EMI Music Publishing

550 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor

New York, NY 10022

Dear Sir or Madam:

This is a small matter, hardly worth your time, I’m sure. But it’s enough of an annoyance to me that I have taken my time to draw your attention to it. The “it” is the false claim of ownership that EMI has made on two videos I made of my young son playing on my piano, in my music room, in my home, using my own crude recording equipment. I posted these videos on YouTube for him a number of years ago.

The first video is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s49AbZgRE1s

This is the first movement of the piano sonata in B-flat, K333, by Wolfgang Mozart. Since the piece of music is over 225 years old, it is clearly in the public domain. Your company seems to think it is a recording of Daniel Barenboim’s playing. Really? Anyone who actually viewed perhaps the first ten seconds of the recording would know that this is a fourteen year old, not Daniel Barenboim. The comparison is flattering to my son, I know, but that is fantasy, not reality.

The second video is this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y1Cdj4jS4E

This is the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. Again, this is clearly a work that is in the public domain. EMI seems to think that this is actually Samson François at the piano. My son was twelve for this one. I think he was pretty good for a twelve year old with only four years of training. But Samson Francois he was not. Again, even an unpracticed ear can hear his mistakes and his “youthful” interpretation.

But in making its claim of copyright violation, EMI did not use an ear, unpracticed or otherwise. Like all of your competitors, EMI continues to rely on extraordinarily crude filters to determine possible copyright violations on the Internet. In so doing, you entrap thousands of totally innocent people who are presumed guilty until they undertake possibly lengthy procedures to clear themselves. If you had to pay a hefty nuisance fee to each and every individual who proves that your claim was fraudulent, I suspect you would find better filters.

Since no such nuisance fee is in the offing, the best I can do is to politely send letters of this sort, asking you to spend five minutes actually to view the videos.



Sincerely,

Actually, the video is still available in South Sudan and North Korea, but nowhere else.

Well, imagine my surprise this morning when I discovered that an old recording I made of my son playing the first movement of Mozart's K333 is pulled off of youtube.

Other than EMI's obvious lack of attention to detail, why does this really matter?

Ed

Other than EMI's obvious lack of attention to detail, why does this really matter?

Ed

Ed, it's truly frustrating to expend hours on videoing, editing and up loading student performances, only to receive some banal tome from youtube telling you that your public domain material is copyrighted by some firm. It's not just EMI, there are others who troll youtube looking for possible ways to snag a royalty.

Oooohhh --- so this is a PROFIT deal!