Unauthorized use of Chaplin song silences UK charity girl

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:28 pm

Copyright policing gone a bit too far for my taste...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38344767/ns/us_news-giving/

Scoundrel · Post by **Scoundrel** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 5:41 pm

So abuse of copyrighted material is okay as long as it's for charity...?

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:19 pm

If they were smart, the publisher would have given the poor kid a break and perhaps officially sponsored this bit of charity. Then it would be a win for everybody, at least in the goodwill department. It's not like the kid's tryin' to enrich her own bank account off of this.

FrankFay · Post by **FrankFay** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 6:51 pm

Picky Picky Greedy Greedy

Brooksie · Post by **Brooksie** » Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:24 pm

Charlie would be spinning in his grave.

missdupont · Post by **missdupont** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 1:07 am

Charlie would have had his lawyers go after her for payment, he didn't give anything away. So as Scoundrel says, it's okay to steal copyright to a song, even though it was for charity? They were making money off something they didn't own. So I guess she could just use a song or part of any of the Harry Potter movies, but that would be okay since it was for charity?

Penfold · Post by **Penfold** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 2:15 am

Equally, if the adults behind this had been smart, they would have approached the publishers beforehand and suggested a waiving of fees for the charity effort.....they might have been more amenable.

Jim Reid · Post by **Jim Reid** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 8:12 am

Penfold wrote:Equally, if the adults behind this had been smart, they would have approached the publishers beforehand and suggested a waiving of fees for the charity effort.....they might have been more amenable.

That's what they should have done. If you set a precedent of not protecting your copyright for whatever reason it could cause trouble for you later on.

milefilms · Post by **milefilms** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 9:14 am

Usually, I'm all for the copyright holder, but Bourne Music was a nasty company to deal with when we tried to clear a song for KILLER OF SHEEP. Of thirty-two rights holders, they were the only one to refuse to deal with us and we had to change the song. It doesn't change my opinion of rights, but it does make me sympathize for the girl more.

Jack Theakston · Post by **Jack Theakston** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 9:49 am

Likewise, I had a heck of a time clearing a piece of music with Bourne, although I got the last laugh, because by the time they got back to me, I had found out that they were not the owners of the piece. They were, inexplicably, happy to grant me the rights to it for some outrageous fee, though!

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:04 pm

missdupont wrote:Charlie would have had his lawyers go after her for payment, he didn't give anything away.

You can't know that, as he's not around to tell you.

WaverBoy · Post by **WaverBoy** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 12:07 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:Likewise, I had a heck of a time clearing a piece of music with Bourne, although I got the last laugh, because by the time they got back to me, I had found out that they were not the owners of the piece. They were, inexplicably, happy to grant me the rights to it for some outrageous fee, though!

Great story Jack. So much for Bourne only wanting what's rightfully theirs under copyright law. Excuse me while I gag.

radiotelefonia · Post by **radiotelefonia** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:18 pm

Is Bourne going to sue these people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOoTbkZdQOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hICPEeX0b20

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBnaYveXZg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGctEr5o7JA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZltaVbgP32c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP92tYX0HaI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbnsto2qTvs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvAoJGhIgEw

T0m M · Post by **T0m M** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:30 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:Likewise, I had a heck of a time clearing a piece of music with Bourne, although I got the last laugh, because by the time they got back to me, I had found out that they were not the owners of the piece. They were, inexplicably, happy to grant me the rights to it for some outrageous fee, though!

Maybe, after they requested the fee, you should have sued them for attempted fraud.

