Video taping performances
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Topic: Video taping performances
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Video taping performances
Date Posted: 11/30/02 at 1:03pm
I have a basic question about video taping performances. Is it illegal to videotape a performance (royalty paid to Dramatic Publishing) solely for parents of actors to have as a keepsake (not as a fund raiser)?
Thanks.
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Replies:
Posted By: Mike Polo
Date Posted: 11/30/02 at 3:24pm
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Video recording of performances of copyrighted work is generally prohibited by the copyright notice, as printed in the script.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 12/01/02 at 11:26am
Don't do it!!!!
This is one area where the law is very clear - if you think, you can get away with it, you are wrong. You might not get caught the first or the second time but somewhere sometime someone will see the video and let the royalty house know about it.
There are many, many horror stories about people who have been found out years later when the tape ends up somewhere it shouldn't be. The royalty houses have legions of attorneys just waiting to make your life miserable.
I have gotten permission from playwrights for "non commercial" video taping of unpublished scripts. I tried one time to get permission to tape a show but my letters to the company holding the non production rights (not the royalty house) were never even answered.
Don't do it.
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 12/03/02 at 1:33am
I'll give you a basic answer to your basic question: Yes!
Playing devil’s advocate recently while I had the ear of a person in the licensing department of a publishing house, I probed for an answer to this same question on another theatre forum. I received a long and rather well crafted answer from MTI Shows, the musical publishing house. The gist of their answer was, just like Doug said, “Don’t do it.”
You may get away with it once or twice, but you don’t even want to be caught, even if you are giving it away for free. Copyright Laws and the Lawyers and Courts that protect them are fierce. This is something you do not want to go up against.
Not that this is fully relative, but an interesting reference. There was a Wedding Videographer in my town who loved to incorporate cute cartoon snippets of the 1930s Mickey and Minnie Mouse getting married in their videotapes of weddings. The total screen time of the disk eared characters couldn’t be more than 20 seconds in each video. They got away with this for many years, until a customer Bride innocently sent a copy of the videotape as a memento to her Uncle who happened to work for Disney in Orlando. The next thing they knew, they the studio received an immediate cease and desist order from Disney’s attorneys. The studio ignored the warnings and continued. About 6-months later the studio was shut down and the owners were bankrupt. This is not urban legend. I saw this happen in my own community. This should give you an excellent picture of what can happen to anyone who blatantly breeches the law.
Fiat Lux,
Bil K
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 12/04/02 at 3:25am
<<< Doug Bechtel Wrote >>>
“I tried one time to get permission to tape a show but my letters to the company holding the non production rights (not the royalty house) were never even answered.”
One Theatre I know of was producing a well-known fantasy play. They tried to get permission to videotape from the Publishing House to no avail. The Playwright happened to live in the area and taught at a local University. Additionally, his grand daughter was performing in the show. They invited him to a performance and requested his permission to videotape the production. He released rights to us through the Publisher. This is the ONLY professionally published play I ever heard about that was granted rights to tape in Community Theatre. An unfortunate aside, not related to the rights issue is that the stage director and musical director were not very skilled and the play did not come off very well. After the performance I approached the Playwright and I asked him what he thought about seeing his work performed live at that particular theater (bear in mind that he has seen his work at professional and amateur theatres around the world). After sitting through three, what must have been agonizing hours of his poorly directed play, I’ll never forget his two comments: First, trying to be as polite as possible, he said -- “I never saw (the play) done quite this way before.” His second comment was said with a slightly pained grin -- “Did this theatre know there was a 90 minute version of the play available to produce?” It turned out that they were working with the 90-minute version! There are two morals to this story: It is not difficult to get rights if the Playwright’s grand daughter is in the show and, Be sure you produce a work you are proud of before inviting the Playwright in to see your show.
Fiat Lux!
Bil K
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