We frequently receive questions from planetarians about the copyright law and how it affects them. Since we're not lawyers, we can't give legal advice, but we can tell you how the issue of copyrights and music usage works as far as our products are concerned.

With all our planetarium products, we include a version of our famous "Loch Ness Productions Plain English Copyright And Usage Statement." Let's say you've just purchased one of our products, and you're reading the statement. You'll see something like:

With the purchase of (this product), we grant you the IN-HOUSE PERFORMANCE
and SYNCHRONIZATION RIGHTS only. Excepting in-house production needs,
no portion of (this product) may be copied without our written permission.

How can we grant you these rights? Simple -- since they're our creations, WE own them and the copyrights. We're the only ones who have the right to make copies -- literally, the COPYright -- and only we can authorize copies to be made. The copyright law also allows copyright owners the right to authorize public performances of their copyrighted material. All this gives owners some control over how their work is used; they can sue for damages if their work is copied or presented in some undesirable context without their permission.

As you read our statement, the first thing you come to is "IN-HOUSE PERFORMANCE and SYNCHRONIZATION RIGHTS." "In-house" is pretty easy to understand; it's the same as saying "in your theater" or "under your dome." "Performance" means literally performing: that is, playing or displaying the product in public -- for an audience. Simple so far, right? "In-house performance rights" means you can play the music or perform the show for an audience in your planetarium -- just what you intend to do. It does not mean you can lend or give it to your colleagues to copy or use, or make videotapes to use in a classroom; those are not "in-house" uses.

Now we know you'll need to make physical copies of the tapes and show package materials, for production, archival, or "insurance" purposes. That's why we say "excepting in-house production needs" when prohibiting copies to be made. Naturally, we'd prefer that you purchase your protection copies from us, too, but we certainly don't expect you to play your master tapes without having a backup! We did have one school district request our written permission to make a protection dub of one of our tapes. It wasn't really necessary, of course, but they wanted to be sure they were doing things legally. Very commendable, and ethical!

Undoubtedly, you'll want to mix narrations with music from our MUSIC BACK-PACKS. You'll want to add other visuals -- like planetarium stars and effects -- to the slides we provide in our show packages. In doing so, the results of your labors will be a new creation, different from what we originally provided. You'll have created YOUR show, using OUR materials in combination with your own. Our copyrighted work is adapted -- used not in its original form, but synchronized with other material.

This is where synchronization rights come in. Synchronization rights, by law, also belong to the copyright owner -- again, allowing them a degree of control over how their work is used. Since you're now incorporating the copyrighted work in a new audio-visual program, the work is no longer featured on its own, in its own solo performance. Such adaptation requires a different permission, a different right granted by the copyright owner.

The best planetarium example of this compares music played before the show starts, and music used during the show. If nothing else is going on in the theater while the music is being played, that's a simple public performance. If something else is happening -- narration added, pictures shown -- that's synchronization.

When you purchase MUSIC BACK-PACKS, shows, and slides from Loch Ness Productions, we grant you permission to mix our music with your narration; to combine your star projector's images with our show slides; to project our glass-mounted slides in your shows -- just what you wanted to do anyway! Synchronization rights allow you to use our music in a NON-featured way -- i.e., edited, looped, talked over, whatever. We encourage you to use the original artwork slides we sell as individual elements in your overall visual presentation -- combined with panoramas, montages, all-skys, strobes, and whatever else your planetarium has to offer.

As you can see, there's quite a difference between "synchronization" rights and "performance" rights. Loch Ness Productions grants you BOTH. You're covered for most all your planetarium production needs.

Occasionally, we receive requests for other usages not covered by "in-house performance and synchronization rights". These have included:

• distributing a show which contains our music to others,
  
  
• presenting our shows away from the planetarium,
  
  
• broadcasting show excerpts in radio or TV ads,
  
  
• incorporating our artwork as elements in brochures or posters, or
  
  
• using our music for non-planetarium purposes, such as commercial slide shows or museum exhibits.

We usually do grant permission -- we're reasonable people, after all -- and if there's money to be made, we'll undoubtedly ask for some. But, in all cases, you DO need to ask.

