We'll Steal Your Music...

As the title of my post (stolen from a quote in the story) clearly points out, there is a copyright problem among wedding photographers... but, not the problem of stolen images. PDN has a great article on photographers in trouble for using unlicensed music in their projects. They are basically stealing music when they don't pay a licensing fee for the copyright:

www.pdnonline.com/pdn/news/Wedding-Photographer-4188.shtml

I always try to use local music in my video projects, so I can call up the artist directly and get permission or pay for licensing. This doesn't address the issue of wanting top 40 hits in a project, but it sure helps me avoid problems with ASCAP or any of the other licensing groups out there!

Luckily, Dallas has a thriving music scene, so I have plenty of great tunes to pull from and I'm also supporting local artists. This may not be a viable solution in a small town in the middle of nowhere. If you live in a tiny town with only a few bar bands, you will definitely have to look into the licensing options stated in the article.