YouTube muted my videos! (1 Viewer)

[Michael Reuben]

Of course. But then it wouldn't matter whether he used a computer, a piano or a pair of spoons. He composed it, and he's the rightsholder.

 

[MarkHastings]

LOL - like everyone knows how to compose music.

 

[BrianW]

Well, yeah. Isn't that why we pay composers?

 

[DaveF]

Hypothetically, I record a video of something and a song playing in the background is also recorded. The song is irrelevant to the purpose of the video and could be removed without affecting the "art" or "message" of the video, but it's there by chance. I post the video to YouTube; I'm too lazy or technically incapable of removing the music from the video.

Is this a violation of the songholders' copyrights? Would YouTube reasonably want to remove it?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

YouTube as an entity doesn't want to remove anything. It does, however, provide the tools for copyright holders to get it removed.

The video you described would be fine -- just as hearing copyrighted music that's being played in the stadium during a sporting event can be heard on TV during live broadcasts from that sporting event. However, there's still a chance that the copyright holder of the song would seek its removal. In which case, you have an uphill battle with YouTube to dispute the removal and get it restored.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

Technically, by letter of the law Dave...yes, it could be removed from YouTube. But, there is some legal leeway. For example, I do not believe news programs could be held liable for copyright infringement if they are reporting on the news and a song is heard from a car driving by. Or if there is a billboard or poster in the background of the reporter, etc...There is also a lot of leeway in the creation and expression of satire for it falls under the freedom of speech. (i.e. any family guy episode)

Michael may have a better legal explanation for these examples of inadvertent and non-infringement use. But like I mentioned before with reality TV shows. There are countless times when people are inadvertently caught on camera wearing shirts with logos or when trucks drive by where the TV show has to blur out the copy-written material. Sometimes it is a blurring of the information because it would be a violation of other advertiser agreements with the show. But sometimes it is a blurring of copy-written material as well. Each case is different. But needless to say, if you have added material to a video that you do not own the copyright for (both creatively and the audio recording of such), it is a violation of US copyright law in one way or another.

And again...these laws are not new. They have always been the same. I fully believe this discussion has come to the forefront of our culture due to the technological advances the general consumer readily has at their disposal. Before the internet and the ability to widely distribute such material for free to the entire planet, these issues were not large enough to cause concern. So it was never a talked about problem in public circles. But now, when a single individual can, with a single click of the mouse, distribute material to literally everyone in the world, this is where copyright infringement of music, video, etc...becomes a problem and concern for the individuals who make a living off of sales of such materials and performances. And it is not just the highly paid stars here. There are thousands of behind the scenes "Middle America" folks whose incomes and livelihoods are affected too, such as the musicians, recording engineers, video editors, cinematographers, writers, "no name" songwriters lucky to get one cut on an hit album, etc...

 

[Michael Reuben]

Brian, you really have a good grasp on this. You've just explained why the parallel that Adam Lenhardt tried to draw above doesn't work. The difference between DaveF's example of a song playing in the background of a video uploaded to YouTube and a song playing in the background during live broadcasts from a sporting event is that the latter is live, which makes the inclusion of the song incidental and unavoidable. The broadcaster could claim a fair use exception similar to the newscaster. But the person uploading to YouTube is working with a recording, which means he has the ability to either remove the offending material or get a clearance.

I doubt many viewers realize just how much time and effort is expended by studios and other content providers on rights clearances. There are full-time employees who spend their entire days clearing various incidental rights for films and TV shows, and not just for music.

(Disclaimer: I am not -- and I do mean not -- going to be drawn into a discussion of the meaning of "fair use", as it applies to YouTube or anything else. It is one of those multi-standard legal concepts that no one who knows what they're talking about would ever try to claim to define with any degree of certainty. Unless you've got a court ruling, or at the very least a noted scholar or authority of the caliber that most courts would listen to, saying that such-and-such a practice is "fair use", then it isn't. No one with any money on the line relies on the exception; they get a clearance or a license. Only a certain type of internet poster insists on arguing about this, and I'm not playing.)

 

[Marty M]

In my limited use of YouTube, I have had mixed results. I have put together two slide shows using copyrighted music. In one I got permission to use the "Lone Ranger" theme of the William Tell Overture on another my slide show was muted because I couldn't get permission to use The Pink Panther Theme.

 

[Gerald LaFrance]

Well with computer music only a basic understanding of the program is required NOT that hard to do

I am NOT talking about composing a symphony or Opera hehe!!

 

[MarkHastings]

LOL - Most computer users aren't capable of the simplest of tasks, let alone the ability to compose music (vs. just adding an already composed song).

 

[DavidJ]

If you use something like Apple Soundtrack, you can pretty easily make decent sounding tracks using pre-recorded loops. Obviously, some music background or knowledge helps, but we have students without experience use it all the time to make music tracks for their projects. There are similar programs available by other manufacturers.

 

[nolesrule]

I took a basic course on music composition in college. Composing music is easy. It's just math. Composing good music, that's the hard part.

 

[MarkHastings]

^^ and even if you could compose good music, it won't help because the popular tunes are the only thing that makes 95% of all YouTube videos watchable.

 

[Francois Caron]

They could always try Microsoft's Songsmith software.

 

[MarkHastings]

OMG! While I'm not a big fan of Sting or the Police, that's just Blasphemy! LOL

 

[Bob McLaughlin]

I think what we're running into here is that the average person sees music being appropriated all the time in commercials, TV shows, movies, etc. However we do not see the legal agreements and payments that had to take place behind the scenes in order for it to happen. All we know is that we like how the end product looks and sounds together. To most of us, the use of commercial music legitimizes the video or movie and makes it seem more like a "real" one.

Desktop technology makes it so easy for people to just take songs and apply them to video, most assume it must be legal, or if not legal, we don't see the harm in it.

 

[Francois Caron]

No? How about some Hill Billy Idol? YouTube - Classic Hits by Microsoft Songsmith: "White Wedding" by Billy Idol

The intellectual property lines are becoming more blurred every day. Already, today's generation of young people are being raised in an environment where intellectual property is of no importance to them. They don't think twice of using other people's property in their own productions.

And here's another problem. I originally thought my videos were "clean." But as it turns out, part 6 of my travel show has a scene at the Sacré-Coeur basilica in Paris where you can just hear "Roxanne" in the background, played by live musicians. And all three parts of my Hi-Fi trade show show is full of audio demo rooms playing music composed and sung by every artist imaginable. How the heck do you clear the music rights to all of that?

 

[DavidJ]

Ok, I was just ignoring the video and your post in response to it, but I got curious. Why, oh why, did I have to get curious?!?! I think my ears are bleeding.

 

[Brian W. Ralston]

It is also still a major copyright violation. The melody Sting is singing is part of the creative copyright of the song by the songwriter...the lyrics of the song are part of that copyright as well...the performance by Sting as an artist is a copy-written performance...the video recording of Sting's performance is owned and copy-written by someone, no matter what Microsoft's horrible SongSmith software is doing underneath the song's copy-written melody and lyrics.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Just because it's easier to trespass doesn't mean the property lines are less distinct. It just means that not every violation will result in an enforcement action. But the very existence of this thread indicates that enforcement actions do take place, and people routinely are reminded of the fact that, yes, those lines are still there.

It's like stop signs and red lights. People run them all the time, and usually nothing happens. But every so often you get a ticket, because it's illegal -- even when you get away with it.