Resources

Media Services is a great place to get some help with making your video.

• Video cameras, tripods, microphones and digital audio recorders are available to students free-of-charge
• The loan period is 72 hours
• Remember – Media Services operates on a first-come, first-served basis to insure they support as many students as possible with their inventory, so please plan ahead

Media Services is located on the 14th floor of the Sciences Library (201 Thayer Street, on the corner of Thayer and Waterman Streets).

Media Services
Sciences Library, 14th Floor
201 Thayer Street, Box 1901
Main Office (863-2197)| email

There are also Macintosh computers in the Science's Library Friedman Center (A level) which have video decks to digitize footage into the computer. The Macs have iMovie installed to facilitate editing the material. There are a limited number of these stations so planning is critical.

 

Important Information For Using Music With Your Video

Using Music with Your Video

ALL commercial recordings of music in the Brown libraries or the web are covered by copyright. In the commercial world, video artists who plan to use pre-existing recorded music to accompany their films typically must negotiate music synchronization licenses with the copyright owner of the recording and possibly also with the composer(s) of the music performed on the recording. While this may not be necessary for a classroom project, the Financial Aid Initiative Video Contest will result in a video that will be played publicly on the internet. For this contest, the video artist has three options:

1. Use pre-existing commercial recordings and negotiate synchronization rights. This will probably involve fee(s) to the copyright holder(s). To be sure that the terms of the contracts meet the requirements of the competition you may also need them reviewed by Brown’s Office of the General Counsel. This is probably NOT the best approach: fees, contracts, lawyers…
   
2. Use pre-existing music from sources that either do not require royalties or are licensed under Creative Commons.
   
3. Work collaboratively with Brown musicians and composers to either perform and record a work in the Public Domain, or to compose and record new music specifically for this project.

Below are resources to assist with all three choices.

General sources:

Bound by law? : Tales from the Public Domain by Keith Aoki , James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins: This comic book intro to the copyright perils of filmmaking is available in the Orwig Music Library as a book, or free online.

Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video: This work by the Public Media Project is an excellent review of fair use as it relates to the production of original video material. For example, when discussing the limits of fair use, the Code says “fair use will not apply when a copyrighted song is used in its entirety as a sound track for a newly created video simply because the music evokes a desired mood … when someone sings or dances to recorded popular music without comment, thus using it for its original purpose; or when newlyweds decorate or embellish a wedding video with favorite songs simply because they like those songs or think they express the emotion of the moment.” It’s a good place to see how much and under what circumstances you can make use of copyrighted materials without permission. Clearly, using a favorite song as a soundtrack is not one of those cases.

1. Negotiating Synchronization Rights:
   
   The Basics of Getting Permission: This site from the Stanford University Libraries gives a useful overview of what you need to do to get permission.
   
   EMG – Evan M. Greenspan, Inc.: This site is a commercial site designed to simplify the process of getting synchronization rights by doing the work for you – for a fee. While not implicitly or explicitly recommended, the site does include a section on how to do it yourself. What they make clear in this section is that doing it yourself is a complex and frustrating process that may take considerable time and effort. Convinced yet?
   
   
   
2. Finding Royalty Free or Creative Commons Licensed music:
   
   Royalty-Free music is music that has been purchased on CD to be used in various types of projects and typically does not require any further permissions. The Orwig Music Library has two sets of CDs of this type of music:
   
   
   • The Extreme Music Library (M5 E987x 1998)
   • The Extreme Music Library (M5 E9872x 2000)
   
   
   Both are licensed as follows: “for use in not-for-profit, educational audio, video and film productions” But beware, this music is not known either for its originality or quality.
   
   Music licensed under Creative Commons, may typically be used under certain circumstances without royalty payment or permission, but will require you in most cases to credit the owner/artist. The terms of a Creative Commons license must be observed (and have been upheld in court). The circumstances under which you may use music licensed in this way are usually described with icons, a guide to which can be found on the Creative Commons site.
   
   Two sites often used to find music licensed under Creative Commons are these:
   
   
   • Owl Music Search
   • Wikimedia Commons
   
   
   Brown Music, i.e. recordings of the Brown Glee Club, Chorus, Orchestra, Concert Band, etc. are available in the Orwig Music Library (last five years or so) or older in the Brown University Archives. Much of this material is public domain music, and permission to use the recordings can likely be had from the conductors of the ensembles. Please contact Ned Quist at the address below.
   
   
   Public Domain recordings? While there is some confusion about copyright law and its applicability to pre-1972 recordings (when sound recordings were first covered by federal law), recent case law, in particular the Naxos case (Capitol Records, Inc. v. Naxos of America, Inc., 2005 NY Slip Op 02570 (4 NY3d 540), has suggested that in fact all commercial recordings since their inception in 1877 are in fact covered by copyright. Either state or so-called common law protection covers pre-1972 recordings in the U.S.
   
   
   
3. Making Music from Scratch
   
   Probably the easiest and perhaps most rewarding approach to finding music for your video is to work with a musician who can either record a musical work in the public domain (a good rule of thumb here is any work composed before 1923) for you to use, or to work with a composer/sound artist who can work with you on creating your soundtrack. The Brown Music Department’s MEME program might be a good place to begin to find students already engaged in the musical side of media production!