Ask John: Are Music Rights Separate in Anime Licensing?
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Question:
I rencently saw your opening posts for Speed Grapher and Gunslinger Girl. Both Japanese openings had pop music songs as part of the opening. I much prefer “Girls on Film” for Speed Grapher and “The Light Before We Land” on Gunslinger Girl. I’m rather disappointed that they never made it on the domestic releases from Funimation. The question I’m posing is this. Are securing music licenses seperate and more expensive? Or rather, when securing the license for the anime, does it become more expensive if they included the rights to a pop song?
Answer:
Music use rights have long been a cause for consternation in animation licensing and distribution. Domestically, the 1981 film Heavy Metal was kept off home video for years due to convoluted music use approvals and contract disputes. MTV programs including Daria and Beavis & Butt-head have not reached home video with all of their original broadcast music intact due to rights issues and the simple cost prohibition. Anime including Speed Grapher & Gunslinger Girl lost their original opening themes upon their domestic release. Kodomo no Omocha lost its first opening theme. Eden of the East reached America with its original opening music only intact on the first episode. Cost prohibitive music rights is one of the primary frequently cited reasons that the Macross 7 anime series was never licensed for American release.
In typical licensing contracts, the cost of music rights is already calculated into the total cost of the acquisition. When a distributor acquires the rights to animation footage, the footage includes the audio track. However, such simplicity isn’t always the case. For example, Gonzo’s original license to use Duran Duran’s song “Girls on Film” was drafted for Japanese use only. Gonzo didn’t have the option of providing “Girls on Film” to a foreign licensor when it granted rights to distribute the Speed Grapher anime outside of Japan. So while sometimes contracts can be negotiated, sometimes the anime studio that produced a series or the Japanese distributor that owns the series does not, itself, have master rights to the music used within the anime. Theoretically, music rights, and the option to release an anime internationally with its original broadcast music intact, are always available and negotiable if the potential licensor is determined enough and wealthy enough. But with the American anime distribution industry as small as it is, typically extra and costly negotiations to acquire separate music rights on top of animation footage rights are just too time and money consuming to be worthwhile and viable.
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“Cost prohibitive music rights is one of the primary frequently cited reasons that the Macross 7 anime series was never licensed for American release.”
That, and it sucks. 🙂
“For example, Gonzo’s original license to use Duran Duran’s song “Girls on Film” was drafted for Japanese use only. Gonzo didn’t have the option of providing “Girls on Film” to a foreign licensor when it granted rights to distribute the Speed Grapher anime outside of Japan. ”
And also because the record company would prefer the song only be bought by oldies who heard the song when they were the target audience’s age, thus perpetuating the decline of music awareness and sales. Record companies are the scum of the earth when it comes to licensing their songs. Just ask WKRP fans.
BTW, it’s amusing that these greedy companies don’t notice the irony of people just streaming these music samples online on Youtube for free. It just means fewer people who would’ve paid for those songs legally via home video release if they’d just lower their asking fees in the first place.
Duran Duran’s song may be more thematically appropriate for SPEED GRAPHER, but as an opening track I think it falls way short… Sonically, it really lacks the punch a 21st century anime production demands.
In any case, great summary John. We all have to keep in mind that this is but one small chapter of the larger book: How/Why is/was/wasn’t X licensed? There are, of course, other anime with significantly popular music (Japanese or western), that have made it Stateside entirely in tact, but in the end we have to be thankful for what we get… Speaking broadly, I liked SPEED GRAPHER, but I would rather have the release as-is rather than not at all just because of Duran Duran.
Though I heard it’s not unusual in Japan, either, as someone at Geneon once told me they used a different band for the home video release of Akazukin Cha Cha.