After deciding which tracks I wanted to use, I researched the addresses of the record labels, so that I could send a permission letter to them. I found this quite hard as some labels (like Factory Records) don't exist anymore and there seems to be a very time-consuming trail to who the current copyright holders are. After taking a long time doing this and not really getting very far I realised that the copyright holders are on the back of the actual CD's/records, which, seeing as I posessed all but one, made the process alot easier. Below are screenshots of each of the letters I sent. I was quite suprised at the number of American labels with British artists on, but I'm not sure how many will allow me to use their songs as I imagine it is of much more benefit to them to say yes to someone who will use their track in a large scale film as it would be a good form of promotion.
I tried to pick songs thats rights were held by someone who might let me use them. Some music that I would have loved to have used and that would have fit in well, like The Beatles, weren't even a consideration really because they are very tight with their permissions and don't need to appear in soundtracks to boost popularity as they are already so popular. I know this because the film "The Boat That Rocked" tried to use their music but Apple denied them permission.
Below is a scanned in copy of a letter once I had printed it. This shows that I left a gap to sign each letter, which I thought was the professional thing to do.
Below is a photo of the letters in their envelopes before I sent them off. 
Wednesday 1st September - I didn't receive any replies to these letters for the two months after I sent them, so I decided to use the music I had planned to anyway because I will have to assume that they deem project unimportant or insignificant enough that it does not require a response or pose a threat to the copyright element of the music.
1 comment:
This is excellent...well done.
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