Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Youtube Cover Removed for Copyright Infringement

Youtube has been paying out money to major copyright holders for years to keep the website from shutting down. The problem is that some companies want more money than youtube can afford. Youtube only makes so much money off of a video. If youtube makes ten cents (highly exagerated, and im not sure exactly how it works) everytime someone watches a music video, but the company wants 20 cents for everytime someone watches that video, well they just take the video down.

Also, some companies just don't like the idea of not having control over their music. They want people to buy cds (they hate itunes as well). In fact if they wouldn't suffer severe losses in profit, they probably would prefer to not distribute the music at all, just have it played on the radio, tv, performances etc.

Kind of like movie scores. You cannot get the full sheet music to a movie. It is impossible. They don't want you to perform it. They just want you to listen to it in the movie and recognize it as part of the branding of the movie.

So when you post your cover of their music on youtube, and youtube makes almost no profit off of your video, but the company wants royalties, well you aren't going to pay the royalties are you?

In my opinion though, the record companies are greedy, evil, and have a very outdated business model. They don't want to change their ways and evolve with technology. They are fighting off the internet to keep control. I hope it won't work. Hopefully the young generation will eventually take their places, and eventually things will change, at least a little.

It certainly is a cost problem - and that's why I believe the whole removal mechanism is 99% automatic. Sony (and most certainly other companies) runs a scripted search from a list of stuff they own, generate infringement messages, youtube automatically processes them and generates the message to the user. If a live person is anywhere in this process, I think he/she will work like a machine ;-).

My suspicion is, they (i.e. their software) do not even care to differentiate between covers and mere rips of copyrighted material. I'd wager that if you named the video differently, nobody would complain (although this would be even more delicate from a copyright-perspective, since you would claim a cover as being your own composition). Of course, your video couldn't be found as easily by users as well .

Germany is a special case actually, since we have an own, very peculiar ASCAP-version - the GEMA: a reeeally bureaucratic organisation. So none of the deals Google makes with the ASCAP applies to Germany, they need to make specific agreements. (p.s.: while I do not mind too much for youtube, I really hate that I can't use Pandora in Germany - these music people could get so much of my money, if they'd let me explore new music I might like...)

I didn't realize they were actually going after covers. I had an audio pulled from a vid but it was the actual recording (Friend of the Devil) so I could begin to understand, but covers from us amateurs.... ? That was a nice job you did on that tune too Bill. I'm sorry it was pulled.

Well, my son once got his knuckles rapped by youtube for posting his rendition of ..... a Mozart sonata movement. We got a notice that there was an alleged copyright infringement and they threatened to pull the video down. I responded that the piece was almost 250 years old and that any damn fool would know that it was in the public domain. Well, I didn't say it quite that way, but I do recall being somewhat curt. They backed off. I suspect it was a shotgun blast series of claims from some automated program designed to catch possible violations, but the program likely didn't care much about type I error.

Here in Australia shops which play recorded music get an APRA license, and they display a sticker in their front window to say they are licensed to broadcast music. You're right, the broadcast license is different to the live performance license, but it's just a matter of having the right sort of license.

And I would think that the question of tracking 'performances' would be super-easy in a web 'venue' - my goodness, my blog tells me where people have been directed from, including the words they typed into google that ended up leading to my blog: if wordpress is doing that for all the blogs that are wordpress related I'm sure YouTube has the technology to track quite a lot of content. On the other hand, they are reliant on those uploading the clips to catalogue the contents properly..... Hmmmm.....

YouTube clearly isn't any damn fool!!!! (I love this story!)

I read this thread with interest in that I have almost 50 music videos on YouTube. If I record a pop or R&R or blues or whatever kind of music I play, and upload it to YT, I always credit the original artist or song writer (as a general rule).

Of course, about 15 or so of my songs are original compositions that I wrote myself. I’ve never had a problem or received a notice from YT about any copyright infringement.

I guess my recordings are so bad, they don’t take notice!

Rick

For the seemingly random selection process, you also have to keep in mind that they'll take down anything reported as a copyright violation automatically, whether it's true or not (thanks DMCA). The fact is, there are actually a lot of people out there who report videos out of spite, just to get them taken down.

Well, they didn't actually take down the Mozart video, despite passing along the claim that it was a copyright violation. There was a dispute process, and they didn't do anything immediately. Ultimately, they didn't do anything, period.

this is really interestimg, ive never heard of covers being removed from youtube for copyright violations... For instance, the youtube user iwillbot has dozens and dozens of covers to almost every modern pop song you can imagine, and they are all still up and VERY popular... its a good thing my covers are horrrrible otherwise i might be in trouble

YouTube would argue that they are no more responsible for the content posted on their site, than your ISP is, for opinions you post on internet forums.

Interestingly, there is an ongoing dispute with a publisher trying to sue YouTube for illegal content, and YouTube is countering with claims that the publisher uploaded the content, anonymously, and deliberately downgraded the quality, to make it appear to be pirated material.

More here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8575666.stm
We live in interesting times

IANAL either.

The problem is that Youtube does not claim ownership of the videos, just like Piano world is not claiming ownership of the posts on this forum. It's up to the user to obtain all the rights, which is stated in the ToS.

A completely legal cover would have a mechanical license for the song and a sync license for the video. Being non-commercial does not exempt someone from that.

The Internet is still very much the wild west of copyright law. It's mostly patrolled by bots and other AI, rather than actual people. It isn't surprising to see people not following the correct laws, because not only are most people unaware of them, but enforcement is spotty at best.

That being said, if you receive a DMCA takedown notice, and you contest it, you waive many of your rights and face very heavy fines, since you assert that you have secured rights to the video and take full legal responsibility. You go from innocent infringement to willful infringement.

If a person contests it and the copyright holder sues, and that person didn't obtain a license, they would now be facing a six figure settlement where before they just lost the right to distribute the video.

All of the above are reasons why I only post on YouTube, and other internet sites, original compositions, for which I own the copyright.

Even then, there is nothing to stop a website owner from downloading that music and posting it on their own site.

One of my tracks, is being used, without my permission, as background music on a website for a cafe/restaurant, in the French Alps

Other than in criminal law (which might apply additionally), I believe in civil law there is no difference between negligent (there is no "innocence" in law breaking ) and wilful. And civil claims (ridiculously high compensations) are the ones you have to worry about. At least it is like that in Germany...

This I would chase down actually!

Too annoying! You are not only loosing potential revenues, but you are actually appearing to endorse some kind of restaurant!

At some point I had given a few of my scores in IMSLP. I'm a big supporter of the freeware society and anything to do with free education, thus I gave them permission to use my scores!

To my surprise while googling my name (yup... I'm one of those suckers) I got results to another music sheet site (won't name it), which had taken the 5 scores from IMSLP and had it on their website. The difference was that this particular site was subscription based! I got SO annoyed! Contacted them and finally got them to take it out!

No notice the problem: Every score in IMSLP is with a CC license 3 (the most harsh, but still... :-/) The basic thing about any CC license is that it will stay there forever (not reversable) and it will allow redistribution. Both make sense, but in fact copyrights prohibit these, while CC allows them. Well, copyrights allows whatever the holder wants...

Anyways, each music piece has a copyright attached for the music. Covers of songs break that copyright, and SONY is being an *ahem* as well as any other company I know that cares a tiny bit...

I tried, Nikolas.

Emailed them in both English, and French, but never got a reply.

To be honest, I was flattered, at first, as I don't expect to make money from my 'music', but was annoyed at the lack of response.

Ha! I only found out when I googled myself, and the track title!
You are not alone, lol

Didn't someone's rendition of "Clair de Lune" get pulled because the owners of the "Twilight OST" flagged all versions on youtube as theirs.

If it was Joyce Hatto's channel I'd understand.

This is highly ridiculous if it's anywhere near the truth! I mean WOW! (And to think that actually Disney has a Fantasia video (cut from the original 1940) version with the very same music, orchestrated)...

It belonged to somebody here if I remember correctly. I think they got it unblocked. I'm sure whoever it was will chime in.

Back to work......

Larry: On the quotation of the blue rhapsodie... I doubt there should be any serious issue. I mean it's a homage, the piece is not used in any way other than a 'fair use' ideal! I seriously doubt anything would happen.

On the track on the radio: You need to realise that if this was a national radio, you could very well be looking at tens of thousands of $ lost from royalties. I don't know about you, but I would seriously freak out if something like this happened! Then again I try not to worry too much and loose opportunities (like posting in a forum, for example) because of that!

Nice track you got there, btw!