Sync rights are a mess. The right to perform a song is covered by the ASCAP or BMI fees paid by the venue. Recording a track is covered by paying fees to the Harry Fox Agency. But any time you sync video and audio together, the rights have to be negotiated individually. Every single person with a camera phone is violating sync rights. Realistically, uploading a video to YouTube is covered under the Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act where the rights holder is given the opportunity to have the video taken down, and out of 1,300+ videos has happened only twice.
Other countries have a “videographer exemption” where a yearly fee can be paid to compensate rights holders, but the US has nothing like that.
My kids attend a private dance studio and professional recordings of their performances are included in the tuition. These are distributed on DVDs by the studio. I have no idea how (or if) rights are handled. From a parents point of view it’s an ideal transaction, since I deal only with the studio and the studio deals with the videographer.
In comparison, the studio also does professional photo shoots of the dancers in their costumes. But for those, you have to deal with the photographer directly, the studio is merely a mutual point of contact. This is a large hassle and hardly worth it.
My suggestion is that you make arrangements with the school so that the school pays you directly some pre-determined price per production. And the school recovers that cost from the parents however works best among them. Presumably the school is already acquiring other rights, let them acquire sync rights as well.
Not an option. Sync rights to every single song ever written have to be individually negotiated, and there is no discount for smaller usage. Rights for a season of different concerts could literally be millions of dollars or would just be refused outright. Music rights for the documentary Rock School were $600,000 - not for the original recordings, but to perform covers.
Please, does anyone have suggestions about Patreon, GoFundMe, Kickstarter or IndiGogo?
This would be ideal! I wish SFB did something like that, but they didn’t and they were very strict about photos and videos.
You mentioned dealing with the photographer. My son’s first professional bio pic was taken by a studio photographer in NYC where the dance company is. I have copies of the Playbills with his bio and pic. I was able to call the photographer and asked to buy a copy of it. She was very hesitant. I pled with her, saying it’d be only displayed in my living room, and please would she accommodate a proud father. She finally agreed only if I agreed to promise to not make any copies of that photo.
That was 10 years ago and I’ve kept that promise. Not a scan or any other copy of it has ever been made.
But yes it is a hassle. Hopefully the OP can figure this out. Parents would certainly be grateful.
I’m confused what you’re asking for then. Why can’t the school do those negotiations? Or are you asking us the best way to skirt the law? And if you’re skirting the law anyway, why not arrange for lump-sum payment by the school? They’re in the best position to recoup your costs from the parents.
The fact is parents are already making arrangements with the school. It’s very easy for the school to ask for a video fee added on to other costs and most parents would be happy to oblige. You’re making more work for the parents and yourself (likely costing you reduced sales) by trying to side-step the pre-existing school-parent relationship.
I’m very happy with their studio. It’s small, but prominent in the LA area for pre-teens. I’m not sure if they’re actually acquiring all the rights they should, but they’ve been operating this way for many years now.
What about going to a 100% donation model? Have a tip jar at the shows. Upload the videos to YouTube and put links to PayPal, Venmo, Patreon, etc. there. You’d probably have less $25 sales, but you might make up for it with more $5 and $10 donations. Plus, you might get donations well after the video was uploaded.
One challenge for this enterprise is that you’re competing everyone who can make their own video for free. For many people, that’s good enough even if it’s not a very good video. They want to capture the moment in the moment. But if they could see your final product and how good it is, they may be moved to donate a few dollars for your effort.
One other thing you might consider is uploading the raw videos from each camera. Many parents would be happy to have a video of just their child. You could do that quickly after the show so parents could rewatch and send it to all the relatives while they are still in the moment. Then later you upload the edited video of the whole show. The sooner you can get videos to the parents, the more they will be willing to donate.
I have done some shows entirely on spec, and have a “Donate” button on my web site…and have received exactly nothing. One mother asked me to travel to Minneapolis, but didn’t check with the school. I get there via Megabus and stay at an AirBnB. I set up, and have a tense conversation with the school owner who lets me shoot, but will not do anything to promote the video.
My out of pocket costs for the trip were roughly $200. The bitch of a mother offers me $40 for the wide shot of her daughter’s performance.
Again, I really want to talk about crowdsourcing. About getting paid before I do the work.
You’re the one rejecting possible solutions to your situation because of rights issues. Based on what posters have said here, crowd funding is not a good fit for your situation. Sorry.
Please: I would ask that this thread not be derailed over issues of copyright. Thank you.
As I mentioned, every single parent with a cell phone is violating sync rights. Virtually every music clip ever posted on YouTube is violating sync rights. But as I have more than 1,300 videos on YouTube, I know that the actual risk is minimal due to the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. To date I have only received two DMCA “TakeDown notices.” But I still cannot have the schools collect for me - that is not an option.
Kickstarter sounds like a good model actually - put up a campaign, and collect enough to do a single complete season. I don’t want to do them on a show by show basis, as I know that I would only get support for the shows by the beginners - I can only slog through editing yet another bunch of eight year olds playing Black Sabbath if I know there is better stuff waiting for me.
That might work for a premium for the Kickstarter. I do put up the dedicated camera I have on the drummer, and parents love that. But the camera angles I have are - wide, left, right, center, lead singer, keys, drums and handheld.
As I mentioned, requests for donations after the fact have been unsuccessful. The potential pool of donors is just too small - I need to have a commitment beforehand.
I may have been misinterpreting what you’re asking. I inferred you were asking “How can I make the most money videoing performances.” But rather, I think you’re asking “How can I ensure I only spend my time recording performances where I make enough so it’s worth my while.” If it’s the latter case, then Kickstarter or something like it would be the way to go.
At the start of the season, have the school give a link to the campaign and say “If we reach a funding goal of $XXX by <1 week before first performance>, the season will be professionally recorded and the video put up on youtube.” Use a service where the money is returned if the goal is not met. This way if there’s not the interest, the goal won’t be met and you won’t need to do anything. But when there’s interest, you’ll have the money up front. Just make sure the wording is clear so that parents don’t think they are contributing to the music school…
Campaigns often have benefits for different funding levels, so you could do something similar. All contributers will be listed in the credits of the video. At the $10 level, they get a DVD of just the final performance. At the $20 level, they get a DVD which has all the performances. And at $30, they get all the performances plus all the single-camera videos. Having multiple gift levels ensure people will continue to donate even after the goal is met. This way if someone wants to kick in $5, they can do that and just get listed in the credits. If someone wants the mega-DVD, they can get that. And if no one is interested, then you won’t have to waste your time. In the credits, list the contributers in a font size proportional to their funding level (like you sometimes see in opera programs).
If you don’t want to worry about mailing DVDs, you could just leave that out and just have a goal for the video to be uploaded. Your contribution rewards could then be:
Goal met – Edited videos uploaded to youtube
<$10- listed in the credits
$10 - Emailed link to location of single-camera video of final performance
$20 - Emailed link to location of single-camera video of all performances.
Yes, I love doing these shoots, but the physical DVD sales have dropped so much that I’m not able to afford to do them. Kickstarter sounds like the best choice.
