Is this legal for a film scoring reel

[Markoman]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY State

I am preparing a demo reel to generate film scoring work. One suggestion (in a book on the subject) said to score an existing movie scene, say for example, a scene out of the Godfather. It would require getting the scene into software, stripping the audio, and them compose an original cue for the scene. In this book, it claimed this was legal so far as it was only used for demo purposes and not commercial. It's a great idea, but I have my doubts as to the legality of this.

Thanks
Markoman

 

[The Occultist]

General rule of thumb: you may not use any work that is not in the public domain for any reason unless you have [written] permission from the copyright holder. Some situations may fall under Fair Use, but keep in mind that Fair Use is not some magical protection from lawsuit and is instead a defense that can be raised during any potential lawsuit.

Now, if you were to do such a thing and maybe show it to family or whatnot and not really allow any sort of distribution (please note that this is regardless of whether or not you make any sort of monetary gain) then I highly doubt anything would come of it.

 

[Markoman]

Thanks

YOu confirmed my hunch.
Markoman

 

[xylene]

Public

There exists a large body of film work that IS in the public domain...

 

[Markoman]

Thanks

I've been finding some.
Cheers