Music Clearance – Never Assume

It’s extremely important to do your due diligence when clearing the rights to any music you use in your film.  You should not assume anything regardless of what you have experience in the past.  Things can change over night in the world of music copyright ownership.  As a music supervisor, I can’t take chances and make any assumptions where music clearance is concerned.

If you are the person responsible for clearing the rights to any song used in the film you are working on, don’t take anyone’s word.  Use what they tell you as a starting point and then do your research to make sure you have all the facts.  Here’s a recent example of why this is important.

Back in 2004 our publishing company, Durgon Style Music, was the publishers on a song entitled, “Mirror On The Wall” written by Jim Disney and Buddy Lee.  At that time our publishing company retained the publishing rights for one year and we exercised a six month option.  After 18 months, the song reverted back to the two original songwriters.

Between May 2005 and last week, many things had changed.  Jim Disney started his own publishing company.  Buddy Lewis and his wife Cozy McGaugh made a few lyric changes and took 25% writers share each.  Buddy Lewis’ publishing company came on board and took 50% of the publishing.  To complicate things even more, Buddy Lee passed away in April 2007.  His daughter, Brandi Lee, now handles his estate.

Had I gone forward assuming things were still the way they were in 2005, I would have left out two songwriters, two publishing companies and the proper legal language in the license agreement required when dealing with the use of a deceased songwriter.

Needless to say, everything is in order and the song is still being used in the film with permission granted from all parties involved.

As many of my readers know, I’m totally against using music without clearing the rights.  Again, clearing the rights is basically getting permission from all copyright owners to use their song.

Again, this is very important as all of the new parties involved in “Mirror On The Wall” were very concerned about the use of their song and had many questions.  This was especially true for Buddy Lee’s daughter.  You don’t want to mess with the heir of a deceased songwriter.  They’ve been through enough not to have to deal with copyright infringement.

Never assume.  Do your due diligence and make sure you get it right or it may come back and bit you in the “end.”