"potential litigation" says it all. The private listing is a great tool on Utube, but it is really not so much minimizing risk as setting a determinant of audience.

Consider the release of a few burned one-offs on Blu-ray to select customers. Still the audience is limited but the risk remains high.

Better to find a way to be legal and minimize risk and litigation pursuits.

Better to find a way to be legal and minimize risk and litigation pursuits.

It sure is as long as the legal way is clear and makes sense too. Also, if YT finds a song that is copyrighted, it will flag it and also mentioned if after acknowledging the 3rd party content any further action is necessary. I think I also noticed that if you make such a video public, the audio will be muted even if the 3rd party content is acknowledged. As I said, unlisted or private has not given me any troubles so far, that means for the past 6 years.

Question:
If a radio stations plays a new artists song, do you think the radio station paid for that or would the artist or its agent have even paid for them to play it?

As I mentioned in my earlier post, it would make more sense and would be by far more effective if one would just pay on the spot for every post that contains copyrighted material; it doesn't have to be much, even a 10cent can become a huge number considering the amount of people posting daily on social media. If you don't pay, your upload get's deleted. If it's on for more then 12 month you have to pay again.

I'll reiterate my view that a consistent, reasonable (and known) pricing structure would solve the majority of the issues.

I can "purchase" (without any true ownership, of course) a Coldplay song for 99 cents that I can experience whenever I wish, while doing whatever I wish - in my car, on my phone, in my home. It can become the soundtrack for anything I care to do in my life.

I produce a wedding video that will be viewed by 200, and I'd like to include that Coldplay song that was danced to at the reception. My viewers won't be watching the video to specifically hear that song - they want to see the event. Even given that, $200 seems to be fair given the pricing structure offered by the record company for a single listener (me) to experience that song, multiplied by two hundred viewers and used in a context where the song is not even the focus. But that won't happen. I'll have to spend that $200 on an inferior stock track.

If the industry would put an end to the secrecy and price gouging, and publish reasonable rates for reasonable uses, I think almost everyone would comply.

atom12 beat me to the idea of "reasonable" charges.

I can speak a little on the RADIO STATIONS thing... Station corporations hire "music consultants" that provides stations lists of who to play to draw advertising dollars. To get TO those lists, music companies provide or pay or smooge to get THEIR ARTISTS played. The stations are ASCAP BMI licensed for payment for play where advertising covers that and costs of running the station. (they are all large media corporations now like fast food Mcdonalds insted of ma & pa shops, so everything is processed legally.) The artists get their 1/2 per play kick back, publisher takes 50% of whatever (just a guess), advertisers pay, and get an audience.

Songs can seem to get popular via requests, but requests don't actually exist anymore. Maybe in some specialty low power stations..... but every second of air time is accounted for, and everyone is paid legally.

Internet gets uglier where some "stations" are paid by advertising, yet some artists recognize they are not in control of funding - like Taylor Swift pulling out of Spotify where *I* could have repeatedly listened to her songs and she doesn't get paid per play as it should be.

As a former radio played "artist", I feel anything I create from nothing with the intent to sell as my creation to entertain people, I should get payed for, and not stolen from. How many video editor guys WANT to just give away some or all of their productions they edited, created, tweaked, spent months on? I know I don't. But, if I choose to do it for fun, for free, sure that is totally different - like my current productions.

Bottom line is the LOST MORALITY: if you are using IN ANYWAY, something YOU didn't create from scratch, it is wrong, and stealing the lively hood from somebody else's creation.

"Do unto others as you'd have done unto you"

Performance rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI grant licenses for radio performances of musical compositions. They are blanket licenses, covering all songs in the PRO's collection. The rates are set by a U.S. court. Royalties are paid according to a formula that accounts for the number of plays and the number of listeners.

