Music:

When choosing music for radio adverts, you can’t just use whatever music you want as it could be infringing copyright. There are laws and rules that need to be followed. Popular songs tend not to be available for commercial use without permission.Music is an important part in an advert because it can keep listeners interested as well as making the advert sound less dull and boring. It is important for producers to look for the right music that fits in well with the advert to create the desired mood; however, this can be difficult because music can be limited due to copyrighting. Radio stations will usually have a license which allows them to play songs for entertainment purposes, but they don’t allow them to usually cover adverts.It can be expensive to get a license and so there are other alternatives or strategies that can be used. An example is: making your own music, or buying the copyright for the song and get someone else to sing it instead of the original artist.There are two different licenses that you can get if you want approval to use a song. One is from the owner of the original music, and the other is one from the owners of the copyright recording.It is illegal to use copyrighted music when it exceeds ‘fair use’. Fair use has been exceeded when core components of material are used. It is also illegal to use music that could possibly be recognised when you don’t have the permission to use it.There is something known as the 7 second rule. This is when any song can be used for no more than 7 seconds. But, from a legal perspective, this rule seizes to exist and this means copyright can still be breached without the licensing permissions.In college, we have our own radio studio that has a library of different music and sound effects which we are allowed to use because they are copyright free. This means we can use them because there is no copyright protection.