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gj Michelob -> RE: Regarding YouTube, Cover Songs and Infringement. (Jul. 23 2010 14:08:29)
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quote:
I am now curious, and have sent an email to YouTube seeking clarification.
“Dear Sir or Madam, I am US legal counsel to ForoFlamenco, a well known, international internet forum devoted to flamenco guitar.
Members have posed the query on how a “cover song” may be properly licensed before or when posting the video of their performance on YouTube. While mechanical licenses can be secured and royalties paid easily for CD or downloads of cover songs, the same is not clear regarding YouTube streaming videos.
The question concerns the many home-videos presenting an artist’s rendition of a famous song, typically contemporary copyrighted work. As you know, YouTube hosts a vast library of videos by amateur and professional musicians performing copyrighted work with neither express nor mechanical license. However, certain videos seem to raise concern and are promptly removed while others survive YouTube’s scrutiny, irrespective of the quality of the performance and of any direct or indirect commercial exploitation –which on YouTube is quite unlikely a purpose.
Are there any Licensing requirements and is there a process available to artists (through YouTube or other related sources) to clear such licensing requirements –which are available for other forms of publications such as CD, Radio and the like; and finally,are there any exceptions to your infringement policy, such as a video presented as a tutorial for other musicians?
I look forward to and thank you for your kind cooperation and for the wonderful service you provide. All of us interested in music have learned immensely, and ironically, through those very cover-song videos, to which all students of music can so effortlessly and easily relate.
Best regards,
gj
My stubbornly relentless search was punished by a bureaucratic labyrinth of meaningless automated replies and disorienting digital voices. Eventually, a human voice, although distant and unconcerned, seemed warm as “it” dictated the email address of Google-YouTube’s legal department. However, the answer to my courteous letter is nothing more than a frigid, distracted direction leading back and away into a tangled warren of burrows and tunnels.
But this is only the beginning. YouTube could technically remove all videos form the Tomatito competition, or of any musician illustrating “how-to” play Paco de Lucia or Vicente Amigo, leave alone “sweet home Alabama”.
The doctrine of “fair use” produced an assortment of reasonable exceptions to the copyright infringement statute, which the US courts have keenly protected and further developed, particularly when the alleged wrong consisted in “reproducing” protected work to enhance public knowledge: educational purposes. Yet, this case-law does not wrestle with the new digital universe presenting a quantity and speed of reproducing copyrighted work which was unknown to learned justices, the Internet and YouTube.
Here is Google-YouTube's response:
“Thanks for your inquiry. We're glad you take copyright laws seriously - YouTube does too. In general, you must be certain that your video does not infringe someone else's copyright before you upload it to our site. We cannot make this determination for you, it's your responsibility to know the rules, but we suggest you refer to our Copyright Tips at http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_copyright, where we've provided some guidelines and links to help you determine whether your video infringes someone else's copyright.
You may also visit YouTube’s Copyright School, a self-paced guide to copyright terms and tools, found here:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=guide.cs&guide=25903
Sincerely,
Google Legal Support”
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