Rick Beato vs UMG: Fighting Copyright Claims Over Music Clips on YouTube (savingcountrymusic.com)
- Reference: 0178951204
- News link: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/08/31/045201/rick-beato-vs-umg-fighting-copyright-claims-over-music-clips-on-youtube
- Source link: https://savingcountrymusic.com/rick-beato-is-right-to-rant-about-music-copyright-strikes/
These videos "are all fair use," [3]Beato argues in a new video , noting it's also affected other popular YouTube channels [4]like [5]The Professor [6]of Rock :
> Rick Beato: Universal Music Group [UMG] has continued to send emails about copyright content ID claims — and now copyright strikes — on my channel. As a matter of fact, I have three shorts — these are under a minute long — that if they go through in the next four days, I'll have three strikes on my channel! Now if you don't fight these things, those three strikes would actually remove my channel from YouTube.
Five months ago Rick Beato had posted a clip from his interview with singer-songwriter Adam Duritz (founder of The Counting Crows) on YouTube. After 250,000 views, he'd earned a whopping $36.52 — and then Universal Music Group also claimed that video violated their copyright. (In the background the video played Duritz's song as he described how he wrote it.) "So they're gonna take my channel down over less than a hundred bucks — for using a small segment from an interview with him, on a song he sang on," Beato complained on YouTube. "That video is 55 seconds long!"
"You need to play people's music to talk about it," Beato argues. "That is the definition of fair use. These are interviews with the people about their careers." (And the interviews actually help promote the artists for the record labels...)
> Rick Beato: The next one has me in it — it's an Olivia Rodrigo song — that I played maybe 10 seconds of the song on, and the short is 42 seconds long. Who did it? UMG. The third copyright strike is from a Hans Zimmer short. It's also UMG — it's from the Crimson Tide soundtrack.
>
> Now, what do these things say...? "Your video is scheduled to be removed in four days and your channel will get a copyright strike due to a removal request from a claimant. If you delete your video before then, your channel won't get a copyright strike." [And there's also emails like "After reviewing your dispute, UMG has decided that their copyright claim is still valid..."] I've had probably 4,000 claims, over the last 9 years — from things that are fair use . [When he interviewed producer [7]Rick Rubin , that video got 13 separate copyright claims.]
>
> That's when I hired a lawyer to fight these. [Full-time, Beato says later.] And what he's done is he fought every single claim... We have successfully fought thousands of these now. But it literally costs me so much money to do this. Since we've been fighting these things — and never lost one — they still keep coming in... They're all Universal Music Group. So they obviously have hired some third party company, that are dredging up things, they're looking for things that haven't been claimed in the past — they're taking videos from seven or eight years ago!
Slashdot reader [8]MrBrklyn (Slashdot reader #4,775) writes on the " [9]New York's Linux Scene" site that video bloggers like Beato "have been hounded by copyright pirates like UMG," arguing that new videos of support are a "rebellion gaining traction". (Beato's video drew 1,369,859 views — and attracted 24,605 Comments — along with videos of support from professional musicians like [10]drummer Anthony Edwards , guitarist [11]Justin Hawkins , and [12]bassist Scot Lade , as well as [13]two different [14]professional music attorneys .)
"Since there's rarely humans making any of these decisions and it's automated by bots, they don't understand these claims are against Universal Music's best interests," [15]argues the long-running blog Saving Country Music (first appearing on MySpace in 2008).
> On YouTube videos, creators can freely filch copyrighted photos and other people's videos virtually free of ramifications. You can take an entire 2 1/2 hour film, impose it over a background, and upload it to YouTube, and usually avoid any problems. But feature a barely audible 8 1/2-second clip of music underneath audio dialogue, and you could have your entire podcast career evaporate overnight... People continue to ask, "Why doesn't Saving Country Music has a podcast?" Because what's the point of having a music podcast when you can't feature music? In fact, after over a decade of refusing to start one, I finally did, music free. What happened? About a dozen episodes in, someone took out a claim, and not only were all the episodes deleted, so was the entire account, even though no music even appeared on any of the episodes. I was given absolutely no recourse to fight whatever false claim had been made...
