I wish they could at least clarify what is and isn't fair use, but I suspect you're exactly right on why no one wants to risk disturbing the status quo. It could backfire on them if the courts end up having to rule on something like this where the laws have almost certainly failed to keep up with the technology. And for most of the parties involved, the current ambiguity can work in their favor. They can ignore some violations when it benefits them to do so, or use the threat of action to control what gets shared.
The party that gets hurt most by ambiguity is (as is normally true) the little guy. Like a person who records videos and doesn't notice that there's music playing somewhere nearby that is audible in the video. Or a church that streams worship music between services and some of it makes it into the broadcast of the service by mistake. Three strikes and the channel is gone.
You are undoubtedly right. Nobody wants clarification because there too much gray area. But that ultimately makes it harder for people without resources.
Great explanation of the Rick Beato situation. When I first heard about it from Ted Giola I really thought is this company nuts? But I think there’s more to it than some person at the record company doing a bad Chris Farley impression. I think they will work it out, Beato is a gem of a video producer for anyone who likes music (especially rock)🎸
First thought: I know the perfect Beato video for this - The Most Complex … oh.
100 Horses is an interesting mix. Raucous drums plus rhythm guitar that reminds me of the Stones honestly plus static vocals and some SOHO heroin drone. I think Blondie’s backup band would have liked it.
had a history teacher in high school that turned off the lights and made us put our heads down to listen to "Maggot Brain" in full. Eddie Hazel hit Mt. Rushmore that day for me.
Fabulous article. I'm a show promoter/ producer who also follows Rick, Justin & a few other YouTuber's with huge followings who do content which uses music under the 'fair use' statute. I'm writing a post today in a different flavor around HYBExGeffen, but I mention this from UMG also. But imagine how much they're picking off in the low hanging, smaller channel YouTuber's also using music under fair use, who then just hand over their monetization to UMG because they can't afford full time legal representation like Rick & other's can. It's consistently UMG.
100% smaller channels have no recourse. And honestly it’s not really a YouTube issue as much as people make it out to be. They’re just supposed to facilitate this stuff.
Surely YouTube could improve the process. Having a popular channel deleted for copyright strikes seems overly restrictive, especially in relation to the number of videos it has and harms YouTube if the channel in question is popular and looses viewers. Also, they should punish entities that have most of their copyright claims dismissed as being fair use and restrict them from making excessive claims. They could also make a blanket rule that any song excerpts under 15 seconds are fair use – some users would abuse this by using popular songs as intros to get more views, but the original artist isn’t hurt by it.
It’s also sad that there are no big competing video services to give YouTube incentives to not harm their popular creators. I have more loyalty to Rick Beato than to YouTube.
There a certainly improvements they could make. I try to give YouTube some credence because they have literally better creator monetization than everyone around. And I agree there should be a de minimis threshold for fair use. But courts have not be amenable to that. Like the current legal understanding is that if you sample 1 second of a song you have to pay. Nobody wants to wade into the muck, though YouTube would have the legal budget if they wanted to, at the possibility of angering the entire music industry.
This is, oddly enough, also a problem with sumo wrestling content on YT. One of the foremost channels delivering sumo tournament highlights, Jason's All-Sumo Channel, was deleted by copyright strikes from the Japanese national broadcaster, NHK; despite them having no accessible English-language commentary available at the time.
The channel's deletion wiped out a decade-plus worth of recorded sumo matches; of great historical value to sumo fans worldwide. Jason added educational value and context, but it didn't matter; it was gone all the same. Same with other highlights channels, who must continually play "chicken" with NHK's and the Abema cable channel's overzealous copyright enforcement squads. This makes it harder than ever to be a sumo fan outside Japan; +the broadcasters are deaf to all entreaties about it.
Amen on Eddie Hazel. I'm so glad I got to see him with P-Funk before he passed.
