Copyright

What is copyright  and how it is used within the music industry?

Copyright is a legal right to protect any original work from being broadcast, performed or recorded for a number of years. A sum should be paid to the artist or company which they are managed by for the approval of using their piece.

I had to apply for copyright of Rihannas' song Where have you been to her record labels, as it would have been illegal if I used the song to create my own music video to it.

Firstly I had to research for Rihanna record label, which is Def Jam, which is part of Universal Music group. When we contacted them by phone, as they gave us the e-mail address of the person in charge of the copyright. We then came to find out that her song was owned by other 2 record labels and that UMG owned only 33% of the songs rights.

Originally my group and I decided to use Misha B's new single HOME RUN, and Stooche's LOVE ME so firstly we had to do some ground-work which record label they belong to, in order to get permission to use their song. 
Finding out that Misha B is a part of Sony ME we had to find a correct email address or number to call to contact those who are in charged of copyright and this proven quite hard. The number we found on the website +44 2703168000 directed us to the reception where they than gave us the e-mail address of Elizabeth Peers, who with had to email all of our information and the reason why we wanted to use the song. The same we did for Stooche but in this case we had to get in touch with Warner Music and we had to email  Olly Sheppard.

After getting confirmation from both record labels to use these song, we came to a conclusion to use Rihanna 's song WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN.
For this we used the same procedure than for the previous songs, but we came to a little hiccup, when we found out that Rihanna's song didn't only belong to Universal Music Group as they only owned 20% of the songs rights, so in order to use the song legally we had to get confirmation from Roc Nation owned by Jay-Z as well as UMPG.
Currently we are still awaiting for their confirmation, which is reasonable for one of the big three record labels. 
This is a sample of the email we sent off to both record labels.

Although I am still waiting for a confirmation from these record labels, as I still needed to complete my school project, I will not be able to publish the music video until I get further confirmation, as otherwise would be illegal.