Youtube copyright infringements

Does anyone know how to check a song BEFORE you record it on Youtube to see if it will be removed and a violation mark put against your account? Do parodies count? I know if you only record self penned tunes this will never happen but I see all kinds of cover vids on YT. I had someone comment on my Over The Rainbow vid that while they really liked it they had heard that any vids of that song were removed due to copyright infringement. How can I check all my vids I've made to make sure I'm not in the same boat?

This is a great question and I hope that someone with some knowledge and experience will answer it! Sure hope you don't have any trouble with your channel!

I think the only way to be safe is to get permission from the copyright holder before you post your video. But I have to admit, I've never done that. I just avoid covering Warner Music Group artists. You can find a list on the Internet.

keonepax said:

I think the only way to be safe is to get permission from the copyright holder before you post your video. But I have to admit, I've never done that. I just avoid covering Warner Music Group artists. You can find a list on the Internet.

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And avoid Prince's songs.

I agree, the publisher seems to be the key here. I posted a video that used some classical music in the performance behind a mime/ dance, and almost immediately after it was posted, one of the pieces was recognized by Sony Music. Instead of banning it, or giving us trouble over it, they added an advertising link to buy the song. That was fine with us. There were excerpts using two other recordings, but there has been no problems so far with that.
–Lori

My understanding is that parodies are not considered to be infringements on US copyrights... I was going to test that by making a "Little Red Chevette" video, but decided against it. Looks like the law in Canada is different though, and honestly, I'm not following some of the legalese in the definition of what a parody is...

From Wikipedia:

"Although a parody can be considered a derivative work under United States Copyright Law, it can be protected from claims by the copyright owner of the original work under the fair use doctrine, which is codified in 17 USC § 107. The Supreme Court of the United States stated that parody "is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works." That commentary function provides some justification for use of the older work. See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.

In 2001, the United States Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit, in Suntrust v. Houghton Mifflin, upheld the right of Alice Randall to publish a parody of Gone with the Wind called The Wind Done Gone, which told the same story from the point of view of Scarlett O'Hara's slaves, who were glad to be rid of her.

Under Canadian law, although there is protection for Fair Dealing, there is no explicit protection for parody and satire. In Canwest v. Horizon, the publisher of Vancouver Sun launched a lawsuit against a group which had published a pro-Palestinian parody of the paper. Alan Donaldson, the judge in the case, ruled that parody is not a defence to a copyright claim.[1]"

In Lori's case, I suspect they used the same technology that the iphone app uses for previously published recorded music. I can't believe that your personal performance of the same piece would be detected by that technology. I have seen someone hold their iphone up to a speaker at a live concert and try to find the tune on Amazon.. That is taking software to a magical extreme Ie it won't work..

Which brings up the question, what technique are they using to identify the violations from personal performance (which I personally don't think falls outside the "fair use" policy).

I suspect it is from looking for lyrics and song titles in the page. I wonder if you fudged the title on youtube and were careful about lyrics that you post, if you go undetected. Then it would take someone actually accessing your upload and identifying it as a violation which would be much less likely.

Above is mostly conjecture.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, but I've had to deal with copyright issues at my work. The sad, sick fact about U.S. copyright is that much of it is random. There are things that are clearly infringement, things that are clearly not, and then there's everything else. The everything else part can boil down to who has the better lawyer, what mood the judge is in, or whether or not the copyright holder deems it in his or her interest to make a stink.

Parody is accepted under fair use. If you're doing a genuine parody and distributing it in a place where you aren't making any money (like YouTube), you're almost certainly fine. Put the same thing up for sale, and you may get a letter in the mail. That doesn't mean you're not protected; it just means someone probably wants a piece of your action.

As for performing cover songs on YouTube, unless the songs are in public domain, you're in copyright violation. That's all there is to it. For 99.99% of all such cases, if the copyright holder wants to complain, they'll send a takedown notice to YouTube and that'll be the end of it. Takedown notices are part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. When YouTube or some other host receives a takedown notice, two things happen: the site takes down the allegedly offending content and they send the uploader a notice of having done so. The uploader is given an opportunity to respond and explain why he or she believes the takedown to be improper. If there's no response from the copyright holder in a certain amount of time, the content goes back up. If the copyright holder responds, the uploader is probably going to court.

There's a decent explanation of this here...

In any event, I wouldn't sweat it too much. Technically speaking, almost every time a performer sits down in a coffeehouse and strums out a few tunes, they're violating copyright. Every time someone passes out photocopies of someone else's song at a uke jam, they're violating copyright. The sheer quantity of cover songs on YouTube shows that most artists and publishers don't consider this stuff to be much of a threat to their livelihoods, and they're right.

Illegal downloads on the other hand...

-Pete

theoretically, anything in copyright, parody or otherwise could be up for violation - Youtube put a clear warning up when you post that you must own the copyright to do so.

Knadles. re your final para - in the UK that isnt quite right - many pubs, clubs, coffee shops etc subscribe to the PRS - if they do and display the sticker I am fairly sure you are fine (they have effectively paid a licence for live music, radio being played, people jamming etc)

I believe the only way they get disabled is if someone physically finds it and reports it. So you may be ok with some lesser known artists. But some of the big companies have people who's job it is to look for infringement, I would think.

Or you could just make your own stuff and not worry about it =)

pauljmuk said:

Knadles. re your final para - in the UK that isnt quite right - many pubs, clubs, coffee shops etc subscribe to the PRS - if they do and display the sticker I am fairly sure you are fine (they have effectively paid a licence for live music, radio being played, people jamming etc)

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In theory, bars and clubs and coffeehouses here are supposed to pay ASCAP and BMI to cover live performance rights. I'm sure some do, but having dealt with a lot of bar owners, I strongly suspect the vast majority don't.

-Pete

It is pretty random. If you go through the list of WMG artists (which are the artists that you're not supposed to be able to cover on YouTube), you'll find that some artists' work is more diligently policed than others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warner_Music_Group_artists

Furthermore, this diligence seems to come in waves. You might have a cover up for months or even years, then one day it's taken down, along with everyone else's.

There really isn't any way to predict which songs you should or shouldn't cover. Unless the song is in the public domain, you'll always be at risk of a take-down. 3 take-downs, and your channel is deleted without warning.

See what you've done, I thought this was a song titled "Youtube copyright infringements"
DAP

DAPuke said:

See what you've done, I thought this was a song titled "Youtube copyright infringements"
DAP

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No it's already been done, my cover got disabled.

I think the whole thing is pretty stupid, myself. It's not like us uke players are making millions, or even a penny, off our covers, right?

Then again (even though I still think it's silly) it pushes us to be creative and pump out orginals