And because the doctrine provides a defense to a claim of copyright infringement, you would bear the burden in a lawsuit to prove that your use was fair. Courts decide fair use cases on a case by case basis, after considering four factors:.
Also, keep in mind that you can only invoke the fair use defense if you obtained the copyrighted work legally. If you illegally downloaded a song, that by itself is infringement even before you sample it. And even if you establish fair use and the court rules in your favor, lawsuits are expensive. Worse, if you lose, the damages are potentially substantial, especially if the copyright is registered.
If you want to sample an existing work, you need to obtain permission from the copyright holder. If you plan to use a particular recording of a song, you are probably dealing with two separate copyright holders: the label that recorded and released the song and the publisher or songwriter who wrote it.
You can search the Copyright Public Records Catalog from onwards online to find out whom to contact. The copyright holders may choose to give you a license to use their work but they are not obligated to. If they do so, they will likely charge you a fee. It may be a flat fee for a one-time, limited use or it may be an amount based on the number of copies of your work that you plan to produce and sell.
The copyright holder holds the exclusive right to perform a song live or play its recording, make copies of the song, sell copies of it, and use it in other works such TV or film productions. A song only enters the public domain when its copyright term expires.
Until then, its owner maintains all rights to distribute, copy and perform the song. Wilhelm Schnotz has worked as a freelance writer since , covering arts and entertainment, culture and financial stories for a variety of consumer publications. Are Melodies Copyrighted? This is the second of a 4-part series on issues in music copyright. Part 2 will provide an overview of the duration for musical composition and sound recording copyrights.
As we discussed in part 1 of our series, music copyright is broken down between musical compositions and sound recordings. It is important to keep this distinction in mind when considering the duration of either of these copyright terms, because different sets of laws will govern the duration of the copyright depending on the type of work being considered sound recording or musical composition and when that work was created.
Musical Compositions : Copyright duration for fixed musical works, including original compositions and original arrangements or versions of earlier works, follows the same termination timeline as other literary works. Duration for the musical composition copyright will depend on a number of factors including the time in which the work was created the time in which the work was fixed , the time in which it was published, who created the work, and whether proper renewal and registration was filed.
The following tables explain how copyright duration varies:. The length of copyright depends on the type of work. Print entire guide. Related content Intellectual property and your work Using somebody else's intellectual property. Brexit Check what you need to do.
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