i was watching nova last night and i noticed the music was from the movie armageddon. And i started thinking about other times ive heard move music on tv. I always hear armageddon/crimson tide/ the rock on sports TV like football basketball etc. I could swear that one of the scenes in Shaolin Soccer had music from the Lion King score(or at least similar). Local news stations use music from popular music all the time(well mine does). Lol ive even seen the World of Warcraft cover (with the night elf girl) in an add for a beauty salon. arent these all copyright violations? Why arent there lawsuits everwhere? Why arent Composers like Hans Zimmer and Trevor Rabin all over this? Well i guess i would like to know if there is a website for using other peoples intelectual property? edit: also is it possible to use music from other countries as long as they aren't licensed in your country? Not just directly sell it but use it in games and commercials and stuff.

Quote: Original post by jchmack
Well i guess i would like to know if there is a website for using other peoples intelectual property?

Nothing so simple, to my knowledge. You need to get permission of each copyright holder all by yourself.

Quote: Original post by Fruny

Quote: Original post by jchmack
Well i guess i would like to know if there is a website for using other peoples intelectual property?

Nothing so simple, to my knowledge. You need to get permission of each copyright holder all by yourself.

i meant the rules for using other's IP. I guess the copyrights just arent being enforced huh. I can understand the beauty salon scenario but to use the music on the pregame shows for sports... cmon thats gotta be a violation (if they didnt have permission). what about the games like DWI(dance with intesity the DDR ripoff) You can just download the game and the songs. All they have is a Notice at the menu saying you must own the songs you play. Lol could i make a game that uses all copyrighted music and distribute it with the note: "you must own all songs to LEGALLY turn on the music options in this game".

you suprised me BTW i wasnt expecting that quick a response at 2am lol.

Without more details as to where you live, the only thing I can point you to is the text of the Berne Convention.

I wouldn't assume that copyrights are not being enforced, but rather that they, in fact do have a license - and lawyers telling them what they can legally do. As for whether you can use some foreign music or whatnot, unless it is in the public domain in your country, you're out of luck.

Quote: Original post by Fruny
Without more details as to where you live, the only thing I can point you to is the text of the Berne Convention.

I wouldn't assume that copyrights are not being enforced, but rather that they, in fact do have a license - and lawyers telling them what they can legally do. As for whether you can use some foreign music or whatnot, unless it is in the public domain in your country, you're out of luck.

i live in the united states.
and what is considered public domain?

The TV stations you mentioned have almost certainly paid to use the music. As for the ad for a local beauty salon they may have paid but most likely they didn't. Because they are small and local it is unlikely that Blizzard would find out so they get away with it.

Quote: edit: also is it possible to use music from other countries as long as they aren't licensed in your country? Not just directly sell it but use it in games and commercials and stuff.

No. Under the Berne convention a copyright from one country is valid in all those countries that have signed up to the convention.

Quote: Original post by jchmack
i live in the united states.

US copyright office

Quote: and what is considered public domain?

Works that have fallen out of copyright: 70 years after the death of the author, or 95 years for anonymous work (e.g. work for hire). Works published before 1978 for which copyright wasn't or wasn't properly registered or were published without a copyright notice. Works published after 1978 that have been explicitely placed in the public domain. There probably are more subtleties than that, consult a lawyer.

To grossly oversimplify, if you're hoping to use for free anything even remotely popular that has been published after around 1930, you're pretty much out of luck.

I used to work in television, and it's actually not that hard to get a license, when you want to use a person's work. You just need a good entertainment lawyer and/or agent to negotiate the deal and money to pay for the contract and the work. The local beauty salon ad, if it did like you said, probably did not get it and is skirting danger, but really, who the heck watches those ads except the one town that cable/dish company serves. So, they're likely to get away with it, and it doesn't hurt the artist that much.

A note about "I heard this X place and swear Y place uses it, too".. There's Royalty-Free Music you can buy, and most video and TV production companies use that, since it's cheaper than hiring a musician. It used to be that you paid "per needledrop", but they did away with that and now you buy a set of CDs for about $500-1000 and it's all yours to use as you like. Digitaljuice.com is a good bargain for that. So, if the Nova production was using the same paid-for song as the game development company, it's coincidental. They both paid for the right to use the song.

Just some examples.

Quote: Original post by Obscure
The TV stations you mentioned have almost certainly paid to use the music.

Just to fill in a bit on this, the big US TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, HBO, etc.) negotiate blanket licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC (also called Performing Rights Organizations or PROs) every few years. These licenses allow the networks to broadcast any music in a PRO's catalog for a single upfront fee. We're talking millions of dollars here. The PRO then pays out a small royalty from that money to each publisher and composer when his or her track is broadcast. This is a very basic model of how TV royalties work.

However, the producer of an individual TV show or commercial must have a license to use a piece of music in conjunction with their production. This is called a synchronization (sync) license. This gives the TV show permission from the publisher and composer to use the music in the show for a specific fee. It's called a sync license because the music is synchronized to a specific point or points in the show. Sync licenses could run anywhere from a few dollars to thousands of dollars depending on a variety negotiated factors such as popularity of the music, amount of profit the show plans to make, overall production budget, or how prominent the music will be.

So, if you are producing a TV show, you must have a sync license to legally use a piece of music. The royalties paid to the composers and publishers for broadcast are covered by the network.

Hans Zimmer's music is licensed quite frequently for film trailers and other uses. You may very well have heard his music in places other than the film for which it was created.

As ellis1138 mentioned, some music libraries will give a blanket sync license for all tracks in a particular collection that you purchase. This can be very economical because you pay one fee and have the right to use all the tracks as much as you like. The quality of the tracks is not that of a Hans Zimmer type track, but for the productions in which they are used they work just fine.

Original post by jchmack
I could swear that one of the scenes in Shaolin Soccer had music from the Lion King score(or at least similar). /quote]

Shaolin Soccer has an OST by Raymond Wong. I doubt they'd steal anything.

I seem to remember, that Sky News (I think) used the sound track from Space Colony for some of their advertisment segments (upcoming features or something similar).

I doubt they'd use this just blindly, especially game music composers would probably have no objection with licensing their music. If nothing else, its exposure.

As for general copyright questions, they are happening. There was some talk a while back, about a watermarking of all broadcast material. This would allow not only copyright tracking, but also airtime monitoring (you buy license for 5 showings, but air it 7 times), exposure analysis (how often are different producers, products, people, shows aired) and similar. It's been a few years now since I read about this, so I'm not sure if they got far with it.