Expert: Alessandro Machi - 5/4/2007

Question
Is classical music copyrighted? I'm looking for non copyrighted music for a short film project. Any idea where I can find it? I'd appreciate any information about this!

Answer
This is another great question! I did some additional research and the same old problems seem to still exist. Although there are huge databases of "free music", it is only "free" if you are NOT going to use the music to make money.  I consider that a trap. You add the "free" music to your film since you don't plan on charging admission or selling it, you enter your film in a festival and one of the judges is also a distributor who wants to distribute your film, but you will not be able to accommodate them if you used music that was free but only free for non-profit situations.

Then there is "buyout" music. You buy this music once and you then own the rights for your movie, presumably for all markets??? (definitely read the fine print when it comes to crediting the music, the duration you will own the rights, and if you can sell your film without having to cough up additional money.)  Keep in mind you are still paying somebody something up front for this music whether or not you sell your film!

As for classical music, even public domain music had to be performed, and usually you have to pay the people that created and own the recording!  

One link I can provide for you is http://www.publicdomain.org  

Publicdomain.org will then provide you with more links to check out. I did not check out all the links so I hope they are not a scam.  Always take the position that one day your project may be headed for the 5,000th cable channel, a channel specifically dedicated to yellow steam engine trains that were solar powered and perhaps you have unique footage and a unique film that you made about yellow solar powered steam engine trains. What if the distributor fell in love with the music you originally put on your project, but you now discover you don't own the rights to that music if you plan on selling your project....

It can actually be annoying to a distributor when they find out that the completed film that they thought was available for purchase has to first be noticeably changed so that the film can legally be sold and distributed.

You may discover that your local college has an orchestra and for a modest "donation" perhaps they will perform a public domain piece of music for you.  As long as no one in the orchestra is in a union and the music is public domain, and you professionally recorded the performance, and none of the performers made a glaring error, you may be able to use that piece of music in your film.  But alas, you may be getting what you pay for.

I also found the following link for live recordings...   http://www.archive.org/details/etree   

But once again, the music is free to listen to and even download as long you don't profit from it. You may not want a live audience recording. On the other hand, who knows, maybe the owners of the music may want to make a deal.

Good luck in your search!