The Homemade Wedding Favor CD — Should You or Shouldn’t You?
In a way, the wedding favor CD, or "mix CD," seems to embody the best of wedding favors. Almost everyone enjoys music. And CDs add nothing to your thighs, and they're perfectly safe for diabetics.
What's more, they can have a personal feel. After all, listening to someone's idea of great music is pretty intimate. (Isn't that why we all made tapes for someone we really liked in high school?)
In fact, not only can you stock CDs with music you love, you can create several mixes for the different generations among your guests. Pretty creative and thoughtful, right?
There's only one problem — burning CDs as favors isn't exactly legal.
Or is it?
Actually, you could probably argue this a variety of ways. The fact is, US intellectual property laws are woefully out-of-date, and badly prepared for the ease with which we can create perfect digital copies.
A certain leeway existed (though this was a gray area too) when a person wanted to copy a CD song onto a cassette tape, since the tape version was clearly 'degraded' in quality. But digital copies are perfect. Regardless of the letter, the spirit of the law dislikes people distributing perfect, protected music for free, whether or not you get paid for those copies. (In fact, simply downloading music can get you into big, big trouble if you're one of the unfortunates picked to serve as "an example.")
Now, the good news is that no record label is likely to come swooping down on your wedding to drag your elegantly-coiffed self to jail because you distribute home-burned wedding favor CDs (unless they pegged you for downloading it earlier).
And yet ... you may find the slightest sense of doubt creeping into the minds of one or two of your guests — Edna from Elmwood Springs, say — who may spend a moment wondering, was this music downloaded from Napster? Is it stolen? Am I comfortable playing this CD? Will I be breaking the law? If you have any guests who are musicians, they, too, are likely to feel uncomfortable.
These may not be the types of musings you want your wedding favors to inspire, not even vaguely. Not even among a small percentage of guests.
Another point worth considering is that wedding favor CDs take a terribly long time to burn. Their tortoise-like progress is not all that apparent until you set out to make 25 of them. Or 50. Or 200. (Oh, and of course, several of them didn't quite "take" ... better test them all to find out which ones ended up as coasters. Sigh.)
This may not be enough to dissuade you. You may be sure in your heart that your guests will adore your wedding favor CDs, be untroubled by potential legal issues, and in fact, be inspired to try new artists as a result of your irresistible selection, which will then drive more business to those artists.
But if you feel a vague sense of unease, you may want to look into a different type of favor, or even purchase a legal compilation CD from one of the many services available online. Will they cost more than the homemade variety? You betcha.
In fact, with the laws in their current bemused shape, it isn't yet possible to offer a fully-legal, fully-customized CD favor for a price within a normal wedding favors budget. The best you can do at the moment is take music you already own on CD (still legally sketchy), or download it legally from a service like Rhapsody or iTunes.
That ought to quell some of the quivers, if you can afford it. And maybe someday, the laws will catch up to reality, and the conscientious bride can get totally legal.
There are websites that provide royalty-free music that use can use. But, there is a fee. Just Google Royalty-free music
I checked on this and it is totally illegal to distribute digital copies of copy-righted material, even if its just to friends or guests at an event. There is no gray area regarding this. It doesn’t matter if there is no financial gain. Anything beyond personal use on your own personal equipment is considered piracy.
DJs are currently not required to pay licensing fees. Here’s an excerpt of an interview by DJ Times magazine with Jim Steinblatt, ASCAP’s director of media relations:
For the most part, we treat DJs just like we’d treat bands or other performers. Under the law, while technically everyone involved in a public performance is responsible for obtaining permission or authorization, the courts and ASCAP and copyrighters tend to look to the establishment ““ or, in some cases, the concert promoter ““ to obtain the license.
On the other hand, a wedding, a birthday party, that kind of thing, would generally be a private performance and not something that ASCAP would license.
Here’s the link to the original article:
http://www.djtimes.com/original/djmag/oct99/octcb.htm
If you really want to be on the up and up with music licensing, ask your DJ if he or she is paying the required ASCAP and BMI public performance licensing fees.
Unfortunately, this article is true. It’s a pain, but true. The first thing that shocks people is that when you “buy” a CD you actually only buy a license to use the content for specific purposes. You own the physical product, but not the underlying content. That makes sense to people, but as the article wrote, current “discounted” licensing for these things is still on the order of 10 cents per copy per song. For distribution to 50 guests with 10 songs, you’re talking only $50. Of course you haven’t produced any yet. Problem is, the licensing company, http://www.harryfox.com has a minimum of 500 or close to $500, just for the licensing. Who’s stepping up to pay that?
I really don’t think it’s illegal to distribute these sort of CDs as favors, especially if you use music you already own. If you SOLD them, however, you could be had. I can’t imagine a hard hearted judge that would crack down upon a bride, of all people, as an “example.”
wait, I’m confused…so it’s legal if I use CD’s I already have to make my own compilation to give to guests, or isn’t it???
I’m a criminal justice major in college, so I have NO DESIRE to break the law, I just wanted to share the music I’m playing. If it’s not legal…I’ll skip it