This is topic DTS Disks & Movietunes in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-10-2007, 08:10 AM:
 
We just opened a brand new location in June. I am having issues with two things and I need two questions answered:

How do I get signed up to receive DTS trailer discs?
We are getting the CSS/DVS discs, but not the trailer discs. Ever theatre that I have EVER opened got the trailer discs automatically. Maybe someone in the corporate office ordered them (or whatever) - but here - we have been opened for a month and still no trailer discs. I have since tried to contact DTS about this and no luck (yet).

How the hell do I get MovieTune discs? This one is stumping me. I have called friends that OWN their own movie theatres and they can't answer that question. This is another item that automatically arrived when I have opened theatres in the past. I have contacted various people (who currently play MovieTunes in their lobbies) and they don't even know how they got signed up. I also tried to get the contact info off of the cardboard envelope that they receive the discs in and all the people I spoke to had already thrown them away. BTW - there is nothing on the Internet about MovieTunes. <EDIT> I just found a phone number from a very old thread on here and left a message for someone in California. I guess I'll find out if the info is correct in about three hours.</EDIT>

I figured I'd get these questions answered on here quicker than anywhere else.

Thanks
 

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-10-2007, 10:40 AM:
 
Teaser subject. tick, tick, tick...
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 07-10-2007, 01:31 PM:
 
Gee, not getting Movietunes is a blessing, not a problem.

Email support@dts.com and Karen will take care of the trailer discs. Never had a problem getting them started.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-10-2007, 02:16 PM:
 
I don't want to take a chance with playing music that may cause a problem (with royalties, copyrights, or whatever).

Thats why I am interested in Movietunes.
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-10-2007, 02:19 PM:
 
Why on earth would you want to receive Movie Tunes disks?? Dead silence adds more class to your theater than Movie Tunes (or Cinema Sounds or whatever it is) does.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-10-2007, 06:57 PM:
 

quote: Mark J. Marshall

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Dead silence adds more class to your theater

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quote: Monte L Fullmer

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BUT, don't play junk (like rap or hip-hop)

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Which, coincidentally, is featured on every single MovieTunes disk at least once. So, back to my original statement... which adds more class? Playing "junk" or playing nothing at all?
 

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Posted by Anslem Rayburn (Member # 1267) on 07-11-2007, 07:26 AM:
 
I guess it depends on your audience, and not on your personal opinion. The "junk" you describe is a huge amount of the music that the teens listen to. They might not like the "music" you listen to, Mark. I guess it all comes down to knowing the people that frequent your place, and not taking random advice from a website, huh?

We play MovieTunes, and while some people don't like a particular song, they enjoy the overall presentation. A 20 year old won't like the first song, and a 60 year old won't like the next one. But they all seem to understand that it's a balance and we do the best we can. It's akin to listening to a juke box, and they all seem to understand that.
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 07-11-2007, 08:39 AM:
 
You see - I knew I'd get the answers quicker off of here.

Thank you to those who helped get me the contact info I needed.



Dennis
 

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Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 07-11-2007, 08:47 AM:
 
I disagree. A theatre isn't a jukebox or a radio station and doesn't exist to play popular music. The purpose of non-sync music is, as mentioned above, to mask conversation and set the mood for the film.

As such, I feel strongly that non-sync music should be primarily instrumental and have a fairly narrow dynamic range. Ideally, it should suit the mood of the film being shown. Current popular music doesn't usually work. I will admit to having played '80s hits before midnight shows featuring films from that era and also have played music from particular bands before documentaries about those bands, but those are special cases. Normally, if the film isn't actually about music and isn't strongly tied to a particular era, I stick to film scores (if the mood suits the feature) and classical piano recordings.

In multiplexes which play the same non-sync music in every auditorium, it is particularly important to choose something generic and soothing. Movietunes doesn't suit this purpose since it sounds exactly like a top-40 Clear Channel radio station, which isn't really conducive to setting the mood for any type of film. It also makes the theatre experience less personal and more corporate. And it has advertising, which is exactly what theatres need less of at this point.

