I searched around but couldn't find anything in the forums about this, so I'll brave a question: If somebody gives me a bunch of digital photos and/or home movies to put on a DVD, and they also give me a retail purchased CD (like Sheryl Crow, Sting, AC/DC, whatever) to have as background music, is that a legal use of the music? The "customer" is just going to watch the home movies/photos for personal use. What about me charging them to do this? Is this a breach of the copyrighted material if they already own the source music CD? I'm looking to do this as a side business for friends/neighbors but I want to stay legal. (Obviously if they want me to convert their Shrek VHS tape, etc, to a re-authored Shrek DVD that is a breach of the copyright law.) Thanks
you dont own the disc content .You have purchased a limited licensce and can listen to the music but thats as far as it goes.As soon as you rip the sound off and put it to your project, you have breached the copyright laws govening that disc. whether you charge them or not thats up to you, but unless you have approval from the owners of the music to use there music in this way , its still considered a breach of the copyright. you would need to get some legal advice about whats the right way to go about this.
This depends on where you live. If you're using the content for personal use only, then cutting sound bytes to use on a home DVD is legal. Because the customer owns the rights to listen to the music, cutting portions of it to listen to again, is legal. Charging the customer for your TIME is completely legal, as well as charging for the media (the disk), but you cannot charge for the content, unless YOU own it.
I live in Ohio. I talked to a local video duplication/transfer service and the guy there said that putting retail music on personal photo slideshow DVDs is illegal but that as long as it's for personal use only, everybody does it. (That doesn't make it legal, but I guess it helps HIM sleep at night.) I suppose this is similar to kids downloading music and figuring that of the millions of people doing it, the odds they'll get caught are slim. But since I'm going to be putting my company logo and contact information on this product I'm going to sell to my customers (they have to provide all the source material), I want to make sure I'm doing it correctly. If I have to tell customers that I won't add copyrighted material, then that's what I'll do. I want to keep it legit. I won't transfer retail movies for them, either. Anybody have any references as to extent of use allowed for music for personal use? I'm going to start Googling... The quote below, (veracity of the source?), would seem to indicate that as long as the files are not shared over the Internet, than it's OK for me to add Billy Idol's "White Wedding" to my neighbors non-copyrighted wedding video as I transfer it from VHS to DVD. I just started to read the DCMA and my head is about to explode, so I'll stop looking for legal sources...
rebootjim, is this your reasonable explanation or do you have a source for it? rebootjim and andmerr disagree. Can either of you provide legal standing for your argument?
I found it once upon a time, buried in Canadian Law, which is completely different from your US political mayhem regarding "Fair Use", DCMA, RIAA and the other opressive acronyms you all like so much. As the OP is from Ohio, US law applies, which means that it IS ILLEGAL to use copyright music for his project. In Canada, it is legal.
our laws are different as i'm not canadian but australian. Your best bet is to speak to the body that governs such things where you live to get a better feel of it.
Disclaimer - I Am Not A Lawyer If you want to find good information about the extent of copyright law (and at what point it really starts being enforced) you can search databases like the one at findlaw.com. There are also several universities that have documents about the subject. In general, a lot of what gets done in the name of fair use (ie making a 'backup copy' of a CD to play in a car) is technically illegal but won't be prosecuted because you clearly wouldn't buy a 2nd copy of the same material for that purpose so there are no damages to claim. It becomes a little murkier if your selling your services to create a work with copyrighted material on it. You might be fine legally if you stipulate somewhere that your customers are responsible for any content used and are responsible for any copyright issues that might arise regarding its use. You'd be best off finding an IP lawyer to ask. They're really the only ones qualified to answer a question like this. Even most other lawyers don't understand copyright law and procedures as well as they do.
