Protecting you choir brand: monitoring photos, videos and recordings

Every choir has a reputation to maintain. Your choir and its name are essentially your 'brand' and, as such, need protecting.

When anyone shares an unauthorised photo, video or audio recording in public, it has the potential to damage your brand.

Why my singers don’t use recorded parts to learn songs

Some choirs make recorded parts available to their singers and expect them to know their part when they come to the first rehearsal of the song.



For me though, learning together in the same space is more important so I don’t use recorded parts. Here’s why.

What’s the best recording device to use in a choir rehearsal or singing workshop?

How long’s a piece of string?! There are so many options that I’m not going to specify any particular type or model.

photo by svennevenn

However, here are some of the things you need to consider.

How to learn effectively from a recording of a song in parts

Sometimes you might have to learn your song part from a recording rather than with everyone else in a choir session.

photo by Kathy Cassidy

Here are some hints on how to do that in the most effective way.

Music is too freely available – and that’s a bad thing

Once upon a time you could only hear your favourite song if you travelled to a live performance. It was a special, one-off, shared experience.

Bandstand busking by Dave Smith

If we wanted to hear Central African pygmies singing, we would have to travel to the Central African rainforest. But then recording arrived . . .

This post was inspired by a recent article in The Guardian: music needs to be precious again.

music becomes freely available

Initially wax cylinders were rare, delicate and expensive – as was the equipment that played them. But then came gramophone records and cheaper record players.

Next radio came and we could listen to live performances in the comfort of our own home with no effort at all. We could even hear strange songs from far-flung countries that we’d never heard before.

And now we have CDs, MP3 players, the internet, smart phones ... music at our fingertips. This is a good thing, BUT it has some serious downsides.

At this very moment I’m using the Last FM plugin to my Firefox browser to listen to tunes that My Neighbourhood has suggested. It’s great background music, but I’m not really paying attention, I don’t know who’s playing and I can skip to the next track if I’m bored.

we’ve lost something in the process

I really don’t like how my attitude to music has changed. Although it’s great that we have so much music available and we can listen to music that we would never have come across before, I believe that we have lost something in the process.

We’ve lost:

• the communal experience – of being part of an audience listening to the same music
• authenticity – what with auto tune and other audio manipulation, people are so used to hearing ‘perfect’ singing that anything other than that is deemed somehow ‘less’
• cultural context – listening to an African initiation rite online or a CD of Bulgarian women bringing the harvest in is not the same in your front room
• specialness – and uniqueness of the experience. We used to have to make an effort, but now it’s all too easy so we tend to take it for granted
• stumbling across an unexpected delight – there is not much room for accidental discovery. Services like Last FM serve us up with “if you liked this, then we recommend this” which means we are unlikely to ever go outside our listening comfort zone
• our appreciation of musicians and song-writers – because there is so much music on tap, we tend to under-value the talent of song-writers and musicians. Because music is so ubiquitous, we assume it just comes out of nowhere
• becoming really familiar with a song – when I was young I used to save up my pocket money to buy an LP then listen to it again and again for months on end before I could afford another. I really listened to the music and got to know it intimately, discovering new delights each time.
• our ability to choose – we are overwhelmed by choice. I used to be able to keep up with different genres of music, but now I just don’t know where to start because there’s simply too much to choose from, so I lose touch with the latest bands.
• music slowly growing on you – we don’t stop to listen any more, but fast forward onto next track if a song doesn’t instantly gratify us. In the past I used to work hard at getting to know those tracks on a CD which were ‘difficult’ or not immediately pleasing. In the end, these were often the songs that stayed with me and made the most impact.
• respect for the indigenous music of other cultures – we soak it up like water because it’s so readily available, not giving a moment’s thought to whether people are being exploited or what a song might mean to people from that culture.

a final word from Andy Kershaw

“Music and culture have never been divorced for me. How can you go to somewhere like Cambodia and have no sense of the history and the politics of the place? Music does not exist in isolation. It's dynamic, like language. It's self-referential and always changing.”

From an interview with Andy Kershaw in The Observer.

Do you agree that we’ve lost something by having music so freely available? Maybe I’ve missed out some of the things that we’ve lost, or perhaps you don’t agree with me at all. Do drop by and leave a comment.

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

 

Songs and copyright 6: how to get permission to use a song

We’ve seen that songwriters, music publishers, recording artists, song arrangers, etc. all have copyright over the songs that they ‘own’. We’ve seen how the law works and what you can and can’t do with other people’s songs.

