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Posted Aug 10th, 2011
I know that you have to pay for the rights to use music in a movie. Do you have to pay for the
rights to use music in a website?



Legal Topic Area: Entertainment Law in NC

Yes. the rights to use the music are owned by the copyright holder regardless of where you use the product, subject to some limited exceptions under the doctrine of "fair use". It depends won who owns the rights as to how you actually obtain the license, however there are a number of companies that aggregate music rights. Check out for example http://www.bmi.com/licensing/ - where you enter the music, your proposed use etc. and then you get a price. Some music is free, but be careful, even most music on YouTube is subject to restrictions (under the Creative Commons licenses, see http://www.youtube.com/t/creative_commons).


Answered on Aug 26th, 2011 at 1:24pm