Under U.S. copyright law, no license is paid for the right to play (perform) a master recording over the radio. The record companies receive no royalties for radio play.

atom12 said:
[I]" If the industry would put an end to the secrecy and price gouging, and publish reasonable rates for reasonable uses, I think almost everyone would comply"[/I]

We have exactly this in Australia, the UK has that as well, no doubt other civilized countries do as well. For either an annual fee or a fee per event I can legally put all the music played at a wedding into a wedding DVD to be sold by me to the client. The only other requirement is that the client must supply me a copy of the music on CD.

I used also to be able to pay for an annual "format shifting" license.

All of this seems to have faded away and probably for many reasons:

1) It cost too much to administer let alone enforce.
2) Who buys music on CDs anymore.
3) Who wants DVDs anymore.


Even the gatekeepers of copyright have "given up", the likes of YT and iTunes challenge the very notion of copyright. Nothing new but now so overt that the whole model falling into the dustbin of history is obvious. The "record companies" are still trying to hang in there but even they must by now realise their business model is terminal. What if anything will replace it is a question yet to be answered.

Bob.

balazer, yep. but if the station does high school dances or something live, the ascap bmi thing kicks in for public performances.

I doubt the big music companies will change much - they still HANDLE the superstars. Even if Susie Q Tee on Youtube sings amazingly and has millions of followers, she can't simply hop in a van and go on a world tour with mom. A company with the proper skillset and handling will make all that happen. I can't think of ANYBODY that is huge that doesn't have proper backing from a big company.

And people will always pay to have larger than life artists to worship. So, that, the major part, of thier business model may live forever.

[I]"So, that, the major part, of thier business model may live forever."[/I]

I strongly suspect you're right there however here we're talking more about the entertainment industry rather than "record companies".

We've had the entertainment industry since the dawn of history and I think it'll always be with us. The advent of the printing press and all other means of reproducing and distributing entertaining art is where the challenge lies..

Bob.

I agree that directly ripping music or films to share isn't appropriate but I'm concerned with media played at informal social events or organised family events that aren't for profit. That part of the equation is the foundation of social media and, as others have stated, sharing those events via the internet is becoming the dominant medium.

I don't have a solution to the difficulties of receiving payment for created content in the digital age. But I do think that entertainment industry attempts to criminalise sharing the kind of social events I'm referring to will fail and possibly backfire which will affect all of us who create content.

As an artist my work is usually a one off with the potential for associated revenue producing spin offs like prints etc. But what is not covered by copyright is the blatant stealing of ideas by the advertising and commercial industry. It's very likely that if an artist posts any work online that is considered interesting then it will be ripped off in some way by the industry without any remuneration.

It's a cliche to state that there is nothing left that's original any longer but it is true that the whole of the entertainment industry is influenced by past ideas and it's a fine line between blatant rip off and creative appropriation. The number of modern films that are Hitchcock by numbers or pop tunes that sound suspiciously similar are innumerable yet when it's the industry "sharing" ideas then it's consider fair game even though millions of $$$ of potential royalties are lost to the originators of these ideas. In that context some teenager or wedding couple dancing to a few hits pales into insignificance.

Bottom line is the LOST MORALITY: if you are using IN ANYWAY, something YOU didn't create from scratch, it is wrong, and stealing the lively hood from somebody else's creation.

I have created my videos from scratch and so has the wedding videographer.

Music actually matters far more than video. No matter how well it's done technically speaking all these videos are crap ( weddings, rehearsals, etc.... ).

You could have just a few still images on a loop with a good song and everybody will go: Ahhh, that's so beautiful. Try video without music and see how that works.

So, yes, make your own if you need music or pay for it. Problem is obviously that most clients are too dumb to understand why they can't use music any way they please.

Bottom line is the LOST MORALITY: if you are using IN ANYWAY, something YOU didn't create from scratch, it is wrong, and stealing the lively hood from somebody else's creation.