It might be worthwhile to mention performing rights organizations, such as BMI and ASCAP, while we're on the subject. Copyright owners often make use of these groups' services, to collect fees for public performances of their works, which the owners would otherwise have to do on their own. Since no one person can possibly monitor the entire world, listening for their song, ASCAP or BMI will do it for them. They license users of music (radio stations, restaurants, airport background-music systems, etc.); that is, they grant permission for the recorded music to be publicly performed, for a negotiated fee. They turn the money they collect over to their members -- the copyright owners -- thus providing a welcome service to composers, musicians, performers, publishers, et. al. (BMI is a not-for-profit organization.) We've registered our GEODESIUM albums with BMI; when they receive airplay, we (theoretically) receive a check.

Some large users of music, like radio stations, will pay one set fee for unlimited performance rights -- the "blanket" license. Some schools and districts have blanket licenses, to cover performances by the marching band, the choir, the theater department, and the like. You may even have a blanket license for your planetarium, which means you can play music registered with that performing rights organization for your public audiences. You're completely covered then, right?

WRONG! You probably don't invite your audiences in to listen to selections on record albums, featured by themselves, with nothing else ever happening in the planetarium -- not if you want to keep your job, anyway!

No, what you'll usually want to do is combine edited music with visuals; or mix visuals, narration, and music together to make up an audio-visual program. This is synchronization; you need to obtain synchronization rights, and here's the kicker: ASCAP and BMI only license public performances, they don't "do" synchronization!

So even if you have a blanket license, you must still obtain permissions for music in your show's soundtrack. In other words, your unaccompanied pre-show seating music might be legal to use with payment to ASCAP or BMI. But once the slides come on and the narrator starts talking, you'd better have the synchronization rights from the copyright holder, if you don't want to be marking court appearances on your calendar.

There is no organization like ASCAP or BMI to collect money for synchronization; you have to track down the person or company who can grant permission. It might be the performer, their agent, their estate, the record company, the publisher, or a combination -- who knows? It can and must be done, if you want to use recorded music in your shows legally. All you have to do is take the time and ask permission -- and, if you get it, negotiate a price for the license. As a famous planetarian once said, "Anything is possible, given the right amount of time, money, and people."

Of course, a major benefit with OUR products is that they're "hassle-free" as far as copyrights are concerned. Being planetarians ourselves, we know how our products are going to be used in the planetarium; we design them for just such usage, and "license" you to use our work in the way you need. The low license fee we charge for rights is built into the purchase price, and gives you UNLIMITED in-house usage. You can have appropriate, versatile, professional-quality music, visuals and shows in your planetarium, without worrying about the ASCAP fee-collector or an artist's lawyer (or the artist!) sitting in your audience.

In the audio-visual industry of film, radio/TV and multi-image, there are two types of music libraries: "needle-drop" and "buy-out" -- our MUSIC BACK-PACK Library is the latter. With unlimited usage, you can purchase ALL our MUSIC BACK-PACKS -- and have more than ten HOURS of music to choose from -- for less than the cost of a single program produced at a commercial A/V house! The license fees from some commercial music libraries can typically run $75 and up for EACH TIME you set the needle down on a record (these days, it's probably a laser on a compact disc)!

Such "needle-drop" fees are common in the industry, and A/V professionals are very careful to avoid copyright law violations. Since the planetarium is an A/V medium, and we can all consider ourselves professionals, it behooves us to be fair and ethical in dealing with such matters, and to avoid wrongdoing -- intentional or otherwise.

Please -- we aren't out to scare you; we're simply providing information we feel is essential. As planetarians, we're governed by the same laws as the rest of the industry; it's our responsibility to know and follow them.

The same basic principles we've talked about with music usage apply to our library of original artwork slides, but there's no organization like ASCAP to handle "public performance" rights for displaying visual material. At Loch Ness Productions, we contract with our artists to provide us visuals. They usually retain copyright ownership of their work, and grant us permission to make and distribute copies (a license fee that WE pay). They also grant permission for you to publicly display their work (that is, to project our slides). Again, you're covered for your planetarium usage.

With our planetarium show packages, artists usually grant us (and you) the right to display their work ONLY within the context of that particular show. Thus, you may not re-use our show's materials in other programs you may produce, unless you obtain our permission. It's all clearly spelled out in the Plain English Copyright And Usage Statement included with the show.

Please give us a call if you have any questions; we'd be happy to discuss any of these matters in detail, and want you to be happy with our products.