Friday Free For All: Music Rights In Action Sports Videos
adamsullivan
- March 20 2009
- 408 views
- 3 comments
Have you ever watched a skate video and thought “wow, that’s a good song?” If you’re anything like me, you’ve done it well over a hundred times. Alien Workshop’s Memory Screen (1991) got me on a Dinosaur Jr bender that lasts to this day. I’ve bought hundreds of CDs over the past 20 years thanks to the hundreds of skate videos I bought first. Hell, I found Sub Society when I was 15 in Connecticut, and I don’t know if that band ever left San Diego county.
My point is I consider skate videos to be not only fantastic advertising for a band or a song, but an honor as well. Particularly if it’s set to a bangin’ part.
Warner Media Group has been flexing lately, pulling audio off my favorite skate videos on YouTube (don’t worry I already own the videos. I just YouTube them all day long at work). You can still watch the skating, but without the audio it’s just not the same. It just seems shortsighted to ignore the good press you get out of a video part. Don’t labels pay to have their songs played at clubs and on the radio?
Now, I’m not saying bands should give their creations away for free. Fair compensation is to be expected. But there are a lot of bands that price themselves out of the action sports market. I know of at least one song that cost upwards of $10,000, and that might not even be the most expensive one. Some bands flat-out refuse. In the Sight Unseen extras, Heath Kirchart talks about how he originally wanted to use Guns n Roses’ November Rain, but they said “no.” He went with the Moody Blues’ Knights In White Satin, instead (which worked really well, because after watching that I thought “oh yeah, I remember this song!” and bought the best of the Moody Blues). The soundtrack to Alien Workshop’s Mind Field is available on iTunes for $15.84. At first, Arto’s song was bizarre, but it really grew on me so I bought it for 99 cents.
I am of the opinion that bands, and labels, should be psyched to be featured in a video. Am I the only one?
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March 20th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Even if you don’t know anyone who works in the music industry, be it label or band, you’d should realize the music industry is f*cked and everyone needs their piece of the pie. These days, where the average person doesn’t even legally purchase music, means that licensing a song may not lead to some form of income for the band. Most artists don’t make any money off of album sales anyways. You may also argue that maybe it will lead to a ticket sale or merch which is where bands make their money, but again nothing is guaranteed.
Not all bands own the rights to their own songs, and these days when 360 deals are becoming the standard, there is very little left to the band themselves.
As a music fan, would I love to hear stuff by bands I listen to in videos? I think the majority of bands that skaters/snowboarders, etc listen to will gladly license their music. Comparing huge bands like GnR or any “mainstream” band is comparing apples to oranges. They can do what they want and they are usually part of the dinosaurs in the music industry who may be reluctant even to put their music for sale online let alone license it to some video.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:38 am
Totally agree with you.
Especially living up here in Canada - the number of bands I have been turned on to because of skate and snow videos is huge.
The music industry is screwed and is just grasping at anything they can get.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:44 am
I call it the “Larz Ulrich” syndrome. Crying about losing money while you take home mad profits. The RIAA and the music industry as a whole are *almost* as greedy as the current banking market.