Sound Design Copyright

[The Cargo Cult]

sorry, what I meant by that was that you can create music from other peoples 'recordings' (samples, presets etc) in much the same way we create sound design from fx libraries. so in that respect at least they are the same.

and the right I was discussing is the performance right which means a composer gets paid every time his/her song gets played anywhere in the world. this has nothing to do with the actual recording.

I'm not trying to make a case for performance royalties for sound design - just noting some of the vagaries of this system we have

justin

[TheRunner]

Is sound design covered by copyrights?

if so what form should I use to copyright sound design?

It must be.

Are you working on sounds to generate other sounds that are meant to be used in a specific context for a specific purpose? Well if it´s your work and you are not merely copying and pasting, then it´s your creative work and yhould be subject to your creative ownership.

Legal questions arise such as if you are entitled to call it your work if you use sounds from a soundbank in the sound design of a Film. The answer is NO.

Of course not. You are the sounddesigner in the film, that is using a sound recorded or created by someone else and the creation of that sound is not and will not be your merit in this case. You are uniquely making use of that sound and you picked that sound from a million others for that film and scene and moment, for emotional or aesthetic reasons.

But whatever you placed in that sounddesign track in the film created by your own recordings, your own generated sounds, or created sounds etc, is your work.

The last delicate question is, if you take a sound from a soundbank, run it through amillion devices, mangle it, it ends up sounding like something completely different from what it was at start, if then you can still call it your creative work.

Strictly seen, you should find in what percentage the original sound that is not yours is still present in that final sound, and then draw the shared copyrght from there.

Are there any lawyers in this forum??
:)))

[Norad155]

Register your soundtrack as a "song" with BMI...
Put it on the cue sheet with a length of the entire film...

...and see what happens!

theoretically if everyone signs off on this you could get residuals... but I doubt anyone would allow that...

[SBP]

All recordings are subject to copyright.

Some sounds/performances are also subject to copyright even before they are recorded.

Yes your sound design is covered by copyright. And it is the responsibility of whoever is reproducing the work to ensure they have the right to do so. you don’t need to do anything specific to copyright the work. However there is no established way of collecting a fee on the performance of sound design like there is with music.

Some production music libraries offer sound design discs and for these they expect that the usage will be logged as if the tracks were production music (ie on a per 30sec bases)… so you could go that way to copyright your sound design…. (IE call it music)

Sound libraries [SFX libraries/sample libraries/plug ins] have copyrights and usually attach usage rights to the terms of sale…. If that is what your sound design is for then you should be able to negotiate a slice of the sales.

[TheRunner]

Originally Posted by SBP

All recordings are subject to copyright.

"Some production music libraries offer sound design discs and for these they expect that the usage will be logged "

"... as if the tracks were production music (ie on a per 30sec bases)… so you could go that way to copyright your sound design…. (IE call it music)"

- Would you explain this a bit further? Would be really, really appreciated.

"Sound libraries [SFX libraries/sample libraries/plug ins] have copyrights and usually attach usage rights to the terms of sale…. If that is what your sound design is for then you should be able to negotiate a slice of the sales.

Royalties or even free to be used without any requisite, tends to be the case.
Nevertheless, there are really basic discs or libraries and some others that have more elaborate stuff.

Please don't forget, whatever you do, if you work on something, never underestimate your time, effort and the many hours you have spent behind that screen fiddling on the ADSR, fade setting, compresson adjustment, reverb settings or file conversion, dithering description or format selection, without even having entered on the issue of foley recording or raw material collection to reach a given outcome when creating a piece of Sound Design.

That is the time where you got your experience to then reach your target or objective creatively. And it requires hours and more hours of tireing knob fiddling. Hence WORK

Don't forget that your work is equally complex as the one created by any Graphic Designer or Video Editor.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

Justin was asking why music is copyright (even if created from sample loops etc) whereas Sound design is not (or may not be?) - it boils down to £ "Where there are hits - there are writs".
The music industry is full of sharks and lawyers who savaged unsuspecting songsters for years and got very fat ad rich on the proceeds. God forbid there is ever a sound design hit parade and this stars all over again....
Be careful out there and give stems not sources to your clients...and your work is safer. I always offer my PT sessions, but start the bidding at about £2million (to cover any potential legal fees), that usually puts clients off....

[Cheesehead]

This a really interesting thread and something I've been thinking about for a while.


The lines between what is 'Music' and what is 'Sound Design' are becoming very blurred as composers on some films move towards mood pieces and drones rather than melodic material to underscore films.


Having been a Composer myself before moving to Sound Design, sometimes I feel pretty ripped off that my piece of what is essentially musique concrete is not given the same value in terms of both recognition and royalties as a Composers similar mood piece.


Sometimes I've been able to persuade Producers to accept my material as 'Music' and therefore been able to collect royalties on it, but often its simply assumed to be part of the films Composers score, which is a bit galling.



I think there are 2 issues being discussed here though, one is the situation above and the other is, can diegetic Sound Design for moving pictures be copywright controlled? I think if its serving the purpose of Music, ie affecting emotion and not just pointing up what is happening on the screen, there's a very strong case for it to have the status Music enjoys.


Basically the film gets a space which would probably have had a music cue filled for free and I don't think that is very fair.


The other issue of SFX and copyright is a whole other minefield. I would never provide a PT session for instance, because you're potentially breaking the EULA on all the SFX libraries you've purchased.