>From my limited knowledge of US intellectual property laws, the issues you raise fall under "synchronization rights." When you take a song and "synchronize" the music to a film or presentation, you need to clear rights with an agent of the artist or whoever owns the copyright to the song. The Harry Fox agency used to do this but it seems that they no longer clear synchronization rights, instead they suggest that you contact the publishers directly. More info is available below.
If you want to avoid all the hassles, you could simply limit your artists to using music loops that are public domain. A well known resource for Flash developers is called FlashKit. As a caveat, one of my past clients (a non-profit community agency) once commissioned an unknown artist to create a work for an calendar. The commission was a modest $150. Subsequently they used the art in a poster under the same program and the artist threatened to sue them and kicked up a real fuss. In the end, the artist negotiated a fee of $700 for the poster. I advise all my clients to clear and manage intellectual properties as if they were desks, cars, or any other asset. Would you allow your employees to drive around unlicensed in an unregistered car? Of course not. It can end up sucking scarce resources when you expect it least. Harry Fox Agency http://www.harryfox.com/public/hfaPurpose.jsp FlashKit http://www.flashkit.com/loops/ Kelvin Wong University of Victoria Victoria, British Columbia, Canada -----Original Message----- Subject: [DDN] Copyrights I have tried to locate if this is legal, if it falls under fair use, or what...but really haven't been able to navigate the US copyright laws very well. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
