MTI licensing copyright violations

I am currently involved in a production that is having some serious issues with cutting parts of the score and libretto hap hasardly. Just wondering, has anyone else been in a situation where this has been the case? How did you deal with it? I have been working with my state's Licensing Representative from MTI to try to resolve the situation, however the director seems to think that she has the "artistic license" to change or cut whatever she wants to. The section of the MTI standard licensing agreement in question is as follows

2. Changing the Play: Under federal law, you may not make any changes, including but not limited to the following:

a. You may not add new music, dialogue, lyrics or anything to the text included with the rented material.

b. You may not delete, in whole or in part, any material in the existing Play.

c. You may not make changes of any kind, including but not limited to changes of music, lyrics or dialogue or change in the period, characters or characterizations in the presently existing Play. d. You agree that any proposed change, addition, omission, interpolation, or alteration in the book, music, or lyrics of the Play shall first be submitted in writing to MTI so that the written consent of the Authors, if granted, may be obtained by MTI.

This happens all the time. Sometimes theaters get caught, sometimes they don't. And even when they do get caught...you cannot always enforce a fine. What MTI usually does in that case is not grant the rights to any other show to the theater.

So tell your director and/or artistic director that if they get caught, MTI could indefinitely suspend the rights to shows from their catalogue to the theater. (I'm sure they're not worried about it.)

I have directed shows and needed to alter the material. I wrote the licensing company (Samuel French, I think?) and they responded in reasonable time to inform me that the author had approved my edits.

Bottomline is that authors want their plays performed and seen by audiences. As long as it remains THEIR play, meaning that the edits do not interfere with the integrity of their piece, they are usually OK with it. One might assume that the author would automatically object to any alterations of their work, but sometimes they are OK with it, especially if the reasons for the edits are justified.

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My High School did A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the PTA decided it was inappropriate for us High Schoolers to say the word Virgin! OK it was the early 70's. The director changed all the virgins to maidens. LOL! Don't think the changes were approved.

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booth - as long as you have been in communication with your licensing rep, you have done all you can at this point.

MTI will pursue the violation if they feel it's necessary. Sometimes it will depend on the kind of violation and the property/title it's connected to. On some occasions, MTI will not pursue an alleged violation, and there are other times where they do...and do it aggressively (see: RENT at Towson University or COMPANY at New York University).

^I believe that they wanted to do an all male version, and they received a cease and desist.

Funny, they actually did Company just a few months ago. Of course it had the intended gender casting this time.

It was indeed an all-male Company. However, it was entirely a student production, not what would have been considered an official part of the department's season. The student who was directing it was in the CAP21 program (before they split off from NYU, obviously) and with a bit of Google searching you can find that he still lists the production in his program bios, even though they did indeed get a very strongly worded letter from Sondheim himself.

What confuses me is High School productions that use girls as guys. Which happens a lot. I assume that, that's okay and permission isn't required because they're trying to truthfully portray the opposite gender.

So when a character is intentionally portrayed as something other than the intended gender, then one should seek permission? Would this production of Company received a cease and desist if the males playing the female parts actually played them as females?

^^ What dramamama said.

At least he's "the jerk" with morals, and great respect for the writers and dramatic rights holder. Kudos to booth for promoting the integrity of licensing.

So is your message that he should value popularity over morality/integrity? And who's to say he blew the whistle, maybe the production has been trying to be legit?

Doing the right thing is seldom the easy thing. (And when it is, its not worth talking about.)

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I think with permission, you can add and remove stuff. For example, in a production of Aladdin Jr. I was in, we didn't get permission to add a song so we didn't, but a recent local production just added in Proud of Your Boy.

I also played Dauntless in a production of Once Upon A Mattress where we cut Normandy and Man to Man Talk. We did some restructuring in general, which honestly made a so-so musical much better. Later, I did the full version as Sir Harry and realized how horrible the show is.

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while agree its not the best of shows ... but it is far from 'horrible'. You CUT Man to Man Talk? What a pity. I'd b e pretty sure no one had permission to do that. It should have been a high point for both Dauntless and the King.

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To be honest, the cast was ages 8-15, and the King was three years younger than me. Plus, we tried to make the show move quicker.

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