Hi Everyone,

Can someone explain to me how to go about getting the rights to a piece of music?

Also, when are rights needed? I'm interested in using a piece of Beethoven music, but I thought Beethoven music was public domain and thus didn't require any permission for rights.

thanks

Most classical music is public domain if it was published more than 70 years ago. Look into this as it changes from the US to Canada to Europe etc. However, public domain means that the COMPOSITION is free to use, but not the performance. So if you wanted to use a Beethoven piece, the composition would be public domain, but you would need to find and obtain the rights for the performance.

If you do some browsing on the internet there are many sites that offer "Royalty free" classical music recordings. Many of these sites allow you to download the recording for a nominal fee. After that, you can use the piece in any manner you like as long as you stay within their user conditions.

Hope this helps.

another thing, if you are going to use music in your film make sure you have the rights secured before publicly exhibiting it.

Contact a musician's A&R department at their label, if you want to use, say, Metallica.

What JJ said about Beethoven.


Public exhibition where you can actually make money from it is the rule of thumb I've been told to use. If you make a nickel off of that exhibition, you can be sued. My experience: I screened a film with copyrighted music over the credits (and an original score throughout the film) at a small local festival with no cash prizes, but I took it out when it was up for serious money and broad exposure.