>
> The music industry continues to so colossal fail the artists and catalogs they represent, and the fans they're supposed to serve with this current system of how podcasts are handled. If everything changes today thanks to the Rick Beato rant, it would still be 15 years too late. But at least it would happen.
Instead, they write, "Music labels have been leaving major opportunities to promote their catalogs and performers on the table with their punitive copyright claims that make it impossible to feature music on music podcasts and other platforms...
"You aren't screwing podcasters. You're screwing artists who could be using podcasts to help promote their music. "
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjX8f3TmuO8
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LHuv0I-qbA
[3] https://youtu.be/zBq_krhKbW4?si=taVPSyQfDM9rFqYf
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjoqt4Fs0R4
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiQzFPw7sNs
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vdo3b6mU9M
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rubin
[8] https://www.slashdot.org/~MrBrklyn
[9] http://www.nylxs.com/
[10] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6MCvvBU1vo
[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0GkcQwiVBQ
[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrr9q0YwAWc
[13] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aaTtxjZQQc
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0p0hYoWwWI
[15] https://savingcountrymusic.com/rick-beato-is-right-to-rant-about-music-copyright-strikes/
Re: (Score:1)
that's all this guy is about. playing other people's music and doing commentary on them.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, whilst he could say "now listen to 1:10 to 1:21" of track 5 on album X by artist Y, but that would get very silly very soon. IIRC, he actually enlisted help from artists in at least one case to get a strike against a video removed. The people his videos are aimed at are likely to already have the music or might be persuaded to buy it via the video. If there's a royalty payment involved it would seem that the recording companies will be doing very nicely out of it.
god you are retarded (Score:3, Insightful)
You saw that this MUSIC PRODUCER is doing interviews with MUSICIANS and PRODUCERS about the specific song snippets he is playing? How the fuck is the interviewee, let alone the audience, going to know what the fuck the interviewer is talking about if they can't hear a snippet of the music? Unless it's a question the interviewee has been asked a million times, he needs to hear what the question is about.
Second, this is as clear a case of "fair use" as ever existed, he's not just doing review and commentary,
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
>> How the fuck is the interviewee, let alone the audience, going to know what the fuck the interviewer is talking about if they can't hear a snippet of the music?
> Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. It's not difficult (for law abiding citizens).
Duh! Ever hear of "fair use"? It's actually legal. All these copyright strikes have been reversed because they are without merit, however he has to pay a lawyer full-time to reply to them all.
Re:Don't use the music (Score:4, Informative)
They literally are the world's biggest music conglomerate and own roughly 1/3 of the global music recording copyrights. Sony and Warner own huge chunks, as well, but Universal goes after content creators trying to bully them into signing over their content rights, even though it is fair use (and they've ALWAYS lost in the courts). What's interesting to me is, they've also gone after the original artist singing the song, which is totally not their right as all. Lyrics are published via BMI or ASCAP or some similar agency and anyone can interpret them, as long as done in a place with a license to perform them.
So my point is, the creators would have to give up at least 1/3 of their global content, and it is probably closer to 50-60% of US content. Break this bitch up, Congress.
Re: (Score:3)
> They literally are the world's biggest music conglomerate and own roughly 1/3 of the global music recording copyrights. Sony and Warner own huge chunks, as well, but Universal goes after content creators trying to bully them into signing over their content rights, even though it is fair use (and they've ALWAYS lost in the courts).
Meanwhile, Sony and Warner-Chappell constantly file false music match claims against orchestras performing public domain music, claiming that the recordings are theirs.
So UMG might be the worst offender, but none of the major record companies are innocent of using false or questionable copyright claims in a manner that the law never intended.
The only thing that's going to stop it is a class action lawyer filing a multi-billion-dollar class action on behalf of tens of thousands of content creators, naming a
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite so far was a copyright claim against a video that had a bird singing (an actual wild bird). Apparently they thought the BIRD was violating their copyright.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't seem to understand the copyright system and fair use. It was set up to give creators a temporary monopoly to reward their work while ensuring that, after a reasonable time, society gains free access to those works. Fair use allows limited uses like commentary, criticism, or analysis (such as breaking down a song’s structure) even before copyright expires.
