We've all seen people's slide shows of digital photos set to music. But is that music licensed?

It can be. A recent announcement explained how all of the major record labels have licensed songs to a Sequoia Media Group service that allows you to make DVDs with the popular music of your choice. From the release:

Terry Dickson, VP of business development at Sequoia added, "Synchronization
and master rights are protected by law and there are stiff penalties for
non-compliance. Such rights typically require contracts with multiple
owners, from publishers, to artists. These rights differ from the
mechanical rights with which they are most commonly confused. Arguments
such as ‘Fair Use Doctrine'
and ‘I bought the CD, so I own the rights'
or ‘add the music yourself at home,'
are incorrect and likely represent illegal use of copyrighted material." 

However the legality breaks down, what we do know is that when it's licensed, there's likely some  compensation for the artist. When the use is not licensed, it's a guarantee the artist is not compensated.

I know what my choice is. 

Share this:

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 10:00 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under fair use, market forces. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.