I have a question for MMD readers with experience in music licensing.
(This is a little off the topic of mechanical music, but it is kind of
peripherally related, as you'll see below.)

As a graduate student at Ohio State, I have been working with some
friends on a short film in which a computer-animated upright piano plays
the musical selection "Butterflies In The Rain" by Sherman Myers (music)
and Erell Reaves (lyrics).  We are using an arrangement played by Frank
Milne and originally released as an Ampico roll.  We are driving the
piano animation using a MIDI file derived from the Pianocorder encoding
of the original music roll.  The result is that the piano animation is
precisely synchronized with the musical soundtrack.

Using a slightly edited version of the music, the film is about 2 minutes
long and contains some 3400 frames of animation.  We are planning to use
the song title "Butterflies In The Rain" for the title of the film, since
the "story" incorporates rain and butterflies as well (I can go into more
detail at a later date).  We are not using the lyrics at all.

The film is nearing completion, and I would like to submit it for public
screenings at one or more academic conferences, including ACM SIGGRAPH
(a huge annual computer graphics conference, with over 20,000 people
attending).  However, I have been running into some snags in obtaining
the synchronization license needed to exhibit the film.

So far, we have contacted only the Harry Fox Agency, since HFA seems to
be the only organization that can issue a synchronization license (the
specific type of license required in the case in which copywritten music
accompanies video or film imagery).  They have quoted me approximately
$500 for a license to show my two-minute film at SIGGRAPH.  I made it
very clear that I am a graduate student producing the film for education-
al purposes only, that my budget is about $100, and that no copies of the
film would be sold commercially; it would only be exhibited at academic
conferences.  HFA has not been willing to negotiate with the publishers
in reducing the rate to a level I can afford.

"BITR" is owned by *two* publishers, complicating the issue quite a bit.
(The two publishers are EMI/Feist and Campbell-Connelly Inc.) I have not
contacted the publishers directly yet.  My understanding is that I am not
supposed to do this, since the publishers pay HFA to handle licensing
issues on their behalf.

In talking with HFA, I did not mention MIDI or the fact that the music
was derived from a piano roll, as these points would probably only
confuse the situation even more (HFA is only concerned with usage of
a particular song, not a specific arrangement).

The bottom line is that $500 is far more than I expected to pay, and
I simply can't afford it.  I naively thought that a license to use an
obscure song from 1932 for academic purposes would be inexpensive.

Using a completely different piece for the film would be rather difficult
at this stage, but I would not be opposed to scrapping the title BITR and
modifying the music to _sound somewhat similar_ if this would eliminate
the need for licensing.  (I realize this is a very fuzzy issue; from a
legal standpoint, how different must it be from the original?)

Is there an alternate source for synchronization licenses, or anything
that I can do to obtain a lower rate?

I would appreciate any advice on these issues.

Best regards,¶
Mark Fontana

 [ Be sure to also check the MMD ftp archives.  Beginning about 961120
 [ was the long thread concerning Licensing and Copyright.  -- Robbie