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As I was listening to Alex North's Bite the Bullet the other day, a thought occurred and I'm hoping somebody here might be able to provide some guidance.
Alex North tended to take cues that he had written for one project that went unused (Cheyenne Autumn, Rat Patrol) and plug them instead in a later project that did use the music (Bite the Bullet, The Devil's Brigade). Lalo Schifrin took a cue he'd used in Kelly's Heroes and reused it in the Planet of the Apes series. There are numerous instances where Jerry Fielding would take cues he'd written for films and recycle them for other films. And James Horner as well. In most of these cases, the orchestrations are nearly identical.
No, this is not a complaint of plagiarism. I love the music and am a fan of these composers. However, I am curious about the inherent rights issues involved and how that is handled.
Say I'm Alex North (yeah, right) and Warner Bros. has commissioned me to write a score for Cheyenne Autumn. The scene one of my cues was written for is cut so the music is unheard. It's a work for hire so in theory Warner Bros. holds the rights to some extent in that cue. Now Mr. North has been commissioned to write a score for Bite the Bullet four years later. He decides to put the cue he wrote for C.A. to use since it was gathering dust anyway, in B.T.B. which is owned by Columbia Pictures.
Or let's go a step further and it's one of Fielding's or Horner's cues that did make the final cut of the film and they decide to use it again in a different film anyway...
Technically, I believe to do so, they have to get permission and license it from the company that commissioned the cue in the first place, don't they? And if they do have to license it, does this actually happen in practice or do composers just feel the music is theirs to use as they see fit? And ethically, is it right to use existing music paid for by others even if they've been commissioned to write a wholly original score for their new project? And does that mean that if I wanted to license that cue for something I'm making, I could license it from either studio (depending on who I can get the more favorable license terms from) and not have to contact the other about it? In essence, this means that theoretically the second studio has a license to infringe on the copyrights of the first studio who originally commissioned the work?
Am I the first person to ever wonder these things?
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Posted: |
Sep 3, 2015 - 6:00 PM
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By: |
manderley
(Member)
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......Am I the first person to ever wonder these things?.....
No.
But you'll probably need a handy-dandy opener for your can-of-worms..... 
In the old days when the studios hired everyone, had them under contract for years and years, and their compositions ended up in the studio-owned publishing houses, it was easy to re-use themes and cues.
And, more importantly, in the old days, even though there were studio rivalries, the upper-echelon execs of the studios actually spoke to each other, often assisted each other in production or casting emergencies, and offered technical help when needed---and all of this was often covered under an old-time unspoken gentleman's agreement. You kept up your rivalries, but understood that what was good for the industry itself, was also good for you. I don't really see much of that kind of internal cooperation anymore.
Today, nearly every composer is independent and must look out for his own interests, and it's likely written into the composer contracts for ownership of unused material to be controlled by the composer---to be used on any future project for which he needs it.
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