Copyright, Royalties and Permissions

Copyright, royalties and permissions needed for a piece of music to be used in a DVD that will be sold in UK shop.

1.Which organisation(s) will you need to deal with?
-The MCPS-PRS. They are a collaboration of 2 previous companies MCPS and PRS. Its used by the worlds best music writers, publishers and composers. The MCPS-PRS is a royalties collection society and exists as an easy option for people to gain the use of music for personal use in areas such as film or audio and then takes the royalties and gives the money to its members. During its ten years of existence it has become one of the most efficient and easy to use ways of using professional music.
2.What are the steps involved in licensing music?
-Basically you have to apply through The MCPS-PRS, here is a list of steps involved in the whole process.

• Sign an agreement of terms and conditions with The MCPS-PRS to show that you understand how production music may be used and the procedure for making license applications. This only needs to be done once per person.
• You will then be issued with a "P" number, which is basically a registration identity that enables you allowance to approach and buy production music from any library that is an MCPS member.
• MCPS will issue you with a list of music libraries, rather than providing you with the music directly.
• You can then discuss what music you require with consultants before purchasing it.

For using production music in a DVD that is to be sold in UK shops there are a few steps required:

• You must first apply for a DVD1 license from the MCPS, by filling in the application for after thoroughly reading the terms and conditions. This license covers the "mechanical", which covers making copies of the music and "Synchronisation", which covers you using visuals with the music.
• The MCPS will then process your forms and grant you clearance to use production music in your DVD.
  
• You must fill in a "notification of intended release form" and send it to the MCPS a week before the planned release of the product in intended.

How much does it cost?
Category A (DVD singles) - 8.5% of Published Dealer Price, or 6.5% of Retail Price
Category B (Hybrid DVDs) - 7.25% of Published Dealer Price, or 5.54% of Retail Price
Category C (DVD-Video albums) - 6.25% of Published Dealer Price, or 4.78 of Retail Price

3 ways of legally reducing the costs:

1. The easiest and cheapest way of reducing the cost is a process called "Copyleft", which basically allows you to ask for rights to use the music with permission from the owner completely for free. Usually items released using copyleft, must then in turn after finishing be released again under copyleft. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
2. Using The MCPS-PRS is a cheap way of doing it. http://www.mcps-prs-alliance.co.uk
   
3. Using self-composed music is another great way, if you have the ability to do so, as you can use it wherever you like, whenever you like.

What course of action would i pursue?
- I think i would go through the MCPS-PRS as it seems the most legally safe, and the most efficient way of doing so.

Advertising Standards Authority Concerns

Taste and Decency

Sometimes, people can use images and language in advertising that are intended to shock, but can sometimes offend or embaress, making the public angry at this controversial material. The ASA are there to control what is used in advertising and where to draw the line.
Although offensive advertising is a large area of complaint taken by the ASA, misleading advertising is the biggest. Offense caused by advertising is a lethal threat as it can reduce the possible revenue for the companies.

Some people argue that freedom of speech should be excersised in advertising and think that other peoples ideas and views should not be controlled by the government so many factors have to be taken into account before the ASA decide wether or not and advert should or should not be shown.

Terms in what is acceptable in taste and decency is obviously changing as can be seen with exposure of women, whereas a topless woman in a newspaper 50 years ago would have shocked everybody, nowadays its an everyday thing.


The advertising codes state that advertisements should contain nothing
that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence. Homosexuality, sex, race and religion are some of the topics that advertisers have to be careful with.

The ASA must consider these things before releasing an advertisement: context, medium, audience, product and prevailing standards of decency. The codes the ASA works with, will allow advertisements to be distasteful but not offensive.

Social Responsibility

Advertisements can be socially unresponsible by:

• Using scenes or images that people may unduely fear or distress the public.
• Scenes that could encourage people to behave irresponsively.
• Advertising products that can be hazardous to health.
• Advertising aimed at children that may encourage them to feel inferior, pester parents or result in mental or physical harm.

"Copycat Syndrome - So called "Young" or "Immature" people may copy some things seen in advertising which may cause mental, or physical harm to themselves or others.
Rule breaking is something advertisers need to keep an eye on aswell. Certain images or scenes that may provoke lawlessness can again cause the "immature" to act in a way they shouldnt. A good example is cars and the association of speeding in films such as "The Fast And The Furious" which portrays speeding as cool.

Advertisers also have to be careful when using well-known people to advertise their products and using someone who will cause controversy may not be worth using. A good example of this is "Reebok's 50 Cent" campaign, which caused many complaints due to his controversial history and the effects his music may have on some children and his use of a use of gun appearing to be endorsing "gun culture"

Children and Advertising

Common issues that concern the ASA regarding children and advertising:

• Advertising food and drink to children that may contain high sugar levels or excessive fat.
• Portraying children in any kind of sexual manner, such as wearing make-up or provocative clothing.
• Encumbering children with advertisements for products that children would not be able to afford or use or may make them feel inferior for not purchasing it.

Alot of advertisements use images of children using their products, that encourages children to want them. Charities and companies also sometimes use images of physically or mentally abused children in order to provoke emotion.
Some television channels are allowed to show more adult material between 9am and 3pm as its believed children should be at school and wont be viewing.

Some statistics about children and advertising:

•81% of three to six year olds remember having seen the Coca Cola logo
and 69% remember the McDonald’s yellow M

•By the age of five or six, most children are aware of the rudiments of
advertising

•By the age of eight, children are aware of the promotional and
persuasive role of advertising.

Neumann D-01

Microphones - The Neumann D-01 - Polar Patterns

Directional characteristic:
15 remote controllable polar patterns, from omni to cardioid to figure-8

OMNI
Cardiod
Figure 8

Microphones - The Neumann D-01

The Neumann D-01

We Chose the Neumann D-01 because Neumann are the De-Facto Standard when it comes to top-end Studio Condenser Mics and the D-01 (although not yet released) will be a Technological Breakthrough when it's finally available .....(blimey this is sounding like a sales pitch !!)

The thing about this Mic is that it has a built in Digital Encoder that converts the Analogue Signal into a Digital one within the Mic and transmits it via a Standard Balanced XLR Cable as a 24 Bit Signal.

Costs ; Likely to be between £3000-7000 depending on Accessories (Cradle, Software etc..)Comms&Sound.com, Soundlightltd.com, mveducation.com

Application ; High-end Studio Condenser Mic for Vocals & Instruments

Meets professional audio production requirements and permits recording with no “bottlenecks” or loss of signal quality. Unreleased yet but to be used as a high-end analog studio microphone.
Analog studio microphone. Uses digital technology though so gives fantastic dynamic range.

Type ; Condenser Mic

Used with Mac or PC as a remote controlling center for recording. Features an extremely wide dynamic range of more than 130dB. Phantom powering.

Connector ; Standard 3 Pin XLR Connector - which can carry Analogue Audio and/or 24 Bit Digital, AES/EBU

Polar Patterns ; (see seperate post for diags..)

Directional characteristic: 15 remote controllable polar patterns, from omni to cardioid to figure-8 OMNI Cardiod Figure 8

Pro's & Cons ; Hard to say as the Mic is not released yet - but a Common Misconception with Studio Engineers Recording a Single Vocal or Instrument is to put the Mic into Cardiod Mode and wonder why the Sound becomes thin and 'tinny'. This is because Neumann Mics (and other Condenser Mics) historically use Phase Cancellation to achieve a Cardiod Response and this can affect the quality of the sound - so the Rule is use Omni unless you have good reason not to !

Frequency Response ; 20 Hz to 20 kHz

Frequency response refers to the way a microphone responds to different frequencies. It is a characteristic of all microphones that some frequencies are exaggerated and others are attenuated (reduced). For example, a frequency response which favours high frequencies means that the resulting audio output will sound more trebly than the original sound.

Radio Treatment

Radio Treatment – Drew’s Deceit – Comedy Radio Show

Premise
Famous actress Drew Barrymore plays crude gags on the unprepared public via telephone.
Like MTV’s Punkd, Drew can use her celebrity status to play cruel jokes on her unsuspecting famous friends and colleagues including her godfather, Steven Spielberg.
Drew’s cruel shenanigans can range from telling people their love one’s have died in a comical but believable way, to informing them that a partner has been downloading a vast amount of child pornography and is about to be shot. We will use current audio technology to distort her voice from people that may recognise it.

Characters
Drew Barrymore – Lovable, well-known host, whom people know as notoriously be a beautiful, young actress with many blockbuster films under her belt such as “Donny Darko” and “Charlie’s Angels.”
Tom Green – Her Ex-boyfriend and producer of the show. He is well known for his live stand-up shows and starring in movies such as “Freddy Got Fingered” and “Road-trip”. He is also known for his audacity and has performed such skits and placing a cows head in his parents bed while they slept because his father was a fan of the “Godfather” films and pretending to have intercourse with a dead moose by the side of the road.

Setting
Live studio, probably on a station such as radio 1, where they are more likely to get away with cheek and vulgarity. Should be played on a Friday evening from 7pm to 8pm for an hour, while people are getting ready to go out, or having a couple of drinks before they hit the town. Will have the aim of an older teen audience of maybe 15-25 year olds.

Mood and Style

Will contain crude sound effects such as belching noises as well as sound effects that will be used in tricking the public. Rock/metal music will also be played at different points throughout the show to spread it out a little.

Finish the show up with the celebrity phone call, followed by Drew revealing herself to the person she's been winding up and letting them choose a song which is played to end the show.

Future Possible Concerns

• Possible loss of the ability to shock the audience with documentaries when ideas start to run thin.
• Relying on the American drama industry for alot of their high end programming, which could flop or be taken away from them, or people get bored of crime dramas

"Five" Audience

The charts below illustrate the viewing figures that Five delivers.
The share of viewing includes all TV channels whereas the share of commercial impacts* includes all commercial channels (the most obvious examples of this include ITV, C4, Five and Sky).

* A commercial impact is defined as one person seeing a commercial on one occasion).

Top 20 Programmes on Five in 2006

	Programme	Date	Viewers
1	CSI: Crime Scene Investigation	31/01/06	4.5m
2	Men In Black II	10/12/06	3.9m
3	CSI-New York	29/08/06	3.8m
4	Home Alone 2	17/12/06	3.6m
5	CSI -Miami	10/10/06	3.4m
6	House	06/04/06	3.0m
7	Extraordinary People: The 7 Year Old Surgeon	20/03/06	2.9m
8	Oliver	10/12/06	2.7m
9	Armageddon	01/01/06	2.7m
10	Daddy Day Care	19/03/06	2.7m
11	Shallow Hal	10/09/06	2.6m
12	Dirty Dancing	15/10/06	2.5m
13	Law & order: Criminal Intent	04/02/06	2.4m
14	Extraordinary People: The Woman Who Lost 30 Stone	13/03/06	2.4m
15	Bad Boys 2	10/12/06	2.4m
16	Maid In Manhattan	12/03/06	2.3m
17	Home & Away	03/02/06	2.3m
18	UEFA Cup: Newcastle v Fenerbahce	19/10/06	2.3m
19	The Glimmer Man	12/03/06	2.2m
20	Larger Than Life: Eating Themselves To Death	02/01/06	2.2m

Top Ten Advertiser Categories 2006

	Category	Spend (£)	% of Total Five Revenue
1	Finance	42.2m	12.5
2	Entertainment & Media	39.2m	11.6
3	Food	38.6m	11.5
4	Cosmetics & Toiletries	31.8m	9.4
5	Retail	27.8m	8.3
6	Pharmaceutical	23.8m	7.1
7	Motors	23.5m	7.0
8	Household Stores	19.7m	5.8
9	Drink	15.6m	4.6
10	Telecoms	15.2m	4.5

At Present 92% of all UK households can receive "Five", which is equal to about 51.3 million people. The reach (the actual number of people who tune in to "five") has an average weekly figure of 51.3% of the population, which is over 27.5 million people and an average daily figure of 20.5%, which is over 11.4 million people.

From the evidence above you can see that the most popular programmes are blockbuster films and American dramas. The audience ages for these spread from early teens right up to the elderly. Sport and documentaries are also popular and may have a slightly higher viewing age, but again covers a very large collection of people.


Due to the huge demand for the items they broadcast, "Five" will keep on showing American dramas and highly popular films to bring in the viewers and have film premieres such as The Da Vinci Code, Spider-man 3 and Monster House lined up to be broadcast in the next couple of years.

• Figures taken from the "Five" website

"Five"

Channel 5 was launched on 30th March, 1997. It was created by Tom McGrath, then-president of Time Warner International Broadcasting and National Trans communications Limited. Lord Clive Hollick, then CEO of Meridian Broadcasting joined the project as lead investor as UK law prohibited Time Warner from owning more than 25%. Pearson television then joined and when McGrath left them to become President of Paramount they were replaced by CLT, owned by Bertelsmann who are one of the biggest media companies in the world. CLT and Pearson then merged in 2000 and became RTL Group. RTL Group are the largest TV and radio broadcasting company in Europe and have 39 TV channels and 29 Radio stations in 10 different countries with over 10,000 hours of programming every year.
In 2001 RTL Group bought out Pearson's 22% share and now owns 89.8% of the company while the rest lies in shares. They are now the largest independent distribution company outside of the US.
The Channel began with the name "Channel 5" in 1997. The channel featured poor audience figures in the beginning due to bad programs. "Channel 5" featured poor day television, which didn't compare with ITV and BBC daytime viewing, an afternoon and an evening film, which were often of poor quality and became renowned for using risque programming such as "Red shoe diaries" and "Sex and shopping" as well as soft-core porn films shown late on Friday nights. One of the main attractions to channel 5 was their gain of live football, which brought the channel very high ratings. The Channel currently had an audience of football fans, teenage boys, and the occasional film fanatic.
A scandal appeared when Dawn Airey, programming director 1996-2003 commented that "Channel 5" was "more than just films, football and ****ing".
In 2002 the company relaunched the channel, with a multi million pound makeover, as "Five" in an attempt to lose the smutty reputation they had gained. Since the change they have gained high rating American TV shows like "Grey's Anatomy", the "CSI" franchise and "Prison Break" They dropped "Family Affairs" in 2005, which freed up 10 million pounds, and they bought popular Australian soaps "Neighbors" and "Home And Away".
"Five" now holds a major role in terrestrial television and has a wide range of shows, such as early morning kids shows, popular US drama, Popular films, Both major European and American sport coverage, High rated soaps and good daytime television. "Five" have also gained popular comedy such as "Joey" and "Everybody Hates Chris", shows late night international sports programing such as "Major League Baseball" and "NFL".
Since "Channel Five" has become "Five", the quality and style of the programing has risen greatly and now captures a much wider target audience with their huge range of programs.
Recently the company have also bought a stake in digital terrestrial televisions "Top Up TV", in which they have set up two new channels, "Five Life" and "Five US", which are used to display some of the more popular programming options."Five Life" features mainly lifestyle programming aimed towards women and "Five US" shows popular American TV shows, drama and films.