[MUD-Dev] Artists and Copyrights

[Paul Dahlke]

A co-worker wrote up this reply.

Paul

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 13:44:39 -0400
Derek Licciardi <derek at elysianonline.com> wrote:

> How do the commercial games out there handle contract artists and
> musicians?  Is the work that they do the sole property of the game
> and the company that owns the game or is there a tendency to share
> the rights to the work with the contract artist?

Only the biggest and boldest of composers insist on holding majority
IP rights to their music compositions (read: Jeremy Soule, and I
think Tommy Tallarico), nearly all other composers are accustomed to
releasing control rights to the person who writes the check as long
as they retain standard broadcast royalties which are handled
through BMI and ASCAP, which almost never occurs with game music,
since it is rarely broadcast commercially.

The artists are paid directly for their performance, and I have
never heard of them getting rights to anything at all. London
Philharmonic has only recently started doing game music, and they
have a big enough name that thay *might* insist on some rights, but
I seriously doubt it since none of the American symphonies and bands
do.

If you were to contract a big name performer like Nine Inch Nails
with the intention of using their name in promotion of the product,
they might negotiate for some rights, but that is a pretty special
case.

I think it is fair to say that most artists and composers are hungry
enough that just getting a gig is a big deal. Getting paid well for
it is icing on the cake. Getting rights to it is just a pipe dream.

I have to admit that it would be a royal pain in the butt to have to
constantly negotiate with a composer, or performer, or god forbid,
their agent, when determining when and where and how the music is to
be used, both in and out of game.

Sleepy
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