Jimmy Fallon, Bananarama and church video

What do Jimmy Fallon and Bananrama have to do with your church’s video productions? They were both involved in recent examples of how failing to plan for copyright issues can minimize the value of the videos on which you spend so much time and effort. In Jimmy Fallon’s case, he and NBC creates some sensational productions for the Emmys, that they could not put on the web because of poor planning. In Bananrama’s case, videos containing their song “Cruel Summer” were pulled from campaign websites for the same reason. Let’s take a look at what happened in each case.

As PaidContent reported:

Host Jimmy Fallon knocked it out of the park with an energetic Glee-esque opener to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, a mixed pre-taped and live-action number featuring Jane Lynch, Glee kids, Jon Hamm, Tina Fey, and a cameo by Tim Gunn that quickly got social media buzz. The clip should have been online before the next commercial break for NBC to take advantage of that buzz—and to take ownership before others started passing it around.

Another number paying tribute to the end of 24, Law & Orderand Lost, part of it with Fallon channeling Elton John, seemed destined to catch on, at least with fans of those shows. But @NBCLA tweeted back when I mentioned that the videos has yet to post: “Wish we could, but we have restrictions on what we can post online.” A spokeswoman later suggested by e-mail that music rights are the issue.

Let’s read between the lines and see what happened here. Television and radio stations buy licenses from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC that give them permission to broadcast their performances of copyrighted songs. So Jimmy’s skits are covered right? Well, yes they are covered for transmission on television because NBC affiliates have their performance licenses that cover their television and cable broadcasts. On the other (more important) hand, those licenses do not cover their distribution on the web.  Because they did not secure the web rights up front, NBC has been unable to put some of those performances online because they were unable (or unwilling to pay the asking price) to secure licensing for internet distribution. As a result, they wasted on opportunity to redistribute some important parts of their show.

In the Bananarama  case, the campaign of New Hampshire Congressional candidate Sean Mahoney had to quickly take down a campaign video that used their song, “Cruel Summer”. Fortunately, the error was caught by the campaign team prior to a action from the copyright owner, but the video had to be re-edited, the launch was delayed and somebody looked bad for exposing the operation to risk to its reputation and finances. An interesting point was noted by Copyrights & Campaigns:

It’s notable that of the three recent copyright lawsuits involving campaigns of which I’m aware – Jackson Browne v. John McCain,Don Henley v. Chuck DeVore, and David Byrne v. Charlie Crist – all involved individual songwriters as plaintiffs, not publishers or record labels. Corporations simply want campaigns to knock off their unlicensed uses. Individual artists — who often have strong political views of their own, and strong feelings about unwanted uses of their material — tend to demand a pound of flesh.

How can you avoid these problems? Plan in advance and be certain that you can obtain the proper license for the copyrighted content that you wish to use:

1. Catalog the songs that you wish to use in your videoand identify its owner(s).
2. Consider where the video will be played and determine what performance licenses are required:
   • In person? (Churches and ministries can get a blanket performance license for public performances from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC here.)
   • On TV? (TV stations have their own licenses with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC)
   • On the web? (Churches and ministries can get a blanket performance license for internet performances from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC here.)
3. If you are making a video using a copyrighted song, you will need a sync license as well. (Read about sync licenses in “Legal Creation of CDs and DVDs”.)

Short URL: http://www.copyrightcommunity.com/?p=722

Posted by CopyrightSolver on Aug 31 2010. Filed under Using Film & Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry