Theft of Someone Else’s Work

There’s been a lengthy debate in a playwrights’ discussion forum on LinkedIn about the difficulty of getting the rights to use someone else’s music in a play.  After you send an inquiry, most often it’s a waiting game, with no guarantee you will even hear back from the rights-holders.  One fellow (let’s call him Fred) admitted that he’d gotten so frustrated at not getting a response that he went ahead and used the music anyway, and no one was the wiser. 

 

I would strongly caution against Fred's strategy.  That's like asking to rent someone's car, and, if you don't get a response, you go ahead and drive it away.  I don't have to tell you what that's called.  That Fred got away with it was his good fortune.  I'm no lawyer but I'd say he was very lucky because, if the rights-holders had found out, they could have, at best, demanded that he cease and desist and pay them what they asked (at which point he would have had little choice) or, at worst, they could have taken him to court for copyright infringement and/or theft of services.  It's happened, and it is no defense to say, "but, your honor, they didn't respond to my inquiries."  

 

As playwrights, we own our work the moment we create it.  Ownership does not obligate us as rights-owners to respond to inquiries about producing our plays (not that we wouldn’t jump at the opportunity).  But the point is, we have no obligation to respond to each and every communication if we don’t feel like it.  And we certainly wouldn't expect that a theatre would go ahead and produce our plays anyway because we did not respond. 

 

As I've said before, when you use anyone else's copyrighted material of any sort, get written permission (and pay the royalty, if there is one), and do it sooner than later.