You can now look up on YouTube if covers of a song are allowed

uke4ia

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Every now and then, one of the cover tunes I've done gets recognized by YouTube as containing copyrighted content. All that happens is that YouTube gives the owner of the publishing rights some micro-fraction of a penny when your video is viewed. The notification YouTube gives you that your video "Includes copyrighted content" is a link. I found out recently by following that link that you can now look up a song ahead of time to see if covers of it are allowed. According to this, Supertramp songs are now allowed. They didn't use to be -- Rex and others have gotten demerits from YouTube for doing Supertramp covers. The Eagles are still off limits (sorry, TCK).


https://www.youtube.com/music_policies
 
Every now and then, one of the cover tunes I've done gets recognized by YouTube as containing copyrighted content. All that happens is that YouTube gives the owner of the publishing rights some micro-fraction of a penny when your video is viewed. The notification YouTube gives you that your video "Includes copyrighted content" is a link. I found out recently by following that link that you can now look up a song ahead of time to see if covers of it are allowed. According to this, Supertramp songs are now allowed. They didn't use to be -- Rex and others have gotten demerits from YouTube for doing Supertramp covers. The Eagles are still off limits (sorry, TCK).


https://www.youtube.com/music_policies

I worked in the UK patent office for a while many years ago.

The patent act had a clause in it providing for "licence as of right". If an inventor refused to develop his invention others could apply for a licence as of right to develop the invention. The inventor was still entitled to royalties but it meant he could not unreasonably hold back the development of an idea because it might affect the sales of an already profitable line and so stifle development. The principle of patents was that an inventor was granted a limited monopoly to give him the opportunity to benefit from his invention while enabling others to benefit generally long term, thus facilitating development of ideas.

I feel copyright needs a similar clause - perhaps a right to perform enabling others to produce their own interpretation of a song or play or whatever while the copyright holder still receives royalties. For print copyright a right to publish is also needed for similar reasons. The estates of some dead authors refuse to let others republish their works thus denying potential readers the opportunity of reading those works. Preventing people from performing/publishing copyright works strikes me as an unreasonable exercise of their copyright privileges, especially as copyright terms are so long these days.
 
Thanks, Jim!
 
That's fine. If I ever go doo-lally I can ask Google to remind me who I am an what I've done etc,.
 
Great news, Jim. Thanks!
 
The only thing that worried me was looking up "Purple Haze" because Jimi Hendrix has been in the past one of the artists you couldn't cover on YouTube. The YouTube page said it was acceptable to do "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, but not "Purple Haze" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience. So, I guess, make sure you do the right one? :confused:
 
This makes it much easier to find out which musicians (or their managers or their lawyers or their estates) are jerks. Thanks, Jim!
 
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