Hi,
I am making an animation and I want to put it on sites like YouTube etc. However I want to put music on it from well known bands and was wondering what's the law on doing this? Would I need permission etc? I live in the Uk.

Hello FranchsH:

Yes, you need permission.

excon

So how would I go abouts getting this permission?

And how about stating who made the music etc at the end of the animation? Would doing this still need permission to use the music?

ASCAP and BMI and SAC

Are some of the proforming arts groups that people pay for the rights to use some music

You will be charged a fee each time it is listened to, so you will need a counting device. These are the companies that also charge bars, restaurants, coffee houses for people who play music in their businesses.
Even if a bar plays a TV in its business, because some music is played over the TV they have to pay a yearly fee for that right to play the TV.

Fines for not doing this can cost several thousand dollars per song that is played ( for each playing)

That is why many open mike nights will not let people play "covers" or basically the songs of others, since a few mistakes can cost them thousands of dollars and often put them out of business.

You can also go directly to the owner of the music.

You also may find some music artist who can adapt or reright someone's song or make you a new song that would not cost you anything.

Just a note, my wife is a song writer and performer and she copyrights her songs and people who use them have to pay her, so she is up on all of those rules and the such.

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Originally Posted by FrancisH

Hi,
I am making an animation and i want to put it on sites like youtube etc. However I want to put music on it from well known bands and was wondering whats the law on doing this? Would i need permission etc? I live in the Uk.

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Chuck gave you the right info. A few things to add though. There is something called the fair use doctrine under coipyright law. It allows someone to use excerpts from copyrighted works to illustrate a point. For example, I could use the phrase "Happy Days Are Here Again" after next Tuesday when the Republicans lose. :D That would be considered fair use and not violate Cole Porter's coyrights. But if you use the entire song or more that a few bars without permission, you might run afoul of copyright laws.

With YouTube being bought out by Google, they will be looking much more closely at copyright infringement. Already hundreds of videos were removed in a copyright cleanup.