Re: (Score:2)
Did you miss the part in the summary where someone tried that and got struck anyway?
Mostly (Score:3)
Rick Beato's dissections of songs are excellent, but I would question three minutes of a track being fair use. It wasn't an artist I have an interest in, though, so I've not seen that video. I expect it would have been three minutes in small chunks which would make it more of a fair use than the radio, assuming appropriate licensing fees were paid. It's more likely to result in enhanced revenue for the owners of the Corea estate, though, as it will probably result in album sales. I have bought music after watching Beato, but I managed to just about avoid buying anything of Sting's.
Rick is super knowledgeable (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been watching Rick's channel for a few years and enjoy his content. The videos I find interesting is when he takes a multi track recording and plays each individual track and explains what you're hearing and how it was done. Some good examples.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
His tour of Abbey Road Studios is also worth a watch [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVDWSTCKgng
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhgoli8klLA
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HtA-vvXTKo
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for sharing. It's fun to have all these neat aesthetic features pointed out, though I'm not sure how far it actually goes to answer the question, "What makes this song great?" I've wondered what makes musical beauty since I studied harmony and learned the "Bach" rules of chords, but aesthetics resist explanation. (I can follow Bach's rules and not sound good like Bach.)
I love Seal's story of composing the Kissed by a Rose melody mostly as an experiment in trying to use a digital instrument he'd been
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect a lot of the "what makes it great" you'd probably need to be a musician to understand. Rick tends to deep dive on the theory behind songs (His primary 'gimmick' is that he's a music educator who used to be a prominent record studio producer) and I've learned a lot about how artists use various musical techniques and theories to build those songs. Granted amongst my many hats I used to teach music I already knew most of the theory, but its interesting seeing it taken out of its usual pedagogical co
Counter-sue UMG (Score:2)
IMNAL, but how about filing counter-suits for each failed DMCA take-down attempt, citing "tortious interference" or "restraint of trade"?
At the very least, it should be possible to question their adherence to the "good faith" requirement, especially if discovery reveals the degree of automation in their DMCA process.
Hell, having "...successfully fought thousands of these" suggests there's no good faith in the process whatsoever ( quelle surprise! ).
Or even... (Score:2)
...use the "small claims court" process to recover your legal fees - one claim for each successful defence.
Re: (Score:2)
These don't appear to be under the DMCA at all, as YouTube goes way, way beyond the legal minimum to favor large copyright holders with their own system ever since the meritless legal claims that they were required to.
You are the product .. (Score:2)
Youtube and other such sites are built on making money out of the users - not the other way round. You are the product.
thtis is why ... (Score:2)
You aren't screwing podcasters. You're screwing artists who could be using podcasts to help promote their music
The directors of (UMG) should be in jail for crime against humanity!
And no ... jailing their bots is not a good solution.
If a company commits a crime, the directors* should go to jail.
* "C suite" for Americans.
Copyright needs to die... (Score:3)
I mean, sure, it makes sense that a creator holds the rights to their creation - for a brief time. However, copyright law has been extended beyond all reason. Add in things like the DMCA, where filing false claims never leads to any sort of penalty, and...yeah. Reset the whole system: eliminate copyright and start over.
the corruption of copyright laws led to this (Score:2)
if copyright law was fair, still for a reasonable period and tied only to the original content creator, none of this would be an issue, the fact is the upper class is not only hoarding all our capital, they are using it to steal our culture from us so they can charge us to use our own creativity
this is exactly what classism looks
Invalid claims are the bane of my life (Score:2)
I run Facebook and YouTube accounts for a church. We've got a fairly good choir and from time to time share services and/or performances of music.
Our repertoire is almost exclusively more than a century old.
Any time we post a new video we get a copyright claim, without fail, accusing us of plagiarising someone else's recording of whatever the piece happens to be. Then it somehow becomes my job to explain that the video of people singing in a church is not, in fact, lip syncing to a professional recording.
My
Record companies are... (Score:2)
...dinosaurs that need to die