

Help Stop Copyright Madness on Youtube - brentb
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre

======
patio11
_Soon it may be off limits to remix anything with snippets of our shared mass
media culture_

While I respect the EFF in a lot of ways, there has never been a "remix
snippets of our shared mass media culture" exception to copyright.

An equally fair way to phrase the phenomenon is "include high or perfect
fidelity copies of copyrighted work in derivative works", which is activity
that our copyright regime is not exactly neutral about. I mean, there are
credible arguments to be made that the DMCA has been abused in some cases.
Then there's the argument that you should be able to take the entirety of a
song to back a video you made, and this is OK because the video is yours. (The
EFF regarding the machinima videos.)

As a positive statement of US copyright law rather than a normative statement,
that is infringement (absent permission, etc).

If you want to fight for creating a "you're so popular you have cultural
impact which makes you fair game for derivative works" exemption, be my guest,
but I'm not weeping overly hard for losing something I know I never had.

~~~
potatolicious
You're right that the law has never allowed for things such a mix tapes or
remixes, it's pretty black and white about that. But really, how far does this
go?

The article mentions that people singing popular songs on YouTube are being
censored as well. Who exactly is benefiting from this? Would I be any less
likely to purchase the real song because I heard a teenager's lame cover on
YouTube?

I think we need to have a good look at fair use and what it means in this day
and age.

------
tomsaffell
I'd love to hear what people think about this statement (from the article):

 _The system should not remove videos unless there is a match between the
video and audio tracks of a submitted fingerprint. ... (Some will point out
that this implies that record labels and music publishers can never use the
Content ID tool to remove videos solely based on what's in the audio track.
That's right. I think that adding a soundtrack to your home skateboarding
movie is a fair use_

I have had several video that fall into this category removed from Facebook
(but not YT) for copyright infringement.

Should we (home users) be allowed to use copyrighted tracks as backing audio
for our home movies? (I dont mean 'is it legal today?', I mean, 'should it be
legal?')

~~~
arebop
What if the home movie consists of a completely black frame? Wouldn't a
blanket exemption for home movies effectively allow unlimited reproduction and
distribution of audio files? For this reason, I think a blanket exemption
would involve a radical transformation of copyright.

At least one of Lessig's books point out that the subjective fringes of laws
together with the court system provide very useful legal flexibility for
problems such as this. No one has described a feasible means of achieving both
full automation and justice in a legal system, so it's better for automated
enforcement mechanisms to err on the side of liberty and to let mistakes be
corrected in the courts.

------
zandorg
You can cover any song you like and publish it. Just contact the Song Rights
Organisation that deals with that song. ASCAP is one.

I once covered the Outrun theme, and managed to find the guy who composed it,
who said go ahead. (When he heard the song, he cut off contact - I guess he
didn't like it),

------
electromagnetic
Regardless of how I feel about the current state of copyright law, there's no
madness on youtube, simply the following of the law.

There's long held exceptions to copyright, namely parody. Weird Al doesn't
have copyright problems (I mean he'd get upwards of 5 lawsuits per song,
that's like over 50 cases per album) because he doesn't _copy_ them.

I truly hope I never get busted for pirating, but until the law allows it I'm
not going to complain it's absurd if I do. I wouldn't mind a law being passed
allowing me to shoot rappers, however I'm not going to complain it's unfair if
I get arrested for murder because I took down 50 Cent with a .50 cal rifle!

The law isn't very obtuse on things like this. Everyone posting copies of
videos on youtube or videos of them singing it or anything like that, it _is_
illegal even if it _is_ stupid.