Wow. Very lucky
I wish they could at least clarify what is and isn't fair use, but I suspect you're exactly right on why no one wants to risk disturbing the status quo. It could backfire on them if the courts end up having to rule on something like this where the laws have almost certainly failed to keep up with the technology. And for most of the parties involved, the current ambiguity can work in their favor. They can ignore some violations when it benefits them to do so, or use the threat of action to control what gets shared.
The party that gets hurt most by ambiguity is (as is normally true) the little guy. Like a person who records videos and doesn't notice that there's music playing somewhere nearby that is audible in the video. Or a church that streams worship music between services and some of it makes it into the broadcast of the service by mistake. Three strikes and the channel is gone.
You are undoubtedly right. Nobody wants clarification because there too much gray area. But that ultimately makes it harder for people without resources.
Great explanation of the Rick Beato situation. When I first heard about it from Ted Giola I really thought is this company nuts? But I think there’s more to it than some person at the record company doing a bad Chris Farley impression. I think they will work it out, Beato is a gem of a video producer for anyone who likes music (especially rock)🎸
The whole thing is nuts. And will almost certainly be worked out.
First thought: I know the perfect Beato video for this - The Most Complex … oh.
100 Horses is an interesting mix. Raucous drums plus rhythm guitar that reminds me of the Stones honestly plus static vocals and some SOHO heroin drone. I think Blondie’s backup band would have liked it.
BTW according to Google AI, Never Gonna Let You Go by Sergio Mendes has 22 key changes
Thanks for introducing me to 100 Horses. That song has ENERGY.
Superstupid - and more specifically Maggot Brain as an album - are definitely on my all time top 10 list
had a history teacher in high school that turned off the lights and made us put our heads down to listen to "Maggot Brain" in full. Eddie Hazel hit Mt. Rushmore that day for me.
We need more teachers like that
Fabulous article. I'm a show promoter/ producer who also follows Rick, Justin & a few other YouTuber's with huge followings who do content which uses music under the 'fair use' statute. I'm writing a post today in a different flavor around HYBExGeffen, but I mention this from UMG also. But imagine how much they're picking off in the low hanging, smaller channel YouTuber's also using music under fair use, who then just hand over their monetization to UMG because they can't afford full time legal representation like Rick & other's can. It's consistently UMG.
100% smaller channels have no recourse. And honestly it’s not really a YouTube issue as much as people make it out to be. They’re just supposed to facilitate this stuff.
Surely YouTube could improve the process. Having a popular channel deleted for copyright strikes seems overly restrictive, especially in relation to the number of videos it has and harms YouTube if the channel in question is popular and looses viewers. Also, they should punish entities that have most of their copyright claims dismissed as being fair use and restrict them from making excessive claims. They could also make a blanket rule that any song excerpts under 15 seconds are fair use – some users would abuse this by using popular songs as intros to get more views, but the original artist isn’t hurt by it.
It’s also sad that there are no big competing video services to give YouTube incentives to not harm their popular creators. I have more loyalty to Rick Beato than to YouTube.
There a certainly improvements they could make. I try to give YouTube some credence because they have literally better creator monetization than everyone around. And I agree there should be a de minimis threshold for fair use. But courts have not be amenable to that. Like the current legal understanding is that if you sample 1 second of a song you have to pay. Nobody wants to wade into the muck, though YouTube would have the legal budget if they wanted to, at the possibility of angering the entire music industry.
Exactly.
This is, oddly enough, also a problem with sumo wrestling content on YT. One of the foremost channels delivering sumo tournament highlights, Jason's All-Sumo Channel, was deleted by copyright strikes from the Japanese national broadcaster, NHK; despite them having no accessible English-language commentary available at the time.
The channel's deletion wiped out a decade-plus worth of recorded sumo matches; of great historical value to sumo fans worldwide. Jason added educational value and context, but it didn't matter; it was gone all the same. Same with other highlights channels, who must continually play "chicken" with NHK's and the Abema cable channel's overzealous copyright enforcement squads. This makes it harder than ever to be a sumo fan outside Japan; +the broadcasters are deaf to all entreaties about it.