While organizations such as BMI make sure musicians get paid, there are other rights apart from whether or not artists are compensated that are often overlooked. Sometimes the people in photos and videos unintentionally infringe upon the rights of the artist behind the camera – the photographer’s rights.
Copyrights and Live Performance Video Recordings
You own the rights to your music and your performance to be sure, and anyone with video recordings of you would require your permission in order to publish your performance. But, it works the other way around, too – if you want to publish their video recording. To the best of my understanding, here is how it has been explained to me by legal experts regarding photography and video…
With live performance video recordings there are three elements: (1) A person’s image, persona, likeness; (2) The music, performance, artistic expression; (3) The recording – the actual media, digital video file or film – raw or finished. There are separate rights involved with each of these things.
Whenever I record anything in my camera, I own it. I can make creative edits, use it in other works, replay it for myself in private over and over again to my hearts content without restriction. When I decide to make it public, then there are conditions.
Let’s say you put on a live performance, and I make a video recording (with your knowledge and permission). From that moment, I then own the exclusive rights to that video recording. HOWEVER, you are the subject, your music is recorded in it, and you own the exclusive rights to your image and your music. So, although I have the rights to the video recording, and I can play it over and over again for myself, I would have to have your permission to publish it. By the same token, although you own the rights to your image and your music, I own the actual video recording, so you would also require permission from me to publish it, even though it’s your image and your music in the video.
Now, I’m not a lawyer, so this is just my somewhat-educated opinion of how the legal rights of live performance recording should be interpreted. If you have anything to add, then please let us know!
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