Battling EMI

I posted this thread over on the Teachers Forum, but it belongs here as well.

Battling Goliath -- EMI This Time

I disputed EMI's automated claim of ownership, but they have reiterated their claim. I have now disputed their reiterated claim, and it is at this point that YouTube threatens you with legal liability.

Does anyone have a direct email to a human being at EMI? The way that I have gotten these firms to back down in the past is to have an inside email address. I have not found one for a person at EMI.

I have this problem a lot. I don't think I've ever contacted EMI but I have sent several stern emails to UMG.

I got UMB off my back once. They were difficult, but ultimately I found a direct email address and a human being viewed the recordings. Actually, UMG went after the same Beethoven. I forget which pianist they said my son was impersonating that time ...

As long as it wasn't BachMach2 you should be proud.

Forrest

Send your letter to Kyla Mullins, General Counsel of EMI. If you have proof it is your son's performance, they should back down right away.

Good luck!

Good potential contact, if I could easily find an email address for her that wasn't a general EMI address for the masses. You wouldn't happen to have an inside email that you could share, would you? PM me if you do.

The only proof I have is the ears of the listeners. I cannot prove that I made the recording, other than to send original video, if I can find it. But any halfway educated listener could easily tell that the matching program was sweeping up clearly amateur performances and identifying them as professional. All I have to do is get a human to listen to the recording. That has always worked in the past. But it is getting beyond annoying to have one musical rights group after another zero in on the same recordings. Heck, I even have other company's "release of claim" right on the page with the notification of EMI's maintenance of its claim.

Norman Lebrecht took at interest! We will see if EMI notices.

The Slipped Disc: Norman Lebrecht's Blog

Can't say for sure, but almost all corporate email addresses have some combination of email formats like this:

kyla.mullins@emimusic.com
kmullins@emimusic.com

They are the two most common email types, and you can reach about 90% of corporate contacts that way. (My years of "sneaky sales tactics" finally came in handy )


Other option: call their HR department and ask who you can speak to about filing a lawsuit. They usually take that pretty seriously, and will immediately pass you to a decision maker.

Yes, I will, if things come to a head.

I'm getting real email addresses on Lebrecht's blog, so that's a real bonus. I'm also enjoying the chance to play David (quite literally) to EMI's Goliath!

I always had this problem, but I had 100% success in claiming back the video rights.

I read this article today

http://music.yahoo.com/news/cashing-gangnam-styles-youtube-fame-103746853--finance.html

And I think it only means EMI gets a share of the commercial gains from the videos on Youtube they claim they own. If there is no commercial gain, nothing happens. Do you plan to make money from your son's video on Youtube?

Money or not, its annoying to have ads on ones video when one doesn't want them there.

Problem solved ... "This just in" from Lebrecht's Blog

Do I intend to make money from his videos? Well, yes and no. On a lark, I monetized some of them following YouTube's rules. I figured that this would be an interesting experiment. If it generated any money, my son would get it. So Yes, some are monetized, and no, I won't get it.

YouTube tries to avoid nuisance accounts by setting a $100 minimum in advertising revenue generated before it pays you anything. Surprise, surprise, P*S is closing in on that magical $100 number. He has two videos that pull in between 100 and 200 views daily. Pennies compared to viral videos, but respectable for a non-prodigy teen with no aspirations as a performer.

Are his videos back up?

In a worst-case scenario, try finding EMI's Investor Relations contact info, and call them. Politely (and succintly) inform them of the problem, and they may be able to put you through to another human.
If the company is publicly traded, you can just say you enjoy being a shareholder, but dont want to hold shares in a company that is claiming your work as their own.


If they actually collected any Youtube revenue from this, I would hit them with a lawsuit faster than they could blink; the Electronic Frontier Foundation may be able to provide advice in that area. if EMI puts advertisements over your videos, try contacting the advertisers - they may only have a deal with youTube and never talk with EMI, but youTube will notice if you tell them that they are losing advertisers.
Isn't there any legal ramification if a company claims to own everything in the world? If not, a person may be able to get a hefty income by claiming old videos as their own work, and hoping that the true owners never respond.


And if EMI's automatic program claims this work as theirs, what would happen if someone posted a computer-generated rendition made by a software piano? And how do the major labels avoid claiming each other's work? Certainly the performances by professionals will be the most similar.

Congrats on having that fixed. And on your son having that many views!