moviepas · Post by **moviepas** » Thu Jul 22, 2010 4:32 pm

I used to work for a music publisher in Australia(Allans Music) who went back to the 1850s so were older than Bourne etc. I was there in 1968-69 and left about Oct 1970 for UK& Europe. They had rights to Irving Berlin Music, Inc & his connected Bourne Inc. I had to count all the sheet music in the warehouse of certain titles for various publishers so that they could pay royalties on sales they believed we had made. Some were paid monthly, others quarterly, half yearly or annually depending on the deal with the author or publisher. We had to mark on the cards copies that might have been pulped to ascertain the figure. They used to store the companies correspondence in that warehouse along with spare copies of some out of print tunes that were used for the then primitive copiers. These spare or file copies were not protected and anyone could have stolen those copies which were the only ones we had and were often visited by thieves overnight because we also had the musical instruments & keyboards in that warehouse(Hammond organ representatives, and various pianos) along with our TV repair & instrument workshops, printery and the guys who punched out the music notes on metal for printing from(an ancient art at that time and the guys doing it were or seemed older than I am now!!! One wonders what happened to all the old files & music when the company was sold to an equally as old as music house & sometime publisher who later went under but Allans name still exists with a store or two in their name. But did the composer & original rights owner get royalties for the copies made of those out of print titles? I don't know. Would it be fair to say they got their money of the material was performed publicly? The other people got a rake from that thru a different rights collector. Even the corner store with an old radio playing to keep the owners happy thru the day needs to have a licence with a a rights collector to switch it one and if speakered around the place they are expected to pay for each outlet. But little goes to the composers but in my day it went to a posh office with a grand ballroom in Sydney and they would think nothing of flying their local collectors up to Sydney & a guy who worked for them here in Melbourne left the job after he saw that. There was a sliding scale of what money was left with Composer 1 getting this % & Composer 2 getting this much etc depending on popularity of the composer. A fellow Scot to my friend wrote a song in WW2 and everywhere he went whilst in the services(they were both in it for the duration) heard this song being played, in cafes, radio on stage etc. It was a topical song for the war. His royalties would not have bought a bottle of beer at that time he said. There was nothing he could do about it.

Many DVDs have been messed with over rights when too high a fee is demanded by someone whether it be composer/s or publishers or performers. The they remove the music & sometimes the dialog is missing to achieve this aim and new music is added. Paramount is a major editor of TV shows for this reason. England's just cancelled Heartbeart has era music originals in it and commercial copies of the show are doctored to remove many scores. Funnily early videotapes contain the original soundtracks of many a show. Movies have been effected two like Come Back Little Sheba.

In respect of the Charity some people would not think the are doing wrong and think the song is too old and everyone connected is gone. This song is still in living memory so is a little more modern than say After the Ball or I do Like to Do It by the Seaside etc.

Many a person has gone to a company to get rights to use this song or film and prepared to pay but the answer might come back no on the premise of letting lying dogs lie. But then sometimes even those companies have not preserved the item in their archives having lost it or culled it long ago and other items lapse and no one knows who owns it. This is how the gray area gets going, rebuffed so let's do it anyway and often inferior copies in respect of films or old TV. And don't forget different countries are under, or were, under different copyright laws but today many are getting aligned to echo those on a global basis.

BenModel · Post by **BenModel** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 9:53 am

Great news, folks. Bourne has relented, and Bethany has reinstated her original track to her video, of her singing "Smile". She's surpassed her original fundraising goal of £5,500 and has now raised it to £11,000.00. She's also, graciously, posted both versions of her video -- one with her music and one with my track.

Click here to see both.

Ben

From Bethany's JustGiving page.

Hi everyone, Thank you for taking the time to visit my Just Giving page. I am so pleased to tell you all that the sound is now back on my film! - just in time for Christmas - the best Christmas present I could have wished for! All the matters of copyright permission have now been resolved with all parties and I would like to say a huge 'Thank you' to everyone who has helped me to reach this situation. I would also like to thank The Chaplin family for allowing me to use the amazing image of Charlie Chaplin on my film too.

Thank you to everyone who supported me and helped me to reach my original target of £5,500. By donating you have all helped me to cover the costs of running Martin House for one whole morning!! I now have the original sound back on my film and have therefore been able to increase my fundraising target to £11,000 which would cover the running costs of the hospice for one whole day!

I would like to say a special thank you to Mr Ben Model of Silent Clowns for writing a music score especially for my film, which I was able to play when my film went silent. I am keeping this version of the film on my link, along with 'Smile', so now you can enjoy both.

Why do I need you to donate? Martin House only receive 12% of the money they need to keep the hospice open, from statutory sources – the remainder has to be raised through fundraising efforts like mine. My film with sound can now only stay on the Just Giving website until August 2011, so my aim is to try and raise as much money as possible for Martin House. I never dreamed that I might be able to do this and want to thank everyone who has donated so far. If you would like to watch the original version of my short film, with the sound of the song 'Smile' now returned, please click on the link below:-

boblipton · Post by **boblipton** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:25 pm

Jack Theakston wrote:Likewise, I had a heck of a time clearing a piece of music with Bourne, although I got the last laugh, because by the time they got back to me, I had found out that they were not the owners of the piece. They were, inexplicably, happy to grant me the rights to it for some outrageous fee, though!

Next time, Jack, come to me and I'll give you a quitclaim for half what they asked.

It worked for Rohauer.

Bob

Unauthorized use of Chaplin song silences UK charity girl

Unauthorized use of Chaplin song silences UK charity girl

Unauthorized use of music