Copyright

There is a hazy fog of copyright that surrounds nearly everything that we have done this Tri. Has a lot of what we have done violated copyright? Sort of. Will anything happen? No. All of the work we have completed was done in within the walls of an educational institution 'for the sole purpose of illustration for instruction*'. The work we have been doing this term was for purposes of education in an educational institution so we fall into a special exemption that allows us and the faculty staff to use copyrighted material without risk of violation. Provided that the work is non commercial and we provide acknowledgement of the original copyright holders**.

In regard to performance, playing and showing copyrighted material which we will be doing next week another exception applies if where the audience that comprises of students, teachers and those directly directly connected to the establishment, no infringement takes place. Family and friends though are not considered to be directly linked to the establishment and in this case the onus is on the institution to seek permission to use the copyrighted material***.

Remixes

When looking at the remixes, in the real world your first point of call would be the copyright owner. So this is likely the label or the publisher. Bands and artists generally do not own the rights to their recordings once they have been sent over to a label and approved for release. You would have to pay a fee to license the original material for the purposes of the remix and this would be negotiated with the label. The work you are creating after the fact is original work and exists under it's own copyright.

Soundalikes

This is one of the more grey areas. There is violation in regard to both the video and the song with what we did when it comes to real world applications. For using the video itself you would once again have to contact the copyright holder which is likely the label in many cases. As it in itself is a piece of copyrighted material. The song is also protected even though it is only a cover version. Broadcasting it on Youtube is considered public performance and as such means a royalty should be paid. Unless the video is generating money or enough views to warrant attention it's unlikely that anything will happen. However Youtube does have an agreement in place with NMPA**** that means any advertising money generated from a Youtube video that has copyrighted material will be funnelled to the appropriate parties. So rather than take your video down the copyrighted holder can use actually use it to generate income. It is possible that in Australia that APRA/AMCOS or the PPCA may pursue fees that can be forwarded to the artist as the video is considered public performance.

Jingles

I can't see why in the real world a re work of the jingles would take place. But in this situation you aren't having to negotiate music copyright, just that for the video. So once again contacting the owner which is likely the company that commissioned the work. Any samples sourced from a website such as Free Sound would have to be credited in accordance with their licensing policy. Currently there is only one license an uploader can select that would prevent a sample from being used in commercial work. So that would have to be respected or you would face legal action*****. If you were to be creating the work from scratch as if the company were contacting you to create musical work and sound effects, the terms of the contract really determine who owns copyright here.

If a company licenses a song you would still hold the copyright. However artistic services for hire forfeit copyright ownership to the party paying for the service. So they are essentially paying you to write a song or jingle and then hand over it's perpetual use for a one time fee rather than a licensed fee or ongoing royalty. Any samples you recorded yourself for the advertisement would likely be surrendered under hire and any sourced from say Free Sound would certainly have to be credited while avoiding use of samples that prohibit commercial use.

References

* http://copyrightuser.org/topics/education/

** http://copyrightuser.org/topics/education/

*** http://copyrightuser.org/topics/education/

**** https://youtube.googleblog.com/2011/08/creating-new-opportunities-for.html

***** http://freesound.org/help/faq/#what-do-i-need-to-do-to-legally-use-the-files-on-freesound