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Yesterday the Ottawa Citizen ran a story about an Ottawa band, My Dad vs Yours, whose instrumental music was used without permission by Fox in its Superbowl pre-game telecast. Apparently, Fox didn't ask the band whether they could use its music as background for Terry Bradshaw's interview with Tom Brady. The Citizen's reporter asked me for my comments on the case, some of which are included in the article.
I'm not sure if I was misquoted or if I misspoke (probably the latter, to be honest), but thought I should clarify what I meant to say. It isn't entirely true that broadcasters in the US don't have to get songwriters' permission to broadcast musical works. The matter is a bit more complicated than that. Certainly, US broadcasters such as Fox wouldn't have had to worry about the rights of performers or record labels because, in the US, performance royalties are only payable for digital transmissions. Whether Fox should have contacted the band for permission to use the underlying music depends. In particular, it isn't clear whether this Ottawa band, or its music publisher if it has one, is affiliated with a performing rights collective like ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. If it is, then Fox almost certainly has a blanket licence to use any music administered by the collective as long as it pays the prescribed royalties. Now, that still wouldn't allow Fox to synch the music with video and release the recording, but as far as I could tell, this was a live broadcast only.
Anyways, it will be interesting to see how Fox responds to the band's copyright claim. I'll keep you posted if/when further details about a possible lawsuit emerge.
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