Once you decided to start your own Independent Business – you entered into a commercial enterprise.
By engaging in this commercial activity, you take on new responsibilities relative to your use of music and videos, whether on social media or at any type of IBO gathering.
Music and videos routinely contain a bundle of exclusive rights – commonly referred to as “copyright rights” – that may be owned by one or more copyright holders. Copyright holders own the exclusive rights of reproduction, adaptation, public distribution, public display, and the digital sound recording transmission right associated with a given copyright work of authorship.
Copyrighted music may not be used in any way in connection with your business unless you first obtain a written license (permission) from all relevant copyright owners. This is a complicated and potentially expensive process, so the easier course of action is “don't”.
If you decide you want to use music, please consult with an attorney because you often need more than one license, particularly if you intend to use recorded music. Amway has a library of licensed music that is available to IBOs.
We strongly encourage you to use Amway’s library of licensed music, which you can freely access on amway.com. Videos, by their very nature of combining images and sound, often raise complicated copyright issues as well.
A substantial number of videos on the Internet contain a number of potential copyrighted materials. Relevant copyright owners could include the videographer who created the video, the owners of any copyrighted works within the video, including the script or staging of the action, photos or other works of art appearing in the video, and the owner of any music and sound recordings in the video.
The music and entertainment industries are quite strict about protecting copyrighted works and copyright owners.
So, you should not post anything on YouTube®† with copyrighted music nor should you share any videos in any way (Twitter®††/Facebook®†††/Instagram®††††/Snapchat®†††††/Tik Tok®††††††/email or at IBO gatherings) that contain copyrighted music or other copyrighted works. To be clear, this includes any music offered by the above social media platforms as well. Those social media platforms do not have the right to offer that music for use by IBOs who are bound by the same copyright restrictions as any other copyrighted music.
In addition, many state laws protect the publicity and privacy rights of people who appear in the videos (sometimes referred to as the right to a person's “name and likeness”).
While you may often hear about these rights in connection with celebrities, non-celebrities have similar rights as well. You may hear licensed music at IBO events. The rights for that music to be played at functions is paid for by the IBOAI® †††††††.
However, we are NOT permitted to record that music in any fashion – either by the A/V team that is hired or by any member of the audience. For further information – go to the IBOAI® website and see the guidelines on music and copyrights.
We applaud you for the responsibility that you continue to show with your commitment to building a balanced and profitable business, and remember, Amway has a library of licensed music that you can freely access – and we strongly encourage you to use it.