Basically I'm wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a place I could go if I wanted to use a 15 second sound byte of a song. I'm looking to use the soundbyte for free without having to pay any money to record labels and such, but I'm not sure if that is possible. Maybe someone here might know of a place I could turn to ask such a question to... You guys have been a huge help and that's why I decided to post here cause you guys rock thanks in advance, Travis
Travis: Well, I've got good news and bad news. Good news: In my former life I dealt with this issue on a daily basis. Bad news: It's extremely rare that you will get permission to use the piece for free. In short, if you go the full legal route, you'll need to get permission from the publisher, record label and most likely, artist. There are different types of licenses that you must clear: synch, masters, etc. And the amount you pay is based on how the song is used...background, etc. and also, how much is used..10 seconds? A minute? A typical deal requires you to pay XXX amount upfront and more later, if your project is a success. For example, if you produced a film and bumped it straight to DVD, and plan to sell it on the internet, you might have to pay $.14 (cents) per DVD for the first 3000 and then renew the license each time you sell 5,000 more. If your DVD gets picked up for broadcast by HBO, you'll have to renegotiate and pay some serious coin for the privilege. Now, that said... If you're using the song for a website that gets limited views, meaning less than 10,000 uniques a day, then you're probably OK to proceed without clearing it. I'm certainly not advocating that you cheat anyone out of their money..just saying that most artists/lawyers/managers will see no value in attacking a 'small' site. You can always find stock music, buy it outright for $25 and use it as you see fit with no worries. Or move ahead with the 'famous' song and wait for their attorneys to tell you to remove it. When that happens, just remove it, and use a stock song. Good luck.
PS: Perhaps you could sign up as a partner for Amazon, and then put a thumbnail of the artist's latest CD on your site...and then use the song. You would then be marketing the song for the artist, and using it on your site as desired. Win/win.
Ah, true true. But what if I wanted/needed 5,000 songs, each to use like 15 second clip from? Yea I totally understand what you mean about the uniques relating to getting caught and told to remove it. I'm thinking along the lines of your amazon comment. If while a specific song was playing its 15 second clip, a link to buying the cd that song is on would appear. That might cover what you were saying, yea? Thank you for your input, much much much appreciated! Travis Edit: What about all the Soundboard websites out there? A simple googling of "soundboard" and lots of them come up all of them are using sound bites and video clips from movies and such...