Bill an interesting subject Advertising and music. It is a minefield full of legal traps.
A New Zealand political party has been ordered to pay more than $400,000 to US rapper Eminem for using music similar to his 2002 hit "Lose Yourself" in a television commercial to help win a national election. The National Party used the song 186 times during the campaign before taking the ad off the air, the court said,
The National Party purchased the track, titled ‘Eminem Esque’ from a company called Beatbox, who had obtained the licence from a music library called Labrador. The National Party believed that they had gone through the right process.
The National Party purchased the song which was licensed with one of New Zealand’s main industry copyright bodies, the Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society
Legally they had got it wrong but looking at it I can see how you could be caught out through not knowing.
Copyright and royalties is very complex it is a minefield to walk through.
According to the Court, there is an infringement due to the fact that the composer of “Eminem Esque” was aware of the original track including bearing in mind the name of the latter song. In this case the purchaser got punished not the composer who copied Enimem
The Court order $412,896 considering the fact that the infringement happened for a limited period of time.
What can we take from this case?
The hard thing is a company or person paying for an advertisement can become liable for music content which they are unaware of. Lawyers and legal situations benifit who???? This prominent intellectual property case is likely to have implications in many jurisdictions.
. Copyright protection automatically exists from when the work is created, and does not require registration.
In answer to your question Bill, How is it in the UK? New Zealand? Australia? Canada? Do they also get paid for a time-limit "contract" and what's the royalty system like?
Here in New Zealand the right payments, for the broadcast, of music in an advertisement vary.. Types of licensing contracts can include: a flat fee for a defined period of usage, or for each time the advertisement is broadcasted.