If you want to use a copyrighted song (to teach, record, arrange, copy, perform, broadcast, etc.), how do you go about it?

Office Depot copyright warning by gruntzooki

Before you can use any work that is in copyright, you must first get permission. Often that permission is not obtained directly from the creator, editor, recorder, performer or arranger of the song, but from an organisation that helps to deal with creative rights.

Also, as we saw last week, the original creator may have sold the rights to their work to another person or organisation. You will need to find out who that is so you can ask their permission.

Each country has its own organisations. The rest of this post refers to the situation in the UK.

important UK organisations

The Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS) – now part of the MCPS-PRS Alliance, PRS for Music (see below).

PRS for Music (formerly the Performing Right Society) is a royalty collection society that was founded in 1914. As the MCPS-PRS Alliance, it is an organisation which pays royalties to composers, songwriters and music publishers when the music they have created is sold. This includes sales of the music alone such as CDs and downloads, and also products which use the music as a part of their soundtrack, such as films and computer games.

PPL (formerly Phonographic Performance Ltd.) is the company which licenses recorded music and music videos for public performance, broadcast and new media use. The income generated is then allocated and paid as royalties to their record company and performer members.

Music Publishers Association (MPA) is a non-profit organisation representing music publishers in the UK. It exists to safeguard their interests, and those of the writers signed to them.

UK Music is an umbrella organisation which represents the collective interests of the production side of UK’s commercial music industry: artists, musicians, songwriters, composers, record labels, artist managers, music publishers, studio producers and music collecting societies.

who to ask for permission

For permission to:

• arrange a song – you need to contact the copyright owner. The MPA can help to direct you to them
  
• record music – contact PRS for music (MCPS)
  
• perform music live – contact PRS for music (PRS)
  
• broadcast music – contact PPL and PRS for music
  
• play a recording of music in any public space – contact PPL and PRS for music

what does that mean in practice for my choir?

• If you perform a copyrighted song in a concert, you will need to pay PRS. The payment is usually collected by the venue that you are performing in (if they are licensed). This also applies to performing live for broadcast.
  
• If you want to make a CD, you have to first get permission from MCPS who will tell you which songs are in copyright and then you will have to pay a fee for each copyrighted song based on a percentage of potential income from the CD. You should do this even if you are only selling the CD for peanuts to choir members or friends and family (although in practice, many choirs don’t bother!).
  
• If you want to arrange a song that is in copyright, you will need to ask permission of the person who ‘owns’ the song (not necessarily the original song writer). The MPA can help direct you.
  
• If you want to write a song using text or lyrics that are in copyright, again, you have to ask permission of the copyright owner. In both this and the case above, you may have to pay a fee.

Once you have obtained the right to record or perform a copyrighted song (see above), then you need to protect your rights as a choir in terms of any recordings that are made. Once you’ve legally produced your CD or download, then you will need to protect your rights over someone using that recording to sell, broadcast, copy, etc. PRS for music will be able to give you advice or ask the distributor you use.

if you’re a song writer or arranger ...

There is no need to register a work in order to obtain copyright protection, but there are certain precautionary measures you can take. MPA has a useful guide: How do I protect my music?

You will need someone to administer the rights you have over your work.

• If you become a member of PRS, your rights will be transferred to them. Whenever your music is performed in public or broadcast, they will collect the royalties for you.
  
• If you become a member of MCPS, they will act as an agent on your behalf to administer your rights if someone wants to record your music, and sell or rent CDs, downloads, etc.

further reading

PRS produce a very useful document covering all aspects of copyright law.

Sound Rights is a free online learning resource produced by UK Music, written by professionals in the music industry and music education expert Leonora Davies to answer the national curriculum's new requirement regarding the music industry and copyright.

British Copyright Council is a national consultative and advisory body representing those who create, hold interests in or manage rights in literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, films, sound recordings, broadcasts and other material in which there are rights of copyright or related rights; and those who perform such works.

As a liaison committee and pressure group for change in copyright law at UK, European and international level, the BCC provides its members with a forum for the discussion of copyright matters.

The Copyright Licensing Agency is aimed at organisations which regularly photocopy and distribute documents (such as sheet music). They license organisations for copying extracts from print and digital publications on behalf of authors, publishers and visual creators.

next week

In the final post in this series on songs and copyright I’ll be looking at alternatives to the familiar copyright law: copyleft, public domain, creative commons, etc.

