So, I’m making a movie, and I have run up against an issue that’s really kind of trivial, in the big picture, but is a potentially interesting intellectual property law question. We’re using all local music in the movie, and I have been getting permissions from the musicians to use their songs for free in film festivals with the agreement that when we put out the DVD they will get paid a piece of the action. One song has become something of a recurring theme in the movie, and the other day as an experiment we tried slowing it down slightly during a scene late in the movie, transforming it from a happy little pop number into a kind of comical dirge. It totally fits with the scene, and it’s funny.
Now, the question. We already have permission to use the song, but do we also have permission to manipulate the song? Is that implied in the original permission? The musician is really easygoing, and I don’t think he’d have a problem with it, but I kind of feel like I need to call him and tell him what we’re intending to do with his song. Since we’re such small-timers, we don’t have a formal contract with him (yet, but we will before the DVD release), but we do have an exchange of emails in which he gives us explicit permission to use the song and several others. In the big leagues, does permission to use a song usually come with permission to do things like edit the song or reverse it or remove the vocals? I know filmmakers edit songs all the time–you almost never hear a complete song, it’s always only part of a song. But what about slowing down and speeding up and such?
So, what should I do? Should I call or email the musician to tell him we’ve slowed the song down in one of its three or four appearances in the movie or should I just let him find out about it the day of the premiere?