The Insider's Guide to Music Licensing by Brian Tarquin

Author:Brian Tarquin [Tarquin, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Publisher: Allworth Press
Published: 2014-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

COPYRIGHT BASICS

From an experience point of view, the first time I became aware of the copyright laws was years ago when The Weather Channel started playing my songs on their broadcasts. I had been speaking with the music director of the station at the time and had approved it only if they would supply cue sheets to the PROs and me. So when I say they were playing my music, I mean they were really playing the shit out of my music during every weather report, so my first reaction was to record the programs and keep it as proof if I had problems with ASCAP payments. In actuality, the problem turned out not to be with ASCAP, but with the Weather Channel itself!

Lo and behold, I didn’t know this at the time, but I was about to be schooled real fast and learn that some broadcasters do not have licenses with the PROs. WHAT!? So here we go, another bumpy ride into the unknown. I called the music director, and guess what? He no longer worked there. He got the hell out of Dodge! So now they were obviously in copyright infringement, because they started playing the music and didn’t even bother to get written clearance from me. I owned both the masters and syncs.

So I handed this over to my manager at the time and this is the only thing she ever got right. As you can imagine, The Weather Channel was anxious to settle, but of course offering a low payment of about $500. So we went back and forth and finally settled on $10,000, but looking back on this I bet I could have asked for a hell of lot more if it had been a class action suit. Because you know my music wasn’t the only music they were playing; other’s copyrights were obviously infringed upon as well. I was young and that seemed like a fair number at the time, even though I had to pay 15 percent to my manager; I still pocketed $8,500.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.