Copyrighted music in wedding video...BIG NO NO!

Your videographer can't use it, because you are paying him to make the video for you, so he would have to pay for a license to use it.

Most things you see with popular songs are either done illegally or somebody did them themselves without knowing about it.

Interesting... I have a videographer and he chooses the songs so maybe its ones he already purchased??

Our videographer is just shooting raw footage, then my FH whose pretty good at tech and editing himself is just going to add the music we want and cut and edit it .... hopefully it all goes as planned, getting raw footage is also a good way to save on the price if you have someone who can edit it for u =)

We picked songs from a list where the license can be purchased to use them. My understanding is that if it's the those highlight videos you see posted on Vimeo or YouTube, license must be purchased to use them. If it's a video made for you for your private viewing that will not be posted on the internet, I thought you could use your music that was legally purchased. Don't quote me on that though. We are doing the typical 3-5 minute highlight reel and picked songs from song freedom per our videographer.

Bump for those who didn't know to find out!

ETA: Yup. This is super correct. I took a copyright class in college. Anything you post publicly with copyrighted material without permission COULD you get sued or fined. Your home video that you put to your favorite song on YouTube? Yup. Could happen.

Could you pay the licensing fee? Or is your videographer willing to pay it?

I know some of the videographers that i was looking at said part of their fee goes to buying the license for the songs. would that be an option? to pay extra for the specific song you want?

eta: or the videographer could just not post the video online, and you keep it for personal use.

Our Videographer has a huge library of songs they have purchased the licenses to for the videos they make for their clients. They will also purchase a license if they dont already have it. With how much money we're paying them they can buy the damn license.

Would it be possible for yours do purchase it? or use Surfergirls suggestion? I know for the company I work for (Media) we can use what ever music we want/need for things that are staying internal, its just when it gets distributed to the Mass Public that things get difficult.

I work for a company that does business music. I work hand in hand with ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI. The reason he won't add the music himself, is if he gets reported- he can be fined up to $100k PER SONG. Typically they get businesses for more around $30 to $40k the first occurrence. This is something I see everyday.

By the letter of the law, once music is added to a video the music needs to have the proper licensing. Regardless if it's personal and no one else will see it. It does not matter. It is considered sharing music once it's incorporated.

You can contact the royalty holder who specifically hold the rights to a certain song (BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC) and pay them directly. That would be crazy expensive thought.

I would be wary of a videographer that A) doesn't know the laws or B) willing does it anyways.

There are many music downloaders around, but most of them are not allowed to download copyrighted music for weddings. Fortunately, AmoyShare Free MP3 Finder works.

It is a very advanced and feature-rich online music downloader that allows you to download any music for free.