This is the sixth in a series of seven posts about songs and copyright:

1. Even if it’s a folk song, somebody wrote it
2. Basic principles of copyright
3. Different kinds of rights
4. How the law works
5. Who owns the song?
6. How to get permission to use a song
7. Alternatives

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Songs and copyright 4: how the law works

Every song was written by somebody and it seems fair and reasonable to acknowledge (and maybe reward) that person. This is the basic principle underlying the copyright laws, even though such laws may seem heavy-handed at times.

Last week I looked at the kinds of things we might want to copyright and what kinds of rights we can give people over these things.

Policeman by Ian Britton www.freefoto.com

Now we come to how all these good intentions have become embedded in law.

what you can and can’t do

If a song is protected by copyright in any form (sheet music, CD recording, arrangement, etc.), then there are certain things that you can do, certain things that you need permission to do, and certain things that you can’t do.

The one thing you definitely can’t ever do is to claim work as your own if you didn’t make it. The creator of the song has the moral right to be identified as its creator.

The most important thing that you can’t do is to copy a song in any way without permission. Hence the phrase ‘copy right’.

What you can do, having bought the sheet music or recording of a song, is to play it or sing it for your own enjoyment, but you can’t make copies for your mates or choir members.

isn’t it mine when I’ve bought it?

When you buy a song in the form of sheet music or as a recording, you have effectively been granted a license which allows you to do certain things with it. The terms of these licenses vary, but basically they allow you (within reason) to do what you like with the song for your own personal use.

Usually (unless otherwise stated) you can’t do anything with it from which you will gain financially (teach it, lend it, perform it, play it at a club, sell copies of, broadcast it). And as we’ve seen above, you can’t copy it, although in practice it’s probably OK to burn a CD of some MP3s that you’ve bought so you can play them in your car. But even then I’m not sure it’s totally legal!

types of copying

Depending on the medium of the song (written music, recording, etc.) there are many different ways of copying it, some more obvious than others:

• Sheet music can be photocopied, scanned or written out again by hand.
  
• Recorded music can be duplicated (by burning a CD, ripping tracks to your PC, recording off the radio onto your cassette machine, copying a digital file off the internet).
  
• A live performance can be recorded in a range of different ways (on your phone, on a dictaphone, on your camera, with portable recording equipment).

apparently grey areas

There are other ways of copying a song which people think aren’t really copying so it doesn’t count:

• Transcribe an arrangement or melody from a recording – listen to a recording carefully and work out what the melody and harmonies are, then note them down in some way.
  
• Record a song-teaching session – many people bring recording devices to workshops and record the parts as they’re being taught.
  
• Teach a song by ear that you’ve heard somewhere – either from a workshop or a recording or being taught by a friend.

These are all forms of copying and as such are subject to copyright laws.

where does that leave people who teach/ arrange by ear?

In a traditional choir which uses written sheet music, the choir have to buy one copy of the music for each and every choir member. To save costs, it’s sometimes possible to borrow or rent a whole set of scores for a one-off performance.

But in a choir that doesn’t use sheet music, the situation is different. The choir leader may buy the sheet music and then teach the song by ear. In which case, the composer/ publisher/ arranger is losing out on their ‘normal’ revenue. Some song writers and arrangers ask you to pay the equivalent of buying one copy for every choir member even if you only need one copy because you’re going to teach it by ear.

And what if your choir leader uses their single copy of the sheet music to make some parts CDs which are then sold or distributed amongst choir members so they can learn their parts? This is a form of copying so is breaking copyright law.

Some song writers and arrangers don’t read or write music. They pas on their work by recording their songs or producing teaching CDs with the individual parts on. You may find that buying a song in this way is a lot more expensive than buying sheet music. The reason is that the arranger/ song writer knows that you will probably be teaching their song/ arrangement to your choir or workshop so factor that in to the price (rather like publishers insisting you buy one copy of the sheet music for each choir member).

It is all too easy, especially when teaching by ear, to just buy one copy of the sheet music, or make parts CDs without realising that you’re  making money from somebody else’s work.

how long does copyright last?

In the UK, copyright in a musical or literary work generally lasts for 70 years after the composer or author dies. A sound recording is typically protected for 50 years from when it was made (although some artists are lobbying to have that extended!), and a printed edition is generally protected for 25 years from when it was first published.

what do those weird symbols mean?

You are probably familiar with the © symbol. This is the copyright symbol used to indicate that something is protected by copyright. To explicitly assert your rights to a piece of work that is written down, simply put the copyright symbol (or the word ‘Copyright’) followed by the year of publication/ creation then your name.

