Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Hard Is It To License Western Music For Use In Anime?
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GATSU
Posts: 15549 |
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Miku: As Justin pointed out, they have bigger backers. But that's still not a guarantee of long-term use of those songs, either. Maybe just for the broadcast of the show at best.
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omiya
 Posts: 1849 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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The US songs used in US animation were probably arranged in advance or at least the participating major record company was arranged in advance (there are really only about 3 major record companies now in the USA, compared with more in Japan). |
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Barbobot
 Posts: 460 |
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They probably didn't have to do anything. The song is by the Boom Boom Satellites, a japanese electronic music duo who have been around since the '90s. There may be some incidental similarities, but listened to side by side they are definitely different. |
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Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 7580 Location: Wales |
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One thing to add is that it seems like the licensor sometimes prepares an alternate master with substituted music for international release when they only have the master license for Japan, at least when the music is present in the show itself (as with Lili Marlene in Strike Witches and Tsubasa wo Kudasai in K-on).
Is is possible that there are cases where this version is simply the only one available, even if the US licensee can clear the rights to the songs separately? quote="Triltaison"]It was included on at least part of the the DVD release. I have the release with the thin cases in the box branded with Geneon's logo, and that one definitely had "Paranoid Android" for at least one episode. IIRC, it was replaced with an instrumental of some kind on the majority of episodes. Later re-releases on DVD may have removed the song, though.[/quote] I'm almost certain it was present and correct on every episode in the UK release by MVM.
The LE version of the Japanese single actually had a music video by Production I.G in the same style (but with the anime characters appearing only in silhouette).
I wasn't even aware of this. I can think of multiple reasons, from it not being worth the cost of all the legal paperwork to arrange it for just the one episode, to them being presented with a version without it and not even realising there was another version.
I'm yet to watch Kiznaiver and am not familiar with the BBS song, but two opposing cases of definitely "inspired" music come to mind - the BGM from Full Metal Panic that cleared aped the A-Team theme but apparently went without complaint, and the Chariots of Fire homage that apparently caused complications for Gunbuster and was removed from some releases. |
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midori kou
Posts: 469 |
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Out of all the anime series I've seen or heard about, Hanada Shōnen-shi probably tops the list of weird use of Western music with the opening song being "The One" by Backstreet Boys.
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Just-another-face
Posts: 324 |
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All this legal headache madness could be avoided if Japan just stuck to their own bands and performers' music.
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Asrialys
 Posts: 1164 |
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Haha. I remember how the simulcast for Girls und Panzer completely cut out the sequence of Katyusha being sung. Sentai Filmworks' release had the animation somewhat intact, but the animation was changed so that no one was singing. The song was changed to the tune of Korobeiniki...
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4533 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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I still sometimes wonder about the exact legal status of the instrumental version of the Beatles' "Fool on the Hill" heard in several episodes of Urusei Yatsura, whether Kitty Films licensed it (never saw anything about Apple Records in the credits) or whether this was a "boy, I sure hope no music industry lawyers notice that" kind of situation.
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GATSU
Posts: 15549 |
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Just: Not necessarily. See Kodocha and Akazukin ChaCha.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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I'm not entirely clear on what synchronization rights is. I understand the part about rights to the composition of the song (that is, the rights to use its sheet music, per se, though I know that's a simplification on both the music theory and music law parts), but what does it mean about rights to use a song with certain visuals? Does that mean, for instance, a song's use in a movie would require the song's use ONLY in the scenes where that song is used? (I remember hearing about someone from a small company who thought they secured the rights for a movie's entire soundtrack, only to find out they only cleared the rights to use those songs when present in those scenes as background music--in other words, they merely got permission to not have to remove background licensed music when using footage from the movie.) Or does refer to original footage with a song playing over it, like trailers for Sonic Colors and Sonic Generations using licensed music but with purely Sonic visuals?
I had been thinking about that too. My guess is that it's a lot easier to argue that "kureizii daiamondo" is not necessarily "Crazy Diamond," which can be argued in court, whereas it written in text on the subtitles makes it undeniable and there's no arguing out of that. And the phrase "Bad Co" could be a number of different things. It'd be more difficult if the shirt read "Bad Co." (with a period) or "Bad Comp" or something similar. That some names are changed in JoJo's Bizarre Adventures and some aren't also leads me to believe that this strictness is different on a case-by-case basis. You even have some music references replaced with other music references: The Viz translation of the Stardust Crusaders manga renamed Oingo and Boingo as Zenyatta and Mondatta. This means Oingo Boingo's rights holders did not let Viz reference their band's name, but Police's rights holders let them reference their song "Zenyatta Mondatta." (And the editing was complete too, with their names on their shirts changed accordingly.)
