I remember learning about this in a college IP law class. After that, I started to notice how every restaurant sang their own unique version of this song.
It made me notice that when McDonalds started playing music, they played exclusively classical music, which I thought to be out of place. Now I wonder if they're using public domain works, or perhaps arrangements thereof which they have copyrights on.
I'm starting to think that we need a free music movement, where people start creating music that can be used freely in personal videos, school plays and whatnot without all these copyright shenanigans. A good place to start would be the public domain classical music. There's a lot of good stuff there.
It's certainly possible. I'd note there are a variety of services who exist solely to provide "in store music" to stores, which handle all the copyright/broadcast rights etc....and they are generally pretty affordable.
Still I wouldn't be surprised if there was a discount for stations that are pure public-domain or if small franchises were just playing it themselves (though presumably the recording/performance itself is still protected and they might not be in the clear legally if they were say, just playing a CD)
>I'm starting to think that we need a free music movement,
It already exists, it's called the Open Source Movement (well, amongst others). There is a variety of music available under say, a Creative Commons license...and many websites devoted purely to free-music.
Not all CC licenses are free for commercial use, though. In fact, most of them aren't. And you're right that one has to have all the relevant copyrights to avoid legal hot water. I think that there's a different right for just about every little piece, from the arrangement of the music to the lyrics to the recording and performance rights.
Combine those two points and you see that getting strings-free music is a little harder than usual. And precedents like that nonsense about a 5-note hook from a long time ago don't help when it comes to issues of derivative works.
>Not all CC licenses are free for commercial use, though. In fact, most of them aren't.
Sure, it wasn't my intention to imply that. I'm talking explicitly about music that is completely free to use, and music licensed under certain CC licenses is just an example to illustrate the point.
Thank's for clarifying for other readers though.
It was also not my intention to imply that getting free music is easy. Of course much music is commercial, many people are reluctant or unable to give away products of any type.
My point was only that there are in fact a lot of people creating music and releasing it explicitly to provide music which can be used for any purpose commercial or not, and a variety of websites which catalog this music.
These people/websites are a boon to many, like podcasters who require into/outro/background music.
I'm not saying this movement could not use more momentum, support, etc....the contrary in fact. I'm saying only that it already exists.
Fair enough. I'm just trying to advocate for more music and fewer strings attached. I know that some exists, but, as you point out, things are still far from simple.