The symbol for sound recording copyright is a ‘p’ in a circle. You will need this on CD recordings of your song for example.

Other symbols you may come across are the registered trademark symbol ®. Trademarks that have not been registered use the symbol TM. A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, design or logo. This may apply, for example, to your choir or band name or logo if you wish to protect it.

how do I know if something is copyrighted?

Pretty much every piece of sheet music or recording is copyrighted, even if there is no explicit copyright symbol. Just because it appears to be an old song, don’t assume that it’s in the public domain (i.e. not subject to copyright).

It is up to the creator of a piece of work whether they want to restrict what you can do with their song. You may find at the bottom of a piece of sheet music “Feel free to photocopy and pass on”. There are also other ways in which creators can protect or license their work (see a later post in this series), so you can’t assume that all work is protected in the same way. Do your research!

copyright law in the age of the internet

It is so much easier these days to copy material due to its digital format (no loss of information – remember those hissy tapes that your mates used to pass around?) and our networked world (mobile phones, internet). That just means that illegal copying is harder to keep control of than before. The same fears were around when the printing press was invented. Prior to that, sheet music and lyrics had to be copied by hand.

Illegal downloads and file sharing abound. Copying a CD for your mate is a breeze. Making a half-way decent recording of a live gig is almost undetectable. So copying is easier, but it’s still against the law.

But which law? Because of our global connectivity, it is becoming increasingly difficult to know which law applies and who is responsible for breaking it (the downloader, PC owner, ISP, mobile network?).

how is the law enforced?

We’ve all read recently of the heavy-handed and perhaps misguided attempts by record companies to give huge fines to individuals who are found to have downloaded material that they hadn’t paid for. We also know about the cheap knock-off DVDs that are sold at car boot sales alongside pirated copies of the latest release of Windows.

Most stories that hit the news are about recorded movies, music or software and involve large multi-national corporations. If someone rips off a Madonna or Robbie Williams song and makes a fortune from it or passes it off as their own, the lawyers will be all over it in seconds.

But what about the world of choirs and community singing? Are the police likely to raid a concert where you’re performing your illicit, unlicensed arrangement of a Beatles song? Will the music publishers be down on you like a ton of bricks if you teach said song in a workshop?

What if you’ve very properly bought a licensed arrangement of a Beatles song as sheet music, but then go on to teach it by ear to your choir or even produce parts CDs? And if you your friend passes you the recorded parts of this amazing African song that’s been doing the rounds, are you definitely going to check that the arrangement is not in copyright or the song is really in the public domain?

The reality is that we can (and almost certainly do) get away with these things. But are you comfortable making a living from other people’s hard work? For instance, that African song I was sent recently turns out to be a modern arrangement that has been published as sheet music which I really should have bought.

It may seem OK doing a few Beatles or ABBA arrangements and making a few quid teaching them in a workshop, after all, they probably don’t need the money! But what if the song in question was from a struggling singer-songwriter who is desperately trying to make a living? In a later post I’ll show exactly how you can get permission to do all these sorts of things without breaking the law (if that makes you feel better).

But a lot of what we do ends up being about individual conscience. Next week I want to look a bit deeper into the moral aspect of copyright. Is it just a capitalist invention? Can there really be such a thing as intellectual ‘property’? Who ‘owns’ the music of a particular culture or tradition? Can the ‘ownership’ of a song be bought and sold? Who owns the song?

This is the fourth in a series of seven posts about songs and copyright:

1. Even if it’s a folk song, somebody wrote it
2. Basic principles of copyright
3. Different kinds of rights
4. How the law works
5. Who owns the song?
6. How to get permission to use a song
7. Alternatives

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Songs and copyright 3: different kinds of rights

Last week I wrote about the basic principles underlying the concept of copyright.

This week I’ll look in more detail at the kinds of things we might want to copyright and what kinds of rights we can give people over these things.

what exactly is it that we can have rights to?

In the beginning a song exists just inside somebody’s head. It may or may not have words or harmonies. It might just be a simple tune or it may be a lush arrangement with many verses and lyrics. At this point the song writer has complete control over their creation.

At some point though, in order to communicate the song, it has to be sung to somebody or written down in a form that other people can understand. This is where it can get messy. People can then take your song and copy, steal, adapt, mis-represent, sell, or perform it whenever they like without your permission. This is where copyright comes in.

