance and payment arrangements with the copyright holder, I'll bet they're on thin ice.

Getting clearance for a major hit used to be a major expense and a major hassle -- maybe that's changed. When I first heard this "Living Better" stuff months ago I thought the song would be pulled in short order. I guess either they've found a cheap way to license it, or the copyright holder doesn't listen to WABC!

 

[badjef]

Phillips was using Beatles' "Getting Better". But it wasn't the Beatles performing it.

Peter Frampton was doing his "Do you feel like we do" on a Geico commercial.

There was a commercial where various people were trying to figure out a line in Elton John's Rocket Man - "burning the fuse up here alone."

These are examples of where the song was an integral part of the theme of the commercial.

I made a promo for my show, years ago, that spliced and diced Face to Face's "10, 9, 8" as the bed of the promo.

Many more examples.

While we are on the thread, anybody else think of any?

Jeff in Sa-ra-so-ta!