Applying for music copyright - Miss Georgiou

The copyright law of the UK is Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 which is the legal protection of literary work, dramatic work, musical work, artistic work, films, sounds recordings, broadcasts, and typographical arrangement of published additions. This right is given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.

 For musical & artistic works the 1988 Act and amendment establishes that copyright in most works lasts until 70 years after the death of the creator if known, otherwise 70 years after the work was created or published (fifty years for computer-generated works). However, for sound recordings copyright lasts for 50 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies, or the work is made available to the public, by authorised release, performance, broadcast, etc.

We had to apply for copyright to not go against the copyright laws and to get permission from their record label before using their the artists original musical works. As we found out by researching copyright information, that we need this permission in order for us to create a music video without any legal issues. 

One of our group members for the creation of the music video emailed Ed Sheeran's record label (Atlantic records) went on their website and found their contact information. The email shown below is the email that was sent to Atlantic records to ask for their permission.

My group and I are still awaiting a response from Atlantic Records, however, we are still going to continue with planning and filming our music video. But we understand that the record label is probably busy and receive a high amount of emails. We have only emailed them one time.