Copyright Issues

With the view of creating a music video, our first challenge to tackle is the copyright issue. Copyright prevents us from using music from record labels without permission to do so. This means we have one of two options; either use un-copyrighted music or somehow seek permission to use the material we desire. After finding the un-copyrighted music somewhat uninspiring we decided to look for permission to use a copyrighted track. This meant tackling the record companies. Below is an example of an email I sent to Fallout Records to seek permission to use the band ‘The Rumble Strips’ in our video.

To Fallout Records,

I am a student currently studying Media Studies at A-level and am looking for your help to enhance my grade. The exam board of 'OCR' are keen to avoid copyright and out of respect I felt this email was necessary. I would like to use any music that you may be able to give us, with your permission we would be allowed to submit this which would help with our grades. A band we potentially may be interested in are 'The Rumble Strips'. However, any potential content you could grant us would be a huge help.

I look forward to your reply

Yours sincerely,

Bradley Crack, Tavistock College

I also sent emails of this type to record companies such as ‘The:Hours’ and ‘Visible Noise’.


I hope that I will receive replies soon and that I get good news. If I don’t get any replies I may have to look at other avenues of tackling the problem and I’m looking at setting the cut-off date to around Wednesday/Thursday the 14/15^th September before changing my ‘tactics’. My group partner has also sent her own emails to other companies.