Post by annabelleleigh on Mar 23, 2009 20:34:03 GMT -5
Especially since we have -- in QFC -- our very own CI video producer I thought there might be interest in the following.
AL
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As Rights Clash on YouTube, Some Music Vanishes
By Tim Arango
The New York Times
March 23, 2009
Excerpt:
"In early December, Juliet Weybret, a high school sophomore and aspiring rock star from Lodi, Calif., recorded a video of herself playing the piano and singing “Winter Wonderland,” and she posted it on YouTube.
Weeks later, she received an e-mail message from YouTube: her video was being removed “as a result of a third-party notification by the Warner Music Group,” which owns the copyright to the Christmas carol.
Hers is not an isolated case. Countless other amateurs have been ensnared in a dispute between Warner Music and YouTube, which is owned by Google. The conflict centers on how much Warner should be paid for the use of its copyrighted works — its music videos — but has grown to include other material produced by amateurs that may also run afoul of copyright law.
“Thousands of videos disappeared,” said Fred von Lohmann, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group that asked affected YouTube users to contact it. “Either they turned off the audio, or they pulled the video.”
A spokesman for Warner Music said that YouTube’s system for identifying copyrighted material does not distinguish between professionally made music videos and amateur material that may include copyrighted works.
“We and our artists share the user community’s frustration when content is unavailable. YouTube generates revenues from content posted by fans, which typically requires licenses from rights holders. Under the current process, we make YouTube aware of WMG content. Their content ID tool then takes down all unlicensed tracks, regardless of how they are used,” said Will Tanous, a spokesman for Warner Music.
In addition to Ms. Weybret’s video, family home videos that included a portion of a song playing in the background have been removed, as have any number of videos that use music in goofy ways, from montages to mash-ups.
When a man posted a video of himself using music to teach sign language, the audio was switched off because he lacked the proper copyright clearance to use Foreigner’s 1980s song “Waiting for a Girl Like You.”
More broadly, however, the takedown notices are a glaring example of the rising tensions between Internet sites that distribute content free and owners of copyrighted material.
In late December, Warner and YouTube failed to agree to terms on a new licensing deal that would have paid Warner a cut of advertising revenue in exchange for permission to stream the music company’s videos. Warner then began having its music videos removed from YouTube. The site has licensing deals with the other major music companies, and had a deal with Warner for two years before the recent impasse.
The situation with Warner has created a double-barreled risk for YouTube. Professionally produced music videos are some of its most-watched material — six of the top 10 most popular videos of all time are music videos, and the most-watched video ever on YouTube is not a bulldog on a skateboard, but an Avril Lavigne video, with more than 117 million views. (The skateboarding bulldog, by contrast, has almost 6.8 million views.)
YouTube more recently began blocking music videos from all companies from its site in Britain after failing to reach terms with PRS for Music, a group that collects royalties on behalf of singers and songwriters."
Read the full story at
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/business/media/23warner.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Rights%20Clash%20You%20Tube&st=cse
AL
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As Rights Clash on YouTube, Some Music Vanishes
By Tim Arango
The New York Times
March 23, 2009
Excerpt:
"In early December, Juliet Weybret, a high school sophomore and aspiring rock star from Lodi, Calif., recorded a video of herself playing the piano and singing “Winter Wonderland,” and she posted it on YouTube.
Weeks later, she received an e-mail message from YouTube: her video was being removed “as a result of a third-party notification by the Warner Music Group,” which owns the copyright to the Christmas carol.
Hers is not an isolated case. Countless other amateurs have been ensnared in a dispute between Warner Music and YouTube, which is owned by Google. The conflict centers on how much Warner should be paid for the use of its copyrighted works — its music videos — but has grown to include other material produced by amateurs that may also run afoul of copyright law.
“Thousands of videos disappeared,” said Fred von Lohmann, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group that asked affected YouTube users to contact it. “Either they turned off the audio, or they pulled the video.”
A spokesman for Warner Music said that YouTube’s system for identifying copyrighted material does not distinguish between professionally made music videos and amateur material that may include copyrighted works.
“We and our artists share the user community’s frustration when content is unavailable. YouTube generates revenues from content posted by fans, which typically requires licenses from rights holders. Under the current process, we make YouTube aware of WMG content. Their content ID tool then takes down all unlicensed tracks, regardless of how they are used,” said Will Tanous, a spokesman for Warner Music.
In addition to Ms. Weybret’s video, family home videos that included a portion of a song playing in the background have been removed, as have any number of videos that use music in goofy ways, from montages to mash-ups.
When a man posted a video of himself using music to teach sign language, the audio was switched off because he lacked the proper copyright clearance to use Foreigner’s 1980s song “Waiting for a Girl Like You.”
More broadly, however, the takedown notices are a glaring example of the rising tensions between Internet sites that distribute content free and owners of copyrighted material.
In late December, Warner and YouTube failed to agree to terms on a new licensing deal that would have paid Warner a cut of advertising revenue in exchange for permission to stream the music company’s videos. Warner then began having its music videos removed from YouTube. The site has licensing deals with the other major music companies, and had a deal with Warner for two years before the recent impasse.
The situation with Warner has created a double-barreled risk for YouTube. Professionally produced music videos are some of its most-watched material — six of the top 10 most popular videos of all time are music videos, and the most-watched video ever on YouTube is not a bulldog on a skateboard, but an Avril Lavigne video, with more than 117 million views. (The skateboarding bulldog, by contrast, has almost 6.8 million views.)
YouTube more recently began blocking music videos from all companies from its site in Britain after failing to reach terms with PRS for Music, a group that collects royalties on behalf of singers and songwriters."
Read the full story at
www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/business/media/23warner.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Rights%20Clash%20You%20Tube&st=cse
How sad!