Copyright Holders May Be Able to Block Streaming of Covers

[Deleted]

www.billboard.com/articles/business/6465293/why-taylor-swift-may-soon-be-able-to-stop-cover-songs-on-spotify-too

Ignore the sensationalist, clickbait title that Billboard gave this, since it's not really about Taylor. The US Copyright Office is recommending allowing songwriters and publishers to opt out of the current compulsory licensing standard for "on demand" streaming services - or put another way, if you wanted to do a cover of a song, you'd have to track down all of the songwriters and publishers who owned the rights to that song and ask for permission to upload it to Youtube or Spotify. If you upload a cover any even one of those writers or publishers doesn't want it on Youtube, the vid would get yanked. Interestingly Pandora would probably not be included under this umbrella since it's not considered on-demand.

I hate this idea and hope it dies swiftly (lame pun intended).

[14887fan]

What complete and utter shit.

[Linnethia Monique]

BBC Radio and iHeartRadio will not be pleased since both have artists do covers regularly

[WotUNeed]

Feb 6, 2015 18:09:38 GMT -5 Linnethia Monique said:

BBC Radio and iHeartRadio will not be pleased since both have artists do covers regularly

I don't think it'd affect radio at all, based on the way the article describes it. My guess would be that this is an attempt to kill the million no-name essentially karaoke versions of hit songs that pop up on Spotify / YouTube / iTunes / etc. Of course, it would have the side effect of allowing certain stakeholders to block "legitimate" remakes too if the authority is as blanket as the article describes, but I think that would be a pretty rare occurrence.

[surfy]

Ugh... Are you shitting me?

[Deleted]

This is absolutely nuts, and really pisses me off.

This whole thing has gotten so out of control since Taylor received so much publicity for pulling her music from Spotify.

[Linnethia Monique]

Feb 6, 2015 19:02:33 GMT -5 WotUNeed said:

Feb 6, 2015 18:09:38 GMT -5 Linnethia Monique said:

BBC Radio and iHeartRadio will not be pleased since both have artists do covers regularly

I don't think it'd affect radio at all, based on the way the article describes it. My guess would be that this is an attempt to kill the million no-name essentially karaoke versions of hit songs that pop up on Spotify / YouTube / iTunes / etc. Of course, it would have the side effect of allowing certain stakeholders to block "legitimate" remakes too if the authority is as blanket as the article describes, but I think that would be a pretty rare occurrence.

With BBC Radio and such I was talking more about the in-studio covers that they have artist do regularly on the air, especially Radio One and their 1Xtra Live Lounge where it is basically a requirement to do a cover along with your own material. I can agree with the various "karaoke" and "sung in the style of" that plague various services.

[Green Baron]

man, fuck copyright.

[Daryl the Beryl]

REALLY?

[Acid Eyes]

The irony is that Taylor's cover of Super Bass was the spark that lit the fuse on the biggest song of Nicki Minaj's career.

[Az Paynter]

Why does this sound like a ridiculously over-large blanket restriction? I get the part about blocking unauthorized cover versions if there's a monetary factor, but what about your dime-a-dozen bedroom cover versions that are not intended for sale? 'Cause it sounds like what they're trying to do is prevent people from doing covers ever.

Don't get me wrong copyright is a good thing, and it's very important there be some degree of copyright control, but to this[/s] degree?! It will probably do FAR more harm than good

[Deleted]

Feb 8, 2015 19:14:43 GMT -5 Az Paynter said:

Why does this sound like a ridiculously over-large blanket restriction?

Because it absolutely is!

I mainly don't like this because it all but shuts down Youtube acts who often build up a fanbase (and in a few cases, even eventually sign with a label) by starting off with interesting covers, remixes, or mashups. How would one even go about tracking down who owns the rights to a song to ask for permission, never mind actually getting the permission? If this went into law the person could not even just upload it and wait for it to get yanked - Youtube itself would be legally barred from allowing that content to be uploaded until all interested parties had granted permission.

I could see if they were trying to crack down on the karaoke-ish "music inspired by..." covers on Spotify, but that's no different from those who run the same scam on iTunes. So why make a rule that resolves one of those problems but not the other? On Spotify and iTunes, there are a lot of potentially "captured" streams or sales that should have gone to the original artist, but didn't; We know that the label gets a certain amount of money per stream/purchase so this is a much more direct 'loss' than anything on Youtube is, and the Spotify/iTunes covers are intentionally deceptive to reel you in.

I differentiate the Spotify/iTunes problem from that of Youtube because a) if I'm not mistaken, the presumption has always been that the money labels get from Youtube isn't derived specifically from the view counts but from the advertising; and b) it's a lot harder to 'deceive' someone into thinking you're say, Rihanna, when you're clearly a suburban white guy with a guitar singing in his bedroom. Similarly we are all familiar with obviously pitched audio by now, and it only takes a person a few seconds to recognize either of those things and back out of a video without watching it. So in the few cases where one might try to 'scam' you on Youtube, it will rarely work; and even if it does, the label doesn't really lose money from it.

