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Should You Burn CDs as Wedding Favors?

Should You Burn CDs as Wedding Favors? Advice on the legality of burning CDs. Alternative favors.

Author: Mike Staff

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What nicer way to commemorate your wedding than to give guests a CD of your favorite music played on your wedding day? You could make the CDs in advance, and guests could take home a little piece of your party that can be enjoyed again and again. That’s the upside.

The downside is, burning compilation CDs of various artists’ songs, whether from an existing CD or downloaded from a website, and giving them to your friends is illegal. Songs recorded on a record, tape, CD or in a digital format by musical artists are copyrighted, just as words written and published in a book by an author are copyright protected.

While the majority of your guests might appreciate the thought and planning that compilation music CDs require, be aware that some may have a twinge of conscience – especially those who are lawyers or are in the music business; including those who work in music stores and recording studios, or are employed as music teachers, booking agents, promoters, or are musical artists, themselves.

Most people are aware of this basic legality of copying music, but there are still many confusing gray areas. For instance, people may think that once they pay for a song download, they may burn it to a disc. This is not always the case. Each song service has different licensing agreements with music labels. In those cases where burning a song to a disc is allowed, unless you paid the song service each time you emailed the song to a friend or burned it to a CD, you are infringing on the copyright. Using the song service example, if you decide to make a CD of 15 songs heard at your wedding and give it to 100 guests, you should actually be paying for 1,500 songs, just as if each guest made his or her own CD using the service. Ouch!

If you do purchase the required number of songs from the service, you still have the expense of burning those songs to multiple discs. You could purchase blank CDs and spend lots of time burning them yourself, or you could find an online CD copy service which would burn them for you at a minimum cost of $4 plus per CD, plus shipping. Certain local recording studios may do this for you, too.

If you want your guests to take home something they can hold in their hands but enjoy more than once, consider making a CD slide show of your favorite photographs. Include pictures of your favorite moments with friends and family, as well as photos of yourselves as a happy couple. Buy the rights to one of your favorite songs to play in the background. You’ll be doing the artists and your guests the nicest wedding favor; and you'll have a clear conscience.

About Author

Mike Staff is the owner of Mike Staff Productions (www.mikestaff.com), an award winning Wedding DJ, Entertainment and Videography Company located in metropolitan Detroit, Michigan. Mike is also a well known Detroit radio personality, having spent over 14 years on-the-air at one of Detroit's most popular music stations, 101-FM WRIF.
© Copyright 2007. Mike Staff Productions, Inc. All rights reserved.

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