Music Clearance – Help Me Understand Your Thinking!

I haven’t expressed my feelings about the lack of music clearance that goes on in the world of filmmaking in quite a while.  I guess it’s time to cover this subject again because I keep running into it all the time.  I really hate to go on and on about this but it’s a thorn in my side and I have to speak out about it.  Put simply, it is copyright infringement.  That’s the bottom line!

I really wish someone could explain the rational behind making a conscious decision to use someone’s copyright protected music without clearing the rights.  There’s nothing that anyone can say to justify it, but I’d just like to hear the excuses that are made.

I’ve posed this same question on the Filmmaker Magazine’s Film Festival Forum.  This is one of the replies I got and it wasn’t from a festival producer.  Not one producer replied.

“The festival directors/programmers I know (about 3 or 4 dozen of them) would probably never admit publicly that they don’t care if you clear the rights or not. (Some would be risking professional relationships or even their jobs to do so.)

I know from observation when screening submissions in their presence that they notice when high-profile music is used and often scan the credits for some indication of clearance in those cases, but it’s usually out of curiosity (”How much money did these filmmakers have in their budget?”) than out of a sense of duty to make sure that the rights have been cleared.”

This past week I received an e-mail from two music publishers asking if their songs are still going to be use in a film I worked on last summer.  They are asking because the license agreements have never been signed and no payment has been made.  This puts me in a bad position.  I can’t lie to the publishers and say no when the film is making its rounds in the film festival circuit.  I don’t want to tarnish my relationship so I had to confront the producers and find out what their plans are.

As of now, I’m waiting to see what direction the producers will take.  There are songs from upper tier artist that will demand a fairly pricy fee (relatively to the extremely small music budget).  I’m hoping that they can come through and we can finalize these outstanding license requests.

You can Google “music clearance” and get thousands of hits on how to clear songs.  Every resource will tell you that you must clear all the music used in your production.  Find one reference that says you do not have to and I’ll prove that it’s wrong.  There are songs in the Public Domain, but if you don’t have a musician or a band to record the song, you’ll have to use an existing composition which you will have to clear.

Last year while working on a short film, I was asked this question by the director (this is the exact text of the e-mail):

“I want to know what the realistic pros and cons are of just screening the film at festivals without the rights. Will the festival refuse to screen it? Will we be disqualified from any prizes or competitions? What exactly is the danger? Because as of right now I’m only aware of the possibility of a “Cease and Desist” letter from the record companies.”

While clearing another song on this same film, one of the songwriters denied the use of his song in this film.  He stated that he did not want his song associated with the subject matter of the film.  I forwarded the songwriters message of concern to the director.  Despite the songwriters request to have his song removed from the film, the director chose not remove the song.

This is a total disrespect to the copyright owner.  I still live by the saying, “if you can hear it, clear.”  It’s that simple.