Joseph DeMartino
Senior HTF Member
Yes, and yes. That's the way it works. The rights holders (which can be anybody as far as a given recorded version is concerned, and is usually the composer and lyricist WRT the actual song) have to say "OK" and they have to negotiate a price. They also have to agree on what (limited) use of the song the TV producers can have. They may only be able to play a 30 second clip, they may only be able to use it in the original run of the series (the first broadcast and maybe a couple of reruns while the show is still in production, say), they may have first run and syndication rights, but no home video rights, and so on. It all depends on the individual contract. And who actually owns what can depend on the contracts that governed the relationships between the recording artists, the songwriters, the publishers and the record ocmpanies. Sometimes what holds up the use of music isn't "greed" but an inability to determine exactly who owns the rights that a studio is trying to buy. Companies go out of business, people die, buildings full of records burn down. If you can't determine who owns something it is safer not to use it lest some injured party comes out of the woodwork later and sues your butt off.
(There is a famous and possibly aprocryphal story about a director with a three-picture deal at a studio wanting to do a remake of a classic film produced by another - now defunct - studio. The project was held up for years as lawyers and researchers painstakingly traced the history of the film and its ownership through various indivduals and corporations - only to discover that the studio they worked for already owned the film. It was part of a library that had been sold several times after the original studio had gone under, and the new studio had picked it up years earlier as part of the assets acquired in a merger.
)Regards,
Joe