There are two basic elements to any song: the music and the lyrics. These are separate entities and each is subject to its own copyright:

• the music as a musical work, and
• the lyrics as a literary work.

This makes sense as it’s possible to put different words to a musical work, or to set a literary work to a different tune. Also, it’s often the case that the person who writes the music is not the same as the person who writes the lyrics. They each have independent rights over their work.

But there can be other elements to a song that also need protection depending on what people want to do with it.

what people might want to do with a song

• record it
• perform it live
• record a performance
• broadcast a recording
• play a recording in a public place
• make their own arrangement
• change the lyrics
• use the lyrics with a different tune
• use the song in a live show
• write it down in musical notation
• publish it as sheet music
• publish the lyrics
• use the tune and add different lyrics

As a writer of a song, you will want to decide who can do each of these activities and under what arrangement (financial or otherwise).

As a user of a song, you will need to know what permissions you have and who you have to ask.

who has rights?

As you can see from the list above, there can be a lot of people involved in using a song and they all have rights that can be protected. Here is a list of some of the people who need some kind of control over their work.

The person who

• wrote the music
• wrote the lyrics
• performed the song
• recorded the song
• wrote the song down
• published the sheet music
• arranged the song
• used the song in their movie

This is by no means an exhaustive list.

it’s getting complicated!

We’ve seen that there can be many forms of a song or elements to it that might need protecting (music, lyrics, recording, sheet music, etc.) and many individuals who are connected with these (song writer, lyricist, arranger, publisher, record company, etc.).

Because of the complex world we live in, it is not necessarily the case that the person who wrote the music owns the rights to that music, nor is it necessarily the case that the person who originally recorded the song owns the rights to the use of that recording.

Because of this, any law that attempts to protect all parties involved is going to be necessarily complex and may not get everything right. To make things more difficult, we live in a global society so not only do we have the laws of our own country to consider, but also international copyright law.

Next week I’ll dip a tentative toe into the legal side of copyright. I’ll consider what you can and can’t do with a song, how long copyright lasts and how the law is enforced. I’ll be focusing on British law (since that’s where I’m based), but many of the principles are similar in other countries.

questions?

Do drop by and leave a comment if you have any copyright questions that you’d like me to answer, or if you have any comments on this series so far.

This is the third in a series of seven posts about songs and copyright:

1. Even if it’s a folk song, somebody wrote it
2. Basic principles of copyright
3. Different kinds of rights
4. How the law works
5. Who owns the song?
6. How to get permission to use a song
7. Alternatives

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com

Choosing a running order for your concert or CD

This is a revised version of a post which first appeared as Order, order! in July 2007

It’s that time of year when summer concerts come around and I have to think of a programme of songs. We’re also releasing a new live CD so I have to figure out a good track order.

Choosing songs is not too hard, but programming them in a sensible order can be a challenge.

choosing songs

This is the easy part! Selecting songs for a concert is not too difficult and I’ll be writing about that next week.

Woven Chords are just about to release their second, live CD. Choosing songs for that wasn’t too hard either as I was limited mainly by the quality of any recordings that we had (and, of course, whether we were singing in tune on that day!).

I do find it difficult to compare audio recordings though. Unlike images which you can put side by side to compare, you have to rely on your memory as to which of two tracks sounds better.

putting them in order

What I find much harder is to find a suitable running order for the songs that I’ve chosen.

There are several schools of thought: some people group songs from the same country or style, whilst others sprinkle the different genres throughout the concert or CD and focus on aspects such as the dynamics of a particular song, whether it is anthemic or gentle, smooth or rhythmic.

I am do the latter – scatter different styles throughout – although I do sometimes put two songs together if they are from the same part of the world, and maybe stick in a song with English lyrics if I feel there’s been a run of foreign ones.

does anybody notice?

I try to make some sort of thread that runs through the programme by taking people on a journey with highs and lows. Whether I succeed or not is another matter. But is the effort worth it?

I spend a long time thinking of the running order for each of our concerts, and I’ve spent even longer on the new CD. But does it really matter to audiences? Do they notice the ‘journey’ through a concert, or do they just take the songs one at a time?

And with a CD, people can jump about and play tracks in any order they choose, so is the running order of any importance at all?

I guess I hang on to the fact that nobody has ever commented on the running order, and being the optimist that I am, I assume that means that I’m doing something right!

Do you agonise over the running order? Does it make any difference to you as an audience member or listener?

 

Chris Rowbury's website: chrisrowbury.com