Me and Dolly Parton

[hispanicboy]

Basic Story: Ok I have started a video business where I create commemorative DVDs for people¡¦s events, be it a wedding, sports season. Anniversary, or whatever. Anyway I know that legally I am not allowed to just use all the Dolly Parton music I want as a background track, but how do I go about doing this legally? (not just Dolly, that was just to get you in this thread. ƒº )

http://www.video-guy.com/forums/meanddolly.jpg

Basic Question: How do I get ¡§permission¡¨ to use a copy write song on a project and then get it professionally duplicated with someone like disc makers or such.

Any info would be appreciated.

Thank you

[jggimi]

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP, www.ascap.com) has a music database called ACE where you may look up every ASCAP registered release, and contact the copyright holder(s) for use permissions.

If you search the database for performers using the keywords "Dolly Parton", you will see her listed 4 ways, as "DOLLY PARTON", "PARTON DOLLY", "PARTON DOLLY BEATLES", and "PARTON DOLLY ROGERS K". Selecting any of those will show you a list of all her ASCAP published works. For example, under "DOLLY PARTON" is the song "I GET A KICK OUT OF YOU" written by "PORTER COLE." That song's ASCAP administrator is listed as "HARMS INC", owned and operated by WARNER BROS INC with the name, address and phone number of the specific administrator. Every song published through ASCAP should have similar information.

Another publishing organization in the US is BMI (www.bmi.com), who also keep a database searchable from their main website. For example, the artists "DOLLY PARTON AND EMMYLOU HARRIS AND LINDA RON" recorded "TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM". The publishers of record are listed as both "ABKCO MUSIC INC" and "MOTHER BERTHA MUSIC INC" as the words and music may have been published separately. Addresses and phone numbers of the publishers are in the database.

{EDIT: As for duplication -- either you would use your own equipment (DVD burning or video tape duplication), or your would outsource it to someone else. The quantities and/or packaging required would determine where to outsource.}


I hope this helped!

[mpucoder]

Due to the limited distribution of your wedding DVDs you may be able to get a general license from ASCAP. This would mean you do not have to contact each copyright holder individually. Check with Licensing@ascap.com
But anything headed to a replicator is definately not under their purview.

[jggimi]

You're right, mpucoder, that may be possible for limited use:
http://www.ascap.com/licensing/generallicensing.html

And BMI has the same sort of service, including specific licensing for music in videos for business:
http://www.bmi.com/licensing/business/about.asp