I was kidding about this before, but now it's reality | Forums

[Brimtown]

Record industry going after YouTube users

Here's the story in a nutshell. Some woman videotaped her toddler playing around, with Prince's "Let's go crazy" in the background. It wasn't the entire song, only a 29-second clip. Now, Universal Music Publishing Group is going after this woman for copyright infringement.

For one thing - maybe I'm wrong about this - but I've always heard that you were allowed to use up to 30 seconds of copyrighted material without having to pay royalty fees. Radio stations do this all the time with their rejoin music.

But this is just ridiculous. People posting videos on YouTube aren't trying to spread music illegally, and they're not making profit off it. Obviously the record industry has decided to just totally forget about "fair use".

I guess I can expect about a dozen 'cease-and-desist' subpoenas for this, this, and this.


Looks like I might have to make another game video, with a whole montage of Prince songs.

[Brimtown]

Record industry going after YouTube users

Here's the story in a nutshell. Some woman videotaped her toddler playing around, with Prince's "Let's go crazy" in the background. It wasn't the entire song, only a 29-second clip. Now, Universal Music Publishing Group is going after this woman for copyright infringement.

For one thing - maybe I'm wrong about this - but I've always heard that you were allowed to use up to 30 seconds of copyrighted material without having to pay royalty fees. Radio stations do this all the time with their rejoin music.

But this is just ridiculous. People posting videos on YouTube aren't trying to spread music illegally, and they're not making profit off it. Obviously the record industry has decided to just totally forget about "fair use".

I guess I can expect about a dozen 'cease-and-desist' subpoenas for this, this, and this.


Looks like I might have to make another game video, with a whole montage of Prince songs.

[Gypsy816]

Oh my. Wow.

Well, we knew it would happen eventually.

[NewCastleBrawlr]

would it be possible to make a game where your goal is to download music illegally and then sell to in game characters, all the while avoiding those pesky record publishing groups? make a spoof of the whole thing, i think it could be fun.

[Brimtown]

The problem is that the law allows for "fair use" of copyrighted material, which in this case Prince & Universal are completely steamrolling over. This is nothing more than intimidation, pure and simple. Legally, I don't think they have a leg to stand on, it's not like she is making an entire song available for people to listen to.

I actually fully plan to do this - if I don't already have a Prince album somewhere, I will go buy one legally. And then I will use a montage of under-30-second clips in a video. I really want to see just how far they'll push.

[agirl_with_guns]

It's because a lot of artists these days that have gone under and can't make anything new successfully are going after people to make money because they can't get it any other way...

At least that's just my silly theory anyway LOL

[MuttonChopYaz]

Way to go Universal. You show those housewives who's the boss!

[VexedEnigma]

That's pretty bad considering that everyone uses copyright music and videos on Youtube.

It won't matter in the end though as they can't sue everyone from putting up what they want to put up..

[l337pino]

I think the industry is beginning to make another hardcore round of scare tactics. I just got a school-wide email from the administration about heavily increased pressure from these organizations to further prevent illegal filesharing. Although only a small school, my school apparently has around 30 IP addresses from within our network banned each week.

Ironically, while reading this email...well, let's just say that I had P2P software up and running.

[DocHolidazed]

Thats basically, what makes up youtube. Music, if not featured, is in the background of just about everything on youtube. I agree with Pino. Looks like some lame scare stunt.