I can understand the ASCAP/BMI concerns, but my personal opinion is screw 'em. If you aren't charging people to come in and listen to music and aren't advertsing that you are playing music, I have no ethical problem with playing legitimately purchased recordings as background music in a public setting. I might feel differently about this if I worked in high-profile venues, but I don't and have never heard of any issues. In any case, I'm pretty sure that the ASCAP license (extortion fee) isn't terribly expensive if you want to be entirely legitimate. ood suits the feature) and classical piano recordings.
 

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Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-11-2007, 08:48 AM:
 
Marc the reason is that trailors should not take away from the effect of the feature
 

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Posted by Marc Hansen (Member # 705) on 07-11-2007, 09:21 AM:
 
Gordon-
Thats what I thought, give the audience a reel feel for the difference between "tv" and a real movie.
Marc
 

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Posted by James Westbrook (Member # 3690) on 07-12-2007, 11:46 AM:
 
Dennis,
May I recommend The Man From Snowy River soundtrack, if you can find it on cd. The kiddies won't like it, but they don't really rule the world, anyway.
It was distributed by Varese Sarabande.
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 07-12-2007, 02:32 PM:
 
XM or Directv satellite can be licensed for public play. Much better choice than movietunes.
 

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Posted by Carl Martin (Member # 1146) on 07-12-2007, 07:34 PM:
 
do you have to pay royalties on pink noise? i'll take that over movietunes.
 

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Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-12-2007, 10:25 PM:
 
Royalty based music delivery services such as DMX offer packages that have great middle of the road type stuff, past and current hits with good melodies and never offensive. Its probably not the cheapest option but new discs arrive periodically and we've never had complaints at my restaurant. Probably a biased view of great music since not many 21 year olds have 78's. But everyone loves the Tavares still right?
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 07-13-2007, 10:18 AM:
 
Agreed with XM. That is probably the best and most reasonable way to go.

I still say that it would be really nice if licensing the movie in your theater included automatic licensing of the movie's soundtrack. Then you could simply install a CD player in each house, and load up that movie's soundtrack, and you'd be good to go.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 07-13-2007, 11:24 AM:
 
That would be OK sometimes, but a lot of soundtrack albums suck. If the album says "Music from and inspired by," that's an automatic suck indicator.
 

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Posted by Brad Allen (Member # 470) on 07-13-2007, 12:40 PM:
 
Agreed Mike. I've received many "promo" soundtracks for films over the years. Holy cow, there is a reason they were sending them out for free.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-13-2007, 03:15 PM:
 
We also use XM. but have locking thermostat covers mounted over the receiver so curious hands can't change the stations on you when you are supposed to be playing soft music and the curious one wants to listen to hip hop rap, or something that will scare your customers away through the system while working when the mgr is not present.

Or, just unsubscribe to these stations from XM when signing up..

-Monte
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-15-2007, 05:29 PM:
 
Good showmanship requires creative hooks that draw the crowds. Running MovieTunes? How's this hook: with every ticket purchase, the patron gets a special MovieTune Barf Bag. They will be of great comfort to patrons and cleanup crew as well....especially the cleanup crew who will be spared all that messy cleanup when MovieTunes causes those inevitable upchucks.

MovieTunes = crass, inane, trashy, obnoxiosity squared.

What makes them think ANYONE comes to the theatre to hear an annoying "radio station" that everyone knows is NOT a radio station, especially since the thing that everyone would like in an ideal radio station is one that has NO yammering disc jocky? So here is the preshow time where mood music could easily be played -- just music, but instead, they purposely insert just what we hate about radio stations -- asshole disc jockies
babbling like someone with a lobotomy and on crack! It's idiotic and maddening and shows about as much class as a toilet seat.
 

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Posted by Blaine Young (Member # 3992) on 07-31-2007, 03:33 PM:
 
The current issue of "Movie Tunes" has a track from the Broadway play "Legally Blonde - The Musical". I've never wanted to gouge my ears out so badly in my entire life. When this edition expires, I'm going to microwave the disc.
 

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Posted by Michael Tripp (Member # 4419) on 07-31-2007, 08:27 PM:
 
Satellite radio stations (Sirius or XM) are good for background music as well. They don't have ads like regular radio stations and there are a couple rather innocuous stations that would work well in a theater. At the very least, they have a couple classical stations.

