Can any music be used in a film, if the film is going to be shown at a Film Festival?

Answer 1

If you are talking about someones copyrighted music you have to get the rights.

Answer 2

That is a good question! I’ll be curious if anyone has the answer. I think the person above me is just guessing. I hope if anyone else answers they give a source or tell their qualifications. If I had to guess I would say that you would not have to get permission to use the music if you are not profiting from the film.

My son is into making films and he went to a T.V. camp where they made a T.V. show and put it on our local cable station. The camp was more about working the cameras and production equipment than the show, but my son was able to parley getting his band on T.V. by suggesting that the show be a variety talent show. In that talent show people used other people’s music. Now of course he’s only 12 (11 at the time) and I doubt that an artist would bother suing these kids, but the people who ran it were very professional and I think they would have said something if it wasn’t legal.

I also had a friend whose son worked on a film in high school that won an award and I can’t imagine that they put original music to it, or got permissions. When I was in high school I know that everyone used other people’s music and didn’t get permission. Things were a lot different then and were much more rudimentary. We had to actually cut and splice film by hand in order to edit it, so the finished products were kind of rough. No one was entering their stuff in contests that I know of. Now because of technology, high school students can make real decent films and I’m sure many are submitted for awards. So it’s a very interesting question and I’ll be checking back for answers.