I am an animator producing a video of dancing cicadas, and would like to use a copyrighted song. Under what conditions is it excusable?
<p>To be clear, this is me fooling around—I am making zero money off of this. I also believe that the band for the song I'm thinking of—specifically Caravan Palace—can and definitely should receive all benefits from any use of their music. (They're brilliant, and I'm a fellow artist and big fan.)</p>
<p>This is most certainly not about dodging copyright claims. It's about working with them.</p>
<p>I'm midway through a project involving animated, dancing Brood X cicadas, and would like to put it to music. This will involve a good bit of animation work, as it needs to be to-the-beat. In the worst case, I might use something old enough to be beyond significant copyright concern, or mix something together myself from licensed sounds; but if I wanted to use this particular track, what would my concerns be?</p>
<p>Granted, I'm not making anything but reputation off of it, but that doesn't mean that the band and its producers shouldn't receive income from their work regardless of context. So, I'm not sure whether this qualifies as &quot;fair use&quot; or not. If I did get a hold of the record company, what could I be expected to pay, or agree to, for licensing? I'm sure this isn't the first time this issue has come up.</p>
<p>I've published a lot of material on YouTube so far and I'm quite familiar with the copyright checker; and it's never had anything to complain about with my videos before. I want to do this right, or find another option.</p>
<p>I heard once that it's possible for the video, given an established interest, to send ad revenue to the copyright holders instead of me, which would be fine; but I'm not entirely sure how I would rig that. Since we're talking about potentially a couple of weeks of work, I would like to figure this out sooner rather than later.</p>

<p>An audio recording clip of recorded music is almost never fair use, outside of a music performance review or in a music appreciation class.</p>

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