If the plethora of scam covers is what they're trying to crack down on then the Copyright Office needs to propose a rule allowing copyright holders to opt out of compulsory license for services based on the 'direct revenue' standard, not just a blanket ban on streaming covers that screws over those who are just using the art as a means to express their own creativity.

[Flip]

What the f**k is this... I follow so many great YouTube cover artists. :(

[icefire9]

And this comes out just as Pentatonix wins a Grammy for their medley of Daft Punk songs. This is horrible.

[WotUNeed]

Feb 9, 2015 14:38:53 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

I could see if they were trying to crack down on the karaoke-ish "music inspired by..." covers on Spotify, but that's no different from those who run the same scam on iTunes. So why make a rule that resolves one of those problems but not the other? On Spotify and iTunes, there are a lot of potentially "captured" streams or sales that should have gone to the original artist, but didn't; We know that the label gets a certain amount of money per stream/purchase so this is a much more direct 'loss' than anything on Youtube is, and the Spotify/iTunes covers are intentionally deceptive to reel you in.

The article you linked in the first post mentioned it would also apply to download sites, so I don't see why iTunes wouldn't be included.

While I suppose some rights holders could take it to the extreme of barring all versions of all of their material from being sold or streamed, that still seems like an unlikely choice. I'd assume most artists couldn't afford to cut off that revenue stream. At this point, I'd have to imagine whatever proposal is out there is still open to being revised, since there doesn't seem to be any timeline given for voting on it or whatever, so I wouldn't be surprised if a narrower, more specific version came out, given that I doubt we're the only ones who have thought of the (quite valid) potential negative consequences being raised in this thread of a generically broad ability to block content.

[Az Paynter]

Feb 9, 2015 16:32:28 GMT -5 icefire9 said:

And this comes out just as Pentatonix wins a Grammy for their medley of Daft Punk songs. This is horrible.

Pentatonix is a different case; being with a major label, they would have the connections to track down the original writers/performer first, all the legalities would probably be cleared up before anything was even released.

[Keelzit]

I don't get this. If a cover song is available on iTunes aren't the songwriters still getting paid? Unless this is something that has to do with an artist's artistic integrity or whatever I don't see what the problem is. But even then, aren't the original artists giving permission to whoever covers their song before it goes on sale anyway? YouTube/concert covers is a whole other story though.

[icefire9]

Feb 9, 2015 22:29:45 GMT -5 Az Paynter said:

Feb 9, 2015 16:32:28 GMT -5 icefire9 said:

And this comes out just as Pentatonix wins a Grammy for their medley of Daft Punk songs. This is horrible.

Pentatonix is a different case; being with a major label, they would have the connections to track down the original writers/performer first, all the legalities would probably be cleared up before anything was even released.

They weren't always with RCA, for a while they were with Madison Gate Records, though I honestly don't know if that makes a difference or not.

[14887fan]

It's just ridiculous. Outlets like YouTube and SoundCloud are often THE gateway for striving musicians to find an audience. Taking that away by incorporating such legalities into casual covers of already-released music would cripple such a huge portion of up-and-comers.

I'm extremely bothered by this. I hope this bottoms out real fast.

[Az Paynter]

Feb 9, 2015 22:40:09 GMT -5 icefire9 said:

Feb 9, 2015 22:29:45 GMT -5 Az Paynter said:

Pentatonix is a different case; being with a major label, they would have the connections to track down the original writers/performer first, all the legalities would probably be cleared up before anything was even released.

They weren't always with RCA, for a while they were with Madison Gate Records, though I honestly don't know if that makes a difference or not.

Looking at the wiki page, Madison Gate is owned by Sony, they still would probably have some connections at their disposal to make things happen.

[LordEctar]

Feb 9, 2015 14:38:53 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

How would one even go about tracking down who owns the rights to a song to ask for permission, never mind actually getting the permission?

It is quite easy.

www.songfile.com/

www.harryfox.com/

[Deleted]

Feb 26, 2015 12:11:10 GMT -5 LordEctar said:

Feb 9, 2015 14:38:53 GMT -5 @antigonerising said:

How would one even go about tracking down who owns the rights to a song to ask for permission, never mind actually getting the permission?

It is quite easy.

www.songfile.com/

www.harryfox.com/

Well I didn't so much mean "how do I find the names?" as I did "how do I find the names, then get their phone numbers/email/mailing address, then somehow make it past their voicemail/spam filter/garbage can?" Like, say I want to cover Because of You - even without knowing the other copyright holders for the song, I know Kelly was one of them and I can always look at the credits in her liner notes to find other names. But I don't think I could just tweet her out of the blue to ask her for permission and if the others would give me permission too, and reasonably expect a response. And regardless, it shouldn't take that amount of time and effort just to see if you can do a Youtube cover...an actual cover that you're going to make available for sale or revenue streaming, sure, but only because you're then trying to make money off someone else's product.

