Politics and Porn

 

I had a comment from my pal Jimi, and I wanted to share it:

 

I'm no lawyer obviously, but being a musician myself, I am interested in this as well, so I did a little research.  It seems that the composer and publisher often share the rights to music.  Artists don't always agree with publishers decisions to grant license.  This is where artists/composers have to be aware of their contract stipulations.  Some artists end up having almost no control over their music because they just sign a contract without reading or understanding the thing.  Most often copyright issues involve someone trying to pass off a song as theirs when it isn't or one artists song will have so many similarities to another that there will be a charge that artist stole it.

  
There is a provision for "Creative Control" and the issue of using songs, which is not the same as copyright infringement.  From Rob Carter at http://www.songrights.com/control.htm as advice to songwriters:

Closely related to creative control is control over the way a song is used.  Carl Perkins was understandably concerned when his rockabilly classic "Honey Don't" wound up in a child rape scene in the movie "Prince of Tides."  Again, recognizing that the publisher needs maximum flexibility, specify the particular kinds of uses that are most likely to offend you and ask that you be given prior written approval of any such use.  Common limitations are X rated films, film or TV scenes involving sex, drugs, or violence, commercials for alcohol, tobacco, and guns and, of course, political commercials.

So, politics and porn are supposed to be off limits!  Hahahahahaha!!!  

 

 

Me again. I apologize if I seem to be stuck like a broken record, so to speak, on this topic, but after this, I promise I'll move on. I just figured that there had to be come kind of artistic control over how an artist's songs are used. Thanks to Sheria for explaining usage rights through ASCAP, to Ken for obtaining more information from ASCAP's site, and to Jimi for explaining the difference between creative control and copyright infringement. Apparently THAT was what was at the root of my concerns--there's no copyright infringement going on, but there does seem to be a creative control issue. So while an entity may have purchased the rights to a song, it all comes down to the contract between the writer and the publisher--if the writer has done their homework, they will make sure it is in their contract that their work may not be used in certain ways.

 

We've all read horror stories--well, if you've read stuff about music, you have--of young artists getting totally hosed by their record companies and publishers because they're so eager to sign a contract. In some cases, they've signed away all rights and royalties. I think most artists are a little more savvy today, but in the early days of music publishing, a lot of people got cheated out of what they were due.

 

So I think this puts to bed my curiosity about this topic. Time to move on to trivial stuff like, oh...the ECONOMY! [say it with an echo effect, à la The Church Lady]

 

Oh, and Jimi wrote that politics and porn are off limits. Aren't they kind of the same thing, buddy? Someone always ends up getting screwed! Ha ha!

Tags: Creative control, copyright infringement, ASCAP