What are considerations around singers performing music in a film?

Byron Pascoe: When singers are singing a song in a film, the first point is that if you’re a producer and you have someone singing in a film and it’s actually them singing (not a recording) a song that exists, you need permission to use the composition in the film. If you are recording someone singing a song in a film, then you don’t need to get the rights to use the original recording because you’re making the recording yourself. So, you don’t have to get the master rights from some record label; you’ve created the recording yourself.

If you’re the producer and you’ve asked your director to tell the singer to add an extra chorus or change a verse around based on the storyline, you’re changing the song. There are two things to consider: 1) you may need to get some rights from the writer; if the performer went off script, you need their consent and 2) you need the right to change the composition. Whoever controls the original composition, they need to give consent to you changing around the words or the process or the order of the song. Same goes for translation; if the original song is in English and you want it to be in French in your movie, you need consent for the translation. Even if you hire a translator or use Google Translate, you’re not allowed to do that without getting consent for this translation that you have done.

If you’re using a song in a film that is being performed by someone in the film or TV show, you need to make sure that if there are any changes to that composition, you need to get permission from whoever the composition originated with AND you need consent to use the new intellectual property created by whoever made those changes. However, as I said, if you’re making your own recording of a song, you don’t need to buy the recording of the original song, so that could save some money, but adds some hoops to jump through in terms of getting the proper permission.

Byron Pascoe is an entertainment lawyer and partner at Edwards Creative Law

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Related:

• Producer's E&O clearance procedures
• What role do music credits play?
• What's a music exclusion?
• Blurring the lines of music infringement law
• eBook: Producer's E&O Insurance 101
• YouTube: Byron Pascoe's film producer's E&O videos

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