WMG and Youtube

Monkeyswithladders · Feb 2, 2009

Before I started playing ukulele and putting up music videos, I had a few youtube videos up of just random stuff. I just logged on youtube today and two of my these just got blocked due to the audio being "owned or licensed by WMG".

One was just a video of tessellations my I taught my 8th grade math class to make and had Smashing Pumpkins as background music. The other was of world of warcraft stuff I did backed by Blue Oyster Cult.

Are they cracking down hard on this stuff now? Or was I just unlucky?

My main concern is if this is going to branch into actual music covers. If the video had been me playing a Smashing Pumpkins song on ukulele, do you think that would have gotten blocked too?

JKoval · Feb 2, 2009

No, they can't own or block rights like that. You're safe. We're not under big brother yet.

seeso · Feb 2, 2009

Yes, WMG has been cracking down on covers of songs that they own. More discussion can be found here and here.

experimentjon · Feb 2, 2009

They have indeed been cracking down. And sometimes they aren't even right. For example, Nutnfancy is a channel that I follow on Youtube. He mainly does table-top gun and knife reviews, and rarely uses music. But one time he did use some music, made by his friend, (for background music in a shooting video) and clearly stated that it was used with permission, but the entire video still got muted by Youtube due to copyright violation on the soundtrack.

But yeah, the companies have been ramping up their ownership powers.

The blocking probably won't spread to music covers...and if they do, Nutnfancy's gun and knife reviews will probably be even more popular....

Pippin · Feb 2, 2009

The pursuit of copyright infringers is something that does not happen frequently because of sheer volume. Theoretically, they have the right to pursue anyone posting a cover song, but, those that use recordings of other people's music in the background are being blocked a lot more recently, because it is "copying" someones actual recorded songs. Playing a "cover" is still subject to infringement on the grounds that they did not license the song like they would had it appeared on a CD. If you post only original material, you have no problem. If you don't write songs, however, and want to post something online, you can license the song for a fee, but, the vast majority of covers would disappear altogether if the law were strictly enforced.

cashew · Feb 2, 2009

um... Youtube nicks ANYTHING with any reference to a WMG owned song in its title or info.....

I parodied a Prince song once and, less than 24hours later, whammo, no music, that I played on my uke.

It doesn't matter if you even list that it is a parody, they'll still do it, and tell you to either 1) change the music, 2) get a lawyer or 3) Say bye bye to your account.

Link · Feb 2, 2009

They took down a few of mine but the rest are still there. It's wierd. But whatever, theyre morons.

khrome · Feb 2, 2009

I can't really blame Youtube - they probably don't have enough money to fight a lawsuit. The big music labels are the rediculous ones. Okay, I can see removing a song if it is demeaned in any way but for the most part people use the song because they LIKE it or they are paying hommage to the band. Why would you penalize someone for good intentions? On top of that - it's free marketing! I don't know how many times I've seen in Youtube comments "hey that song is cool. What is it?" This is not like napster where people can copy the song since youtube is all streamed. Labels are just greedy bastages. /gets off soapbox

cpatch · Feb 2, 2009

khrome said:
This is not like napster where people can copy the song since youtube is all streamed.

Um, downloading a YT video is just as easy as using Napster.

seeso · Feb 2, 2009

cpatch said:
Um, downloading a YT video is just as easy as using Napster.

Um, but the vast majority of users don't know this.

cpatch · Feb 2, 2009

seeso said:
Um, but the vast majority of users don't know this.

Maybe, but chances are that the vast majority of people using Napster have thought to Google "youtube download." More than ten million users know that you can use a Firefox plugin (at least that's how many have downloaded one).

seeso · Feb 2, 2009

Judging from the posts in the Song Help section, many people don't know Google exists. Even if they did Google "youtube download," they'd still have to extract the audio from the flv file and convert it to mp3 if they wanted it on their iPods.

Sorry if I came off flippant, but your "um" comment just rubbed me the wrong way. I apologize.

cpatch · Feb 2, 2009

seeso said:
Judging from the posts in the Song Help section, many people don't know Google exists.

Even if they did Google "youtube download," they'd still have to extract the audio from the flv file and convert it to mp3 if they wanted it on their iPods.

True, that's a whole different story...I assumed the OP was talking about downloading the video.

Sorry if I came off flippant, but your "um" comment just rubbed me the wrong way. I apologize.

No apology necessary...according to my ex-wife I'm a master at rubbing people the wrong way (unintentionally, of course)!

khrome · Feb 3, 2009

cpatch said:
Um, downloading a YT video is just as easy as using Napster.

What I meant was, it's not a feature that is built-in to YT - you need seperate software to do that. In which case, labels are targeting the wrong group.

Ukulele JJ · Feb 3, 2009

seeso said:
Judging from the posts in the Song Help section, many people don't know Google exists.

Quote of the week!

JJ

Pippin · Feb 3, 2009

khrome said:
What I meant was, it's not a feature that is built-in to YT - you need seperate software to do that. In which case, labels are targeting the wrong group.

Or you can go into your cache files (or "temporary internet files" and copy them from there.

khrome · Feb 3, 2009

Somehow the point of my original post was lost.

seeso · Feb 3, 2009

khrome said:
Somehow the point of my original post was lost.

I see what you're saying. I think Google does have the money to fight a legal battle, but they don't have the desire to.

I agree that WMG are the bastages here, though.

SamWise · Feb 3, 2009

JKoval said:
No, they can't own or block rights like that. You're safe. We're not under big brother yet.

Yes, they totally can. They are technically entitled to publishing fees every time those songs are performed. And it's not that Youtube doesn't have the money to fight a lawsuit, it's that they don't want to spend money on something they can't win. The law is clear - the copyright holders have the right to be paid when the songs they own are played. There are two types of rights, one is to the performance (so when a band perform a song on a CD, every time that recording is played, they and the record company get paid), and publishing rights, (so that every time the song is played ANYwhere, the publishing company and the writer get paid). Technically, because there is no way of collecting the royalties, Youtube videos breach this. Youtube has an agreement with most of these companies to pay them a certain amount to cover this, but they couldn't strike a deal with WMG this year, hence, this.

Howlin Hobbit · Feb 3, 2009

It's just the last, desperate thrashes of a dying dinosaur. This too shall pass.

WMG and Youtube

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