Forum - View topicAnswerman - Do Anime Productions Have To Pay To Use Classical Music?
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pidgeot18
 Posts: 101 |
|
|||||||||||||
It's a "standard character mark." What that means is that the visual image of Snow White is protected (or more specifically, using the image in advertising or merchandising). The name is not protected, nor is the plot of the story. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Revolutionary
 Posts: 601 Location: Too Far South |
|
|||||||||||||
|
I always loved the original Fullmetal Alchemist's use of Chopin's Etude Op. 10, No. 3 "Tristesse". (Called "Song of Parting" in the FMA OST). I especially fell in love with the orchestrated version that included the English horn on the melody.
Admittedly, that was my introduction to the piece. I remember watching the first episode of Legend of the Galactic Heroes and hearing a movement of Mozart's Bassoon Concerto and being like "Wow!". Hunter x Hunter (2011)'s OST is a fun one. The composer doesn't ever (I don't remember anyway) straight-up use a recording of a classical piece but instead either emulates the style of a composer or throws the melody of a famous classical piece in a weird way. (Although the series may still use some classical pieces in it, I forget) Examples: "Requiem Aranea" is definitely heavily influenced by Mozart's Requiem. "A Field in Spring", on the other hand, throws in a melody that is very, very similar to the opening bassoon solo from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Then, during the 'horror' arc of the series, the composer uses one of the melodies from Holst's Jupiter. Throwing in a very deceptively gorgeous playing of the melody and twisting it around suddenly. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
|
|||||||||||||
|
It's not an anime, but I really like the heavy use of classical pieces and remixes in Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure. It fits the "old Paris" feel of the game pretty well, even if I don't know enough about classical music to come close to identifying all of them. Tomoya Ohtani had to truncate most of them so they aren't unreasonably long for a rhythm game, of course.
Yep, that was what got me to start buying One Piece on home video.
Is that what they commonly use in Japan? I think it's due to the influence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I'm used to hearing Strauss II's "On the Beautiful Blue Danube."
For Disney, it's because many of their key properties that they can continue to make a lot of money on (namely Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and their earlier animated films) are constantly at the tail end of the copyright length, so they keep lobbying, spending millions of dollars every year, to keep them away from the public domain. They keep pulling it off because Disney's pockets are the deepest of the lobbyists. It's a pretty scummy thing to do, though there isn't much we can do about it, and I have no idea how it's handled in other countries where works like "The Old Mill" or "The Little Red Hen" should theoretically already be in the public domain. (Then again, there are many things very wrong about lobbying as it exists today, considering the original purpose of lobbying was to allow ordinary people to have a voice against the rich and powerful.)
Well, there was Snow White and the Huntsman from Universal in 2012, which, based on what you say, would barely come before Disney's trademark of "Snow White." Then again, I don't know how far Disney's trademark would extend towards, but I don't think it's going to stop the mockbuster studios or small companies releasing children's entertainment about Snow White.
All that means is that the Mouse is simply going to lobby Congress again to extend copyright further. It's pretty transparent that what they really want is perpetual copyright, but since that's illegal and even they can't overturn that, they'll do the next best thing and go to Congress every now and then to extend copyrights further. Also, some things can be taken out of the public domain, as annoying as that is. The biggest case I can think of is the yellow smiley face, which began in the public domain but was then snatched up by SmileyWorld, which now charges huge amounts of money for permission to use it (and the company, to my knowledge, does nothing else). I'm guessing emojis have some way around that, considering how pervasive they are. It's a Wonderful Life was accidentally placed into the public domain (the movie, at least, but not the book it was based on, so TV channels still had to pay royalties to the author), but Paramount got the rights to the movie somehow by buying the company that published the book. The best we can hope for is another case like what happened to "Happy Birthday to You," which looked unwinnable at the start because of how much money the supposed rights holders had and the fortunes they were willing to spend on it. (An anonymous source has told me that Disney's attorneys have a roughly 50% win rate though, and that they actually lose a lot of rights-related cases. I hold no promises as to the accuracy of this statement.)
You'd be surprised at what random things companies own. SEGA, for instance, currently holds two patents that have since become staples in gaming: One is an arrow at the top center of the screen in a 3-D game pointing towards your goal, and the other is an in-game item that teleports the locations of two player characters in multiplayer. The latter is a lot harder for SEGA to enforce, though, as the patent specified that it's for use in platforming games, but the former is why you see all sorts of non-arrow shapes and why they're rarely at the top center. The name "Elvis" has since been trademarked by the Presley family too, as a way to curb depictions of Elvis impersonators in fiction. (it was previously specifically "Elvis Presley," but they somehow got just plain "Elvis" even though it's a given name.) This is why in starting in the 2000's, you'll see Elvis impersonators without them being called as such, and why you'll see Elvis's name dropped in text and dialogue without anyone visually depicted with that name. There are many ways of working around patents, trademarks, and copyrights though. It's part of why certain companies have legal teams: It's not just to defend themselves, but it's to help them find ways around them. Why does Comic Book Guy in The Simpsons usually hold up comics by the top of the book? As it turns out, it's so his fingers obscure the name of the comic book. Time will tell how much power the "Snow White" trademark will have, but presumably, this is an attempt to put an end to those cheap fairy tale home videos for kids. Those guys are masters at dodging limitations created by Disney though.
Ah, if that's the case, then that explains a lot and makes a lot more sense. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 940 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
|
|||||||||||||
I think I hear Also sprach Zarathustra more often than that. |
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
Kadmos1
 Posts: 13567 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Copyright restoration is dangerous (be it for a foreign work in its native country or a foreign work here or a domestic work here). Why? If media companies can use legal loopholes to re-copyright a work, they could easily do that again many decades after that re-copyright lapsed. This would come close to perpetual, which Congress is forbidden from allowing. Even if all the original copyrights have lapsed (screenplays, music, and any adaptations), they can can hold trademarks.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Inopethflames
Posts: 34 |
|
|||||||||||||
|
Your lie in April and nodame cantabile are probably 2 of my fav 3 shows along with steins;gate. I like listening to the main songs from ylia on YouTube over and over and now typing this I wanna listen again.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Kadmos1
Posts: 13567 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
|
|||||||||||||
|
The 2001 anime movie "Metropolis" uses the Ray Charles version of I Can't Stop Loving You during the movie's end. It is likely they had to get permission for that version. Since the Charles version was based off the original Don Gibson version (which turned 60 on 12/30/17), perhaps production company Madhouse and movie distributor Toho had to get a license from both estates.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
|
|||||||||||||
As I've mentioned here before, Monster used The Ronettes "Be My Baby" both as an episode title and as incidental music in episode fifteen. (Nina Fortner visits "The Baby" in his bar trying to get a lead on Johan's whereabouts.) When Viz released the series with an English dub in the US, the song was replaced by elevator music. It's pretty unlikely that Viz could have afforded the rights fees for "Be My Baby," which continues to generate income for its producer, Phil Spector, while he spends his later years in a prison cell. Either the fees for the song in Japan were trivially low, or Madhouse just used it without permission.
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group