Copyright? What copyright?

[Aceman]

Is this important? Am I going to jail?

Your video, DOA2012 Quaker Steak - Dream Police, may have content that is owned or licensed by EMI Music Publishing.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

[grumptruck]

Cheap Trick thinks you guys suck.

[lpmarshall]

Federal poundmeintheass prison.

[Aceman]

Cheap Trick thinks you guys suck.

While this may be true...you'd think Mr. Zander would have the courtesy to just walk down the street and ask. Not very neighborly of him.

[ErikH]

Chances are he probably doesn't even know about the video. It's the EMI police. Just protecting the rights of the original artist. You are effectively distributing a copyrighted work without permission, cover band or not.

[BTMN]

OOPS!!!

[Aceman]

So does that mean I can't put "my band" playing something on YouTube?

Technically I suppose it means I shouldn't. Practically, no one is downloading this or ripping it to avoid buying Cheap Trick.

It wasn't even a paying gig!

[DrNewcenstein]

It doesn't matter. Thanks to the crackheads who spammed the Metallica uploads, we now have Ze Geshtappo monitoring everything. You can't even have a totally unrelated song called Dream Police, it seems.

MySpace tried to give me some crap when I uploaded one of my originals to my site because it had the same name as someone else's completely unrelated song. I checked out the song in question and it was some kinda Latin R&B Rap Pop spaz-out, then hit the "Dispute his stupidity" link and informed them that my spaz-out and the reportedly similar spaz-out were two completely different spaz-outs, and they approved my upload after a couple of days.

But yeah, there really needs to be a concession made for Covers and Fan Works and not just a knee-jerk reaction.

[ErikH]

So does that mean I can't put "my band" playing something on YouTube?

Technically I suppose it means I shouldn't. Practically, no one is downloading this or ripping it to avoid buying Cheap Trick.

It wasn't even a paying gig!

Exactly. Unless Youtube (Google) wants to pay EMI and ASCAP royalties to allow covers to be uploaded without any issue, which is the same thing that clubs that host cover bands and/or juke boxes have to do.

It's all about protecting the artists work.

The way I see it, if you are posting a cover just to say, "hey, check this jam out", and no profit is to be made from it, then it should be allowed.

If said cover is being used as distributable to make money, then that should not be allowed. However, there is the 30 second rule (or it may be 15), so a cover band could have a handful of short clips of covers and not be in violation.

Regardless of whether it was a paying gig or not, there is the "distribution" clause that comes in to play.

[BTMN]

I just watched it off a link I posted on the Hamer Fan Club. Is it still in your files? It shows it there. Maybe linking it isn't allowed?

[TheLivingDead]

What a load of ****...

[uOpt]

Is that on youtube?

[texasguitarslinger]

So does that mean I can't put "my band" playing something on YouTube?

No. It has to be a real band that makes money and people have heard of. BURN!

Seriously though, YouTube has been doing this for a couple of years. They use the same algorithm as the Shazam or SoundHound apps and when there is a match in the registered database you get that message. It's just BMI and ASCAAP looking out for their clients.

[Rich_S]

You see it as "your band" playing something. EMI sees it as you publishing a copyrighted work. You can play the song, but you can't publish it (i.e. post it on YouTube for all to see.)

If you hadn't put the name of the song in the title of the video, it would have taken them longer to catch you.

[Jessie's ghost]

I'm going to upload covers of Lady Gaga tunes played entirely with underarm farts, replace the original song titles with the names of cheeses from the Monty Python sketch. See how long it takes to catch that.

[Aceman]

Ok - do I have to take it down? Or should I buy stock in KY jelly?

[Rich_S]

They want you to take it down before they do. If you follow the links and read all the fien print, I think you'll find that blatant and/or repeat offenders eventually get their accounts shutdown.

I posted three songs from my college band reunion a feww years ago, and one out of the three got flagged. Some record/publishing companies spend more effort policing this stuff than others.

[Aceman]

Well that's a shame. I took them down. They were some of the finest work you have ever heard. The angels paused to listen when we played those tunes. And now, the world is a bit more grey, the sun a little less warm, the flowers a little less fragrant.

[uOpt]

Ok - do I have to take it down? Or should I buy stock in KY jelly?

No. People misunderstand what's going on.

Youtube and most record companies have a contract. Youtube pays the record companies money (a part of the advertising money) and in exchange the record companies allow Youtube to leave the content up. Youtube has a license to play this song. The contract doesn't say it must be the original song. Youtube's license covers the original, the video, covers, using this song as a background music for a cat video, whatever. Random covers are covered, so to speak. The record companies can also request things they have the rights for taken down but that's between youtube and them.

In no event will anything bad happen to you as a result of this. Youtube might take it down depending on what they haggled out with the record companies. Re-posting it to other random websites who do not have a license or filesharing it might. But that's more of a theoretical thing, there have been no legal proceedings against people playing covers in random home videos (commercially playing covers in a concert is different of course).

[CTN]

F**K Corporations.

ace, you might have luck reposting the vids making sure to note in the vid descriptions that the rights for the songs performed at DOA belongs to EMI.

if that doesn't work, then find out the name of their CEO, and their Head office's mailing address, and mail him a turd.