For me, at least, this statement is really over the top. Pretty much, this thread has focused on music. There are other things that editors use, or should I say that I use. I just started a thread on how to create map animations from Google Maps and Google Earth.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=925516

I included a couple of YT videos demonstrating these animations. I may not be (or maybe I am) in violation of any copyright laws, but it is certainly something that I didn't create from scratch. I've also used a number of icons as part of the demo. Did I create them? No. Do a Google search for "train icon png" and up pops a ton of images. Pick one that looks reasonable, copy and save. Have I lost my sense of morality for using these things readily available online? I don't think so, but perhaps I'm wrong.

wwaag

I think the morality argument is really unhelpful because instead of analysing the many complex processes that go into creating something to find out what is fair appropriation and what is outright theft the debate is reduced to a simple condemnation mode. Technology and the way people record and share their social experiences is changing rapidly and there has to be a much better way of analysing this than some nebulous concept such as morality. If, in the unlikely event the industry does carry out such an analysis that leads to fair use and fair remuneration then that has to be better than blanket condemnation that isn't realistically feasible as a prevention strategy anyway.

Music actually matters far more than video. No matter how well it's done technically speaking all these videos are crap ( weddings, rehearsals, etc.... ).

Sure applies to the common YT videos. However, there are extremely well made videos of such kind, you probably haven't seen one yet, and for those, the music is secondary.

Agree that morality is not the proper argument. This is commerce, which in the best case, is based on fair exchange for goods or services. Because this particular arena blends the concepts of "art," "product" and "intellectual property" into a fairly illogical mush, there aren't a lot of analogies that apply.

I am a composer as well, with many copyrighted works, so I don't want my work "stolen". Then again, I would also be angered if I found that a publishing agent was preventing my work from being experienced by others because his greed was pricing it out of the reach of someone like the OP.

yes... morality has no place in commerce. :D hahahaha! I love that. Sounds about right for business these days. :)

If you make a tape (so to speak) of an event and give copies of it privately to family and friends, that is one thing - a small private, hardcopy version... but if you upload it to youtube, facebook etc, even if marked private, you have just shared a digital copy to be ripped and given away freely to anyone that can google the download/rip process.

There in lies the rub: we no longer make single, little copies for family and friends ONLY, we upload - private as we think it is - to the web where searchbots find and catagorize it for free download by NON-family and friends. We give away other artists material, and I am talking about music.

I'm just playing devil's legal advocate here, not trying to start anything. :)

>>>Agree that morality is not the proper argument. <<<

Whaaaat? That is the only argument here.

Just checked the US constitution and the bible and nowhere does it say: "citizens shall have the right to free $hit as long as it is on the internet"

How difficult is this to understand? Want music? Make your own, just as you have to make your own pizza or pay somebody to make it for you. Just because some professions are unfortunate enough that their work can be digitized, it does not mean they should be treated with less respect.

@deusx, my argument is not that anyone has the right to free $hit. It's that this is a LEGAL arena, rather than a moral one. Laws exist because many (if not most) humans need an enforcement of morals since they can't subscribe to moral codes on their own. If they could nothing else would have needed to be written after the Ten Commandments.
My argument also is that "fair exchange" doesn't exist in the current way sync rights are negotiated in the digital age because of the blurring of lines of art, product and intellectual property.

I do realize those lines are extremely blurry now, but really they aren't: if you take anything that is not yours, it is wrong, hence illegal.

What I mean is, Youtube is trying, kinda succeeding but somethings don't work. But it is trying. Well, okay, really it fails because I can find pretty much any song on it and listen for free and I shouldn't be able to.

Are you kidding?
The songs and albums that are good enough to be left there are making money for the record companies.
Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. We already know the algorithms are good enough to catch titles off the dance floor or the car radio.

Again, its only about M-O-N-E-Y.

I put together a little vid that used Vivaldi as its background. Got caught right away, of course, but when the record co. Saw the nice credits I had given them, they removed the flag, and didn't place any ads. If some exec likes it, its likely to remain up.