One reason my plan is unlikely to end in a lawsuit: this project's success would actually be in the publishers' financial interest. The mechanical license fees go to exactly the same publishers that hold the synch rights. They will make more money the more soundtracks I sell, because I'll be paying them the for the mechanical license on each one. If "The Sounds of Sita Sings the Blues" takes off and sells a million copies, that's a million dollars for them. They'd get more money this way than through synch licenses. Between them, they're currently demanding a flat, one-time fee of about $220,000 - 250,000 for synch rights.
Not that they make any decisions based on logic. --Nina On Sep 7, 2008, at 3:40 PM, Denver Gingerich wrote: > On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 2:03 PM, Nina Paley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> Nope, I'd just need to distribute a single audio soundtrack that >>> plays >>> over the entire pre-synched audio already on the DVD. >> >> That looks confusing on re-reading. What I mean is, the audio >> soundtrack >> wouldn't need to be broken into pieces to dop one here and another >> there. It >> would be a complete soundtrack. The player would play it over the >> audio >> that's already on the DVD. The audio on the DVD (the "pre-synched" >> audio) >> would omit all the contentious songs, replacing them with spoken >> information >> about pertinent free culture issues. >> >> Does that make sense? > > Yes, it makes sense. Your solution does not require explicit timing > metadata because the required data is implicitly contained in the > timing of the songs placed on the CD (or audio DVD). > > I'm still not sure that this solves the legal issue because the songs > would be intentionally placed in a particular order with particular > timings so that they would align with the video. Thus, the soundtrack > would constitute a synchronization. > > I tried to find specific parts of US copyright law that spell out > precisely what synchronization rights are, but I was unsuccessful. If > someone could point out the section and subsection where they are > described, it would be appreciated. It would be easier to talk about > what is and is not a synchronization when we have the written law in > front of us. I've been making my arguments on assumptions about > synchronization rights based on how you've described them and what I > know of copyright law. > >> Also, I wouldn't sell the DVD. I would sell the CD (actually an >> Audio DVD, >> subject to exactly the same mechanical licenses as CD, but able to >> hold more >> music. The soundtrack is 82 minutes, while CDs only hold 74 minutes >> of >> audio). I would sell the soundtrack, "The Sounds of Sita Sings the >> Blues." >> And it would come with a free bonus video disc, like lots of CDs >> and Audio >> DVDs already do: >> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=bonus+video&x=0&y=0 > > It sounds like you're trying to get around the synchronization problem > by making it look like there is no synchronization. Maybe the law > allows for your particular solution (ie. if it says something about > synchronizations "distributed on the same physical medium"), but I > kind of doubt it. We could know for sure (or at least have less > ambiguity) if we found the part of US copyright law that deals with > it. > > > Even if your solution is legal, it still doesn't make synchronization > easy for films in general. From what I understand of mechanical > licenses, you have to make your own recording of the composition (or > hope there is a public domain recording), which provides disincentive > to use the insyncherator method. > > Denver _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