(side note: this all presumes one hasn't assigned his or her rights to someone else for any reason, as that would make it a bit harder to track down names...I was reading TLC's album thread one day and back in 2013 there still seemed to be some confusion as to who held the rights to "Waterfalls.")

[LordEctar]

The site I mentioned allows you to purchase the license you need online. You don't have to contact the songwriters, etc. because they are already in agreement. Not everyone is set up like this, but the majority is. If you wanted to be able to cover the song for free without paying a proper license, then you'd need to go door-to-door asking permission.

As for Waterfalls, it is controlled by 4 publishing entities. HFA represents 3 of them so you'd need to contact the 4th yourself (TIZ BIZ MUSIC) since you couldn't purchase the license completely through HFA.

WATERFALLS
Writer(s): M. ETHERIDGE, L. LOPEZ, R. WADE, P. BROWN, R. MURRAY
HFA Song Code: W06282

Publisher Represented By HFA
HITCO MUSIC OBO ORGANIZED NOIZE MUSIC Y
EMI APRIL MUSIC INC Y
TIZ BIZ MUSIC N
SONGS OF WINDSWEPT PACIFIC OBO HITCO MUSIC Y


If you wanted to cover say "Oops I Did It Again", you could purchase the license you need easily online since HFA handles all the publishing entities.
OOPS!...I DID IT AGAIN
Writer(s): MAX MARTIN, RAMI
HFA Song Code: O08183

Publisher Represented By HFA
UNIVERSAL MUSIC-Z TUNES Y

[funkpunkandroll]

How do they think this is a good idea?

[icefire9]

Feb 26, 2015 14:34:56 GMT -5 LordEctar said:

The site I mentioned allows you to purchase the license you need online. You don't have to contact the songwriters, etc. because they are already in agreement. Not everyone is set up like this, but the majority is. If you wanted to be able to cover the song for free without paying a proper license, then you'd need to go door-to-door asking permission.

As for Waterfalls, it is controlled by 4 publishing entities. HFA represents 3 of them so you'd need to contact the 4th yourself (TIZ BIZ MUSIC) since you couldn't purchase the license completely through HFA.

WATERFALLS
Writer(s): M. ETHERIDGE, L. LOPEZ, R. WADE, P. BROWN, R. MURRAY
HFA Song Code: W06282

Publisher Represented By HFA
HITCO MUSIC OBO ORGANIZED NOIZE MUSIC Y
EMI APRIL MUSIC INC Y
TIZ BIZ MUSIC N
SONGS OF WINDSWEPT PACIFIC OBO HITCO MUSIC Y


If you wanted to cover say "Oops I Did It Again", you could purchase the license you need easily online since HFA handles all the publishing entities.
OOPS!...I DID IT AGAIN
Writer(s): MAX MARTIN, RAMI
HFA Song Code: O08183

Publisher Represented By HFA
UNIVERSAL MUSIC-Z TUNES Y

I may be off base on how the costing works, but according the the first link, anybody doing a cover would have to pay 1 cent per view the song gets. While 1 cent isn't much, it certainly adds up, many covers get tens or hundreds of thousands or even several million views.

For someone just posting covers on Youtube, and isn't getting any money out of this in the first place, this means the more successful they become, the more money they lose. For someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income, this makes recording cover songs unfeasible. Essentially, this discourages innovation, it punishes people for being successful. If people aren't receiving any money for the cover, they shouldn't have to pay.

[funkpunkandroll]

I wonder if some YouTube famous singers like Blair Levol (sp?) and Von Smith are allowed to perform covers because they're semi-professional? This probably won't affect them.

[Deleted]

Feb 26, 2015 15:14:19 GMT -5 icefire9 said:

Feb 26, 2015 14:34:56 GMT -5 LordEctar said:

The site I mentioned allows you to purchase the license you need online. You don't have to contact the songwriters, etc. because they are already in agreement. Not everyone is set up like this, but the majority is. If you wanted to be able to cover the song for free without paying a proper license, then you'd need to go door-to-door asking permission.

As for Waterfalls, it is controlled by 4 publishing entities. HFA represents 3 of them so you'd need to contact the 4th yourself (TIZ BIZ MUSIC) since you couldn't purchase the license completely through HFA.

WATERFALLS
Writer(s): M. ETHERIDGE, L. LOPEZ, R. WADE, P. BROWN, R. MURRAY
HFA Song Code: W06282

Publisher Represented By HFA
HITCO MUSIC OBO ORGANIZED NOIZE MUSIC Y
EMI APRIL MUSIC INC Y
TIZ BIZ MUSIC N
SONGS OF WINDSWEPT PACIFIC OBO HITCO MUSIC