HowStuffWorks: How Music Licensing Works

[ThatAuthoringGroup]

I believe this is just the longer version of licensing is hard.

(which should have and expensive tacked on it :P )

[Santa Claustrophobia]

Oddly, repeating that won't ever answer the question.

[FujiSkunk]

WKRP won't see an unedited release because the original licensing was cheap for videotaped programmes and now FOX owns it and they're even cheaper.

Studios like to penny-pinch, no argument there, but licensing for the show was hardly cheap. Cheaper than if they'd used film, yes, but still not cheap. And those original licenses were not perpetual, so any rerelease now would require a renegotiation. A lot of those songs have become more "legendary" since the show's original airings, and now the show itself commands attention as well. License holders will try to charge accordingly.

So everybody *****ed about it and we won't even get the rest of the series at all.

Some people decided a gimped show was worse than none at all. Given how much of the show revolved around the music they were playing, removing that music kills the show's purpose. It sucks every which way you look at it, but the people that b****ed hardly did so without merit.

And no, a band doesn't have to 'license' a song they didn't write. All fees are generally taken care of for live performances by the clubs/theatres/etc. And if they wish to record it, the only factor is that the royalties have to be divvied up properly. But a band playing somebody else's song is a completely different situation than a TV show, movie, or video game using the song in a commercial property.

It's not a completely different situation. It's a different scenario that requires a different license, but the article's point was, any public performance of a song requires permission. It's simply the "little" details like what that permission costs, and who pays who to get it, that depend on what kind of public performance you're talking about.

[Santa Claustrophobia]

Some people decided a gimped show was worse than none at all. Given how much of the show revolved around the music they were playing, removing that music kills the show's purpose. It sucks every which way you look at it, but the people that b****ed hardly did so without merit.

I don't like it either, but if you think the show was about the music, rather than merely involving it, you didn't watch the show. Very few episodes strictly revolved around the music being played.

And I didn't like the edits, either. But the same complaints about WKRP can be made about Quantum Leap. Merit or no, I'd have been extremely pissed if QL didn't get a full release. Simply put, there is no alternative to viewing WKRP. I mean sure, I have eighteen video tapes of the series when it was syndicated (back when they did the new show). And sure I couldn't complete the run because the local station played them pretty much whenever they wanted and then moved the show from its timeslot to somewhere else that I couldn't seem to find.

And they're all VHS tapes that I can play on the VCR that I no longer own.

So, yeah. Screw merit.


It's also a different situation because, strictly speaking, no band has to ask for permission to play the song. But TV shows and such do to play the original recording.

The TBS show Wedding Band probably has to jump through licensing hoops, but they're mostly using covers. That makes it easier and cheaper. But it's a TV show and not a real band. So they do have to negotiate permission to play the song on the broadcast.

For all intents and purposes, Local Garage Band doesn't have to talk to anybody. And that's what makes it different.

[FujiSkunk]

I don't like it either, but if you think the show was about the music, rather than merely involving it, you didn't watch the show. Very few episodes strictly revolved around the music being played.

Still, you have to admit the music was a bigger part than it was in, say, "Married... with Children." In the later DVD's of MwC, they decided to cheap out and replace Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" with generic music over the titles. Annoying, but not essential to the show, so there were far fewer complains. But "WKRP" fans, for the most part, want the tunes. It was a show about a modern music radio station, after all...

It's also a different situation because, strictly speaking, no band has to ask for permission to play the song. But TV shows and such do to play the original recording

We're nitpicking semantics, admittedly, but the bottom line remains: You want to perform someone else's copyrighted work, you have to have permission to do so. Now, in some countries, in some cases, permission does not have to be explicitly asked for, because it has been granted ahead of time through a compulsory license. As noted, compulsory licenses granted by U.S. copyright law allow, among other things, one band to record and release another band's song. However, not every country grants compulsory licenses the same way the U.S. does.