One of the more confusing things we have to explain to the bride and groom is about music licensing. The concept in and of itself is simple, but I think much of the confusion arises from the rampant use of unlicensed music throughout not only the wedding videography space, but pretty much everywhere on YouTube and Vimeo where people are posting video content without permission from the copyright holder.

I may be dating myself a bit here, but back when Napster was a thing, most people knew they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. It took a few unlucky folks being made examples of for people to stop illegally pirating music. The same is true of illegal use of copyrighted material in wedding videos. In 2011, a videographer by the name of Joe Simon filmed Tony Romo’s wedding and used Coldplay’s “Fix You” to accompany the video. Great publicity, right? The $150,000 lawsuit that followed certainly wasn’t good for business. Joe settled but the message was sent, it was no longer the wild west. (https://daredreamermag.com/2011/12/07/the-music-licensing-chickens-have-come-home-to-roost-in-wedding-and-event-videography/)

Those who continue to use unlicensed music do so at their own risk. We don’t judge as we understand the conundrum; licensing mainstream music for small businesses isn’t possible but you don’t want to disappoint the clients. So you either operate illegally or you turn to sites like musicbed.com to purchase licensed music legally and most of it is really beautiful stuff. And that’s just one example, there are many sites out there now for music licensing, check it out: (https://filmmakerfreedom.com/blog/stock-music-showdown-2018). We know the odds of a small videography company from Crofton, MD getting sued by some behemoth corporation are small, but A.) it’s not worth the risk and B.) we don’t feel it’s the right thing to do from a moral standpoint. Someone else owns the right to that song, doesn’t matter if they’re millionaires or just trying to make it.

That’s the scoop on music licensing. There’s a lot more to it obviously and if you’d like to know more, check out the links below.

Source: https://www.justia.com/intellectual-property/copyright/copyright-ownership/licensing/

Source: https://lizerbramlaw.com/2012/01/25/can-i-use-a-coldplay-song-in-my-wedding-video-ask-tony-romo/

Source: https://www.musicbed.com/knowledge-base/what-music-license-do-i-need-for-a-wedding-video/44