I remember watching Monster on SyFy and finding out later that they were supposed to be licensed music. I do remember a Looney Tunes short using an instrumental version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which aired on TV just fine. I don't remember which short it was, but the scene depicted a growing number of TV antennae over a neighborhood. But I guess that's because Warner Bros. owns the rights to the song, and so they can use it without any issues.
Well, up until Marvin Gaye's daughter sued Pharrell Williams over plagiarization. Then that overshadowed everything else about that song, even after the case ended because it made it easier for musicians to declare songs as plagiarism.
They DO have problems. Plenty of them. The big difference, though, is that the songs used in American animation are built from the ground up to use those songs (like "I'm a Believer" in Shrek) or are easily substituted for another if something doesn't work out. Replacement of music is EXACTLY what happened with The Digimon Movie. I can recall Smash Mouth's "All-Star," Barenaked Ladies' "One Week," and "The Rockefeller Skank" (whose artist I forgot), none of which were in the original Japanese versions. The earliest Pokémon movies had pop songs created specifically for the movies themselves, like "The Power of One" and "Vacation." But the former got backing from Fox, and the latter got backing from Warner Bros., in order to get those songs. All in all, it comes across to me as a matter of money and resources. If FUNimation were as big as Sony Pictures, you can bet they'd go to great lengths to get those rights or find someone who can.
Then the companies that handle international releases would have to deal with the rights to Japanese music, which is even harder in some ways and is something they're constantly having to wrangle with. |
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Beatdigga
 Posts: 4592 Location: New York |
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At least the hoops are being cleared more recently.
One of these days, an anime is gonna use "Don't wanna miss a thing" and I don't want it to be replaced with original crappy music the way Girls on Film was by Speed Grapher. |
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OldCharlieStoletheHandle
 Posts: 1288 Location: Mastic Beach, NY |
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One that surprised me a little was when Texhnolyze used Juno Reactor's "Guardian Angel" for its opening. Not only was it intact on all the episodes on the Geneon DVD release, it was included on the soundtrack CD released by Geneon-not the short version used in the show but the full length version (not that that mattered to me since I already owned several versions/mixes as I own a bunch of Juno Reactor CDs). I seem to recall they were pretty big in the Techno scene back then, but I could be wrong. Then again maybe they are reasonable to work with which is why their music shows up in other films (Mortal Kombat and The Matrix for example).
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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"Fly me to the Moon" By Kaye Ballard (Who am I kidding? Frank Sinatra made it so big, this is practically his song now.) is another famous case of a Western song used in anime, most notably Evangelion. It's used as the ED. With the numerous home video releases this series got, I'm not sure if the song and its renditions were intact in each and every one of them.
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Just Passing Through
Posts: 277 |
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It's not just anime that falls afoul of this. The same thing happens with TV and movies. The Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever originally had Goodnight Sweetheart playing in one scene, but it was replaced for the VHS and DVD releases, only restored for the Blu-ray and remastered DVD.
Quantum Leap had a whole lot of period music in its episodes, some of it remained, some of it was replaced, and with Muzak instead of another song. It made a mess of the Good Morning Peoria episode, while the Dark Skies TV series remained in limbo for years until its music rights were cleared, only released on DVD a couple of years ago. The first season of Baywatch had 'Save Me' by Peter Cetera as its theme song. Not only was the show released on DVD with that song changed, but it can't even be broadcast on TV that way anymore! I used to think it was an age thing. With vintage, pre digital TV, they'd have had rights for TV broadcast, and maybe at the most VHS releases, but not digital releases, which was why so many more DVD releases had music replaced than video releases. But it's still happening with modern TV which ought to be made with full home video and streaming rights in mind. But the British Life on Mars, which also had a whole lot of period music replaced, as Yes, and The Rolling Stones didn't want their music on the DVDs or BDs, but were happy with it on the broadcasts. In an ideal world there would be an encompassing license, issued when the show is made, and that should hold for all subsequent broadcast and distribution. |
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Uter
Posts: 30 |
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I don't buy this whole Jojo character name change thing. Everything I can find on copyright law seems to suggest this should be fine. The only time this should be an issue is if someone wanted to use the name for their own band or were making defamatory claims about said band. It almost seems like someone decided to just change the names rather than bothering to look into the issue at all.
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