Acquiring Music Rights for your Documentary

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Acquiring Music Rights
for Your Documentary

How do you navigate the music industry?

Music Rights 101

Acquiring music rights for your documentary is essential if you ever hope to copy, sell or showcase your film.

Are you editing a documentary with tons of great music that you pulled from iTunes or from a personal collection of CD's that give your film just the right mood or feeling?

Did you happen to record some footage in a restaurant where a popular song was playing out over the speakers and now you want to use a 15-second clip of that footage and audio in your film?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes and you did not create that music yourself, then you will need to get permission from the owners of that music.

Here's How It Works:

There are two entities that own a song: The record company/label and the publisher. So for each song, you'll need to get permission from BOTH groups.

Websites to begin your search:

www.ascap.com
www.bmi.com
www.sesac.com
www.allmusic.com

Here's an example of some research I gathered a few years ago for "What A Wonderful World" by Willie Nelson:

Example for Getting Music Rights

Example:

Song: "What a Wonderful World"
Performer: Willie Nelson
Composed by: Bob Thiele and George David Weiss
Album: "The Great American Songbook (2006)
Record Label: Madacy Records
Publisher: (I found three publishers! -- listed below. If that happens, you'll have to contact each to figure out which one has the rights)

RECORD LABEL

Madacy Entertainment
3333 Graham Blvd., Suite 102
Montreal, Quebec CANADA
514-341-6565
music_licensing@madacy.com

PUBLISHERS/ADMINISTRATORS

Abilene Music Inc
The Songwriters Guild
209 Tenth Ave. South
Suite 321
Nashville, TN 37203
615-742-9945

Quartet Music
Windswept
9320 Wilshire Blvd #200
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

Range Road Music
New York, NY
212-779-7977

How To Ask for Permission To Use Music

Once you narrow down the publisher and record company, you'll need to ask them if you can use their song in your production.

As an example, you might initially request permission to showcase your documentary in film festivals worldwide for one year. Let them know that :30 seconds of their song is used during a montage of images from, say, the Civil Rights era. If you know you will not be selling your documentary or making copies, it's a good chance the music owners will let you use the music for this purpose either at no charge or for a small fee of perhaps $100 - $500. If your documentary ends up getting picked up for distribution or you want to start selling copies or upload to the internet, you will need to renegotiate the terms. Obviously, if your documentary ends up getting picked up by HBO and you are paid, say, $50,000 for your film, the owners of the music in your documentary will also want to be paid since their work helped in the success of your project.

Remember This

Basically, here's the thing to remember: if you are profiting off of someone else's work (ie. their music), it is only fair that they will expect to share in that profit. So if you end up selling a dvd of your documentary that includes their music as part of the production, they expect to be compensated.

The easiest way to go with music rights when making a documentary is to create all your own original music (either yourself or hiring a composer) or use royalty free music, that way you're free and clear to use the film as you so choose without having to get any permissions.

Learn How To Hire and Work With A Composer

Learn how to hire and work with composers in this terrific audio "symposium" lead by award-winning documentary producer Jilann Spitzmiller who's work has showcased at the Sundance Film Festival, won numerous awards and been broadcast worldwide on such networks at BBC, A&E and PBS.

Hear directly from top composers about how to develop a score for your documentary and even get access to contracts to use when you hire a composer. All seminars offered by the Documentors team are highly recommended. This team knows their stuff!

Virtual Documentary Music Symposium from Documentors
(Clicking this link takes you to the DocuMentors website)

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