Programming your own music is alright too. I think it's fine to ignore ASCAP/BMI licensing as well. The chance you'll get caught is slim and the penalties aren't much. If you want to go legit, licensing fees aren't all that much either -- maybe more than you want to pay, but not that much.

Really, anything that stops you from playing Movie Tunes is good though.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 08-01-2007, 01:19 AM:
 
XM has a channel that plays movie soundtracks and also dialogue snips from famous films. We played that channel before the first show of "Star Wars Episode III" because they were playing tracks from all the previous SW movies. The fans loved it.
 

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Posted by Michael Tripp (Member # 4419) on 08-01-2007, 01:35 AM:
 
The big theater around here had a band dressed up like stormtroopers playing music from the movie for the midnight opening show of Episode III.

...or so I heard. I gave up on the Star Wars prequels before Episode III came out, having fallen asleep in the theater during Episode I and turned Episode II off midway through while watching it at home, despite telling myself that I would watch it all the way through no matter what.

It still sounded pretty cool though.
 

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Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 08-01-2007, 03:08 AM:
 
What about playing the soundtracks stream, or any of the channels on sky.fm?
However... the chances are they are licensed for private playback.

On Foxtel (cable) here in Australia they have dedicated music channels which rarely ever suck, but probably under the same licensing class.
 

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Posted by Michael Tripp (Member # 4419) on 08-01-2007, 04:09 AM:
 
Yeah, internet radio stations and cable music channels would probably be just as good as XM. Internet streams might be even better actually because there are so many to choose from.

However, I'm not sure about the licensing either, but I'm curious, so I just e-mailed ASCAP, BMI and SESAC to ask about it. If they respond, I'll post up with the results.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 08-01-2007, 05:02 AM:
 
Years ago we got the yearly blanket license from ASCAP and BMI. Thing is, it's got lots of limititations and they keep nickle and dimeing you to death. But really, it's a scam from the getgo and evil at its very core.

We, the theatre buys the license for music exhibition in the theatre, then we do a show and the artists comes to perform and ASCAP and BMI demand that the ARTISTS as well pay a fee for the same songs that we've already paid clearance for. Both these companies -- spawn from hell that they are -- demand a fee two, sometimes three times for the same performance, the same song in the same space. They'll try to intimidate as many people involved to get a "license fee" out of them. They even wanted every member of this big band to pay a fee for playing some old 40's tune...EVERY MEMBER OF THE BAND....these old dudes trying to eek out a living on big band concerts and there's an ASCAP thug standing off stage writing down names while the musicians in thread-worn tuxes are trying to do a show. POND SCUM. Screw them.

They also make the radio stations pay a license fee, but then send their dogs into a pizza parlor to demand the owner pay a license fee for playing the same music that the radio station already paid to exhibit. Then on top of it all, the poor artist rarely gets to see any substantial amount of the money these pig collect because both those organized crime outfits cook their books 100 ways to Sunday. Just ask any starving artist. It's extortion; they are no better than mafia thugs. In fact, you'd be better off ignoring them completely and just paying your own local mafia thugs for protection so that when the ASCAP and BMI checkers come by to listen-check your intermission music (they're supposed to recognize every one of the billion songs in their library and check them off with a clicker, or so I'm told) and then tell you how you've got to pay. I say, just have your own mafia thugs break their legs when they show up and be done with it.

Or you can just tell each one that you only play the other's play list. You tell ASCAP that your policy is that you do not play any ASCAP titles; you only play BMI titles. And you tell BMI the reverse. Then you let them bid against each other for your business.

But seriously, pay the smallest fee or "package" that you can get -- they go by cap numbers. Pick your smallest room and give them that number. Once you've got the license, it covers many ills. And forget about SESAC; don't pay any attention to them as they will scream louder than the other two combined about how you HAVE to pay them. The music they license is all a pile of bad gospel diddies -- you just tell them you don't play their gag-inducing crap because it makes your audience puke on the rugs, so you have a strick policy -- no SESAC in your theatre....ever.

ASCAP, BMI "Licensing" It's extortion, plain and simple.
 

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Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 08-01-2007, 05:24 AM:
 
"The melody of "Happy Birthday to You" was written by American sisters Patty Hill and Mildred J. Hill in 1893 when they were school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky. The verse was originally intended as a classroom greeting entitled "Good Morning to All". The version as we know it was copyrighted in 1935 by the Summy Company as an arrangement by Preston Ware Orem, and is scheduled to expire in 2030. This was the first known written version to include the lyrics. The company holding the copyright was purchased by Warner Chappell in 1990 for $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million."

"While the current copyright status of the song is unclear, Warner claims that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to them."

...Seriously, Screw em'
 

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Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 08-01-2007, 09:17 AM:
 

quote: Mike Blakesley

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The fans loved it.

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quote:

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Music suit creates discord
By Kristi Heim
Seattle Times business reporter

A Seattle restaurant is among more than two dozen venues swept up in a music-licensing crackdown for allegedly failing to pay royalties to play copyrighted music in public.

Without a special license, owners of bars, clubs and restaurants could be sued for playing any one of 8 million recorded songs, even from their own CDs.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) says that equates to performing copyrighted music without permission, and the group is going after local businesses that haven't paid them for the privilege.

On Monday, ASCAP said it had filed 26 separate infringement actions against nightclubs, bars and restaurants in 17 states. Among them is a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Seattle against the Ibiza Dinner Club downtown.

The group sued to spread the word that performing such music without permission is a federal offense, said Vincent Candilora, ASCAP senior vice president for licensing.

On Tuesday, Ibiza owner Abi Eshagi said he had not received information from ASCAP regarding a lawsuit and insisted his restaurant did not violate any rules.

ASCAP says that besides broadcasting songs over the radio, television and Internet, the definition of performing copyrighted music includes playing it "any place where people gather," with the exception of small private groups.

For restaurants, that includes playing songs as background music, by a DJ and even music-on-hold over phone lines, according to ASCAP's Web site.

"As long as it's [played] outside a direct circle of friends and family, it is considered a public performance," Candilora said. "A musical composition is somebody's property."

ASCAP alleged that a DJ at Ibiza played three copyrighted pop songs without paying a licensing fee, which Candilora calculated would have cost Ibiza $979 a year, considering the size of the venue and the type of performance.

"I think it's absurd," said Eshagi. "Not only DJs have bought that music, I also subscribe to an online music-use service, and I'm also paying the cable company for the same thing. I don't know how many times we have to pay for a song."

ASCAP, whose 300,000 members include such artists as Coldplay, Dr. Dre, Avril Lavigne and Elvis Costello, has investigators working in cities across the country to identify new restaurants, bars, theme parks or other establishments where music is used, Candilora said.

They visit venues to find out what songs are being played, then check to see whether the owner paid for a license.

While many business owners may not be aware of it, such legal action is becoming common, said Eric Steuer, creative director of Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that has been critical of current copyright laws and supports alternative licensing plans.

The hardball legal tactics resemble when the recording industry sues students, Steuer said.

"What I don't think many venue owners — nor probably the majority of DJs — understand is that almost all of the music that they play requires a performance license," Steuer said. "I think that there's a misunderstanding that because music is 'indie' or not widely known, that it's OK to play."

Many DJs get music free from record labels so they can play and promote it, Steuer added. "I'm sure that they'd never imagine that they're committing a federal offense by playing this stuff without paying for the right to play it."

ASCAP is seeking up to $30,000 in damages per infringement from Ibiza. Candilora said the group has tried for two years to get the restaurant to comply with its requests.

Eshagi said he plans to fight. He said he was contacted by an ASCAP representative by phone and had asked the group to send a list of songs they claimed were infringed.

Eshagi said he told ASCAP he pays for two music-subscription services.

"I don't really know what is the basis for [a lawsuit]," he said.

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quote: Dennis Benjamin

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Good luck on your copyright infringment endeavors.

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quote: Mike Blakesley

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The whole issue of "background music" being used as grounds for copyright infringement is stupid. When considering whether a venue needs to be licensed for the music it plays, a very simple test should be applied:

Q. Are people coming to the venue specifically for the purpose of hearing that music?

If the answer is yes, then the venue should have to buy a license. Clearly, nobody goes to a theatre for the purpose of listening to the preshow music, so a theatre should not have to pay for a BMI/ASCAP license.

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quote: Louis Bornwasser

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There is no fee for a theatre LOBBY; therefore it would be OK to use XM in the lobby. The auditoriums, however, might be another matter. Louis

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