Reserving rights for a free public event

[Migz]

If I wanted to show AMVs at a free event open to the public, what would I need to do to reserve rights for such an event? For example, I would like to VJ AMVs at my university with no charge for admission. All of the AMVs already have the name of the anime, the song and artist, and the creator of the AMV already in the intro. Do I need anything else?

Thanks,

-MIGZ

[mexicanjunior]

If I wanted to show AMVs at a free event open to the public, what would I need to do to reserve rights for such an event? For example, I would like to VJ AMVs at my university with no charge for admission. All of the AMVs already have the name of the anime, the song and artist, and the creator of the AMV already in the intro. Do I need anything else?

Thanks,

-MIGZ

Asking the creators to use their AMV's would be nice.

[Farlo]

id suggest asking the amv makers first, you shouldnt have to worry about copyrights, if you're not gonna make any money from it

[trythil]

You don't need anything else, but we require the soul of your firstborn child.

Actually you should be fine. You might need to get permission from the labels that own the music involved if your university has been beaten into submission by Sherman & Co., but there's a 95% chance that they won't care.

[koronoru]

To be really legal about it? Virtually impossible. You would need written permission from all holders of public performance copyrights on the work you show - which would generally mean the label that published the music, the distributor that published the anime, and the creator of the video. Since the video creator probably did so without the permission of the label and distributor, it's unlikely that label and distributor would go for it, especially not for free. The fact that you had permission from the video creator wouldn't (legally) relieve you from the obligation to also get permission from the label and distributor, and the fact that you weren't charging admission might be an argument for why your licensing fee should be [em]less[/em], but still wouldn't relieve you from needing permission or having to pay for it if one of the copyright holders demanded that you pay. Legally, you are pretty much fucked.

However...

Actually you should be fine. You might need to get permission from the labels that own the music involved if your university has been beaten into submission by Sherman & Co., but there's a 95% chance that they won't care.

You can probably get away with just showing the videos. Asking permission of the creators would be polite. My local anime club owns all its own projection equipment partly so that they can avoid having to get too involved with the local University's on-campus audio-visual department, who would start asking difficult questions about licensing. If you have a local anime club, they should be able to give you some information on what the locally-enforced boundaries are.

Just be aware that by doing this you are not in any way "keeping it legal". You are doing something illegal and getting away with it.

[Migz]

Thanks for the responses. I did get the runaround from the university audio/visual department. What they were asking was pretty much impossible. They did want me to get in touch with everyone that had a part in it and for over two hours worth of videos, that would have involved getting permission from hundreds of people. I knew I should have gotten the contact info from the vj that pulled the all-nighter amv events at Dragon Con! Anyway I figured there was no fool proof way of doing this and thanks again everyone for your input.

-Migz (501NEG)

[SQ]

Thanks for the responses. I did get the runaround from the university audio/visual department. What they were asking was pretty much impossible. They did want me to get in touch with everyone that had a part in it and for over two hours worth of videos, that would have involved getting permission from hundreds of people. I knew I should have gotten the contact info from the vj that pulled the all-nighter amv events at Dragon Con! Anyway I figured there was no fool proof way of doing this and thanks again everyone for your input.

-Migz (501NEG)

Wait wait wait....

Since when did Dragon*Con start showing AMVs?
The last time I went, there was a big-ass anime portion of the con, but no AMVs. When did this AMV thing start up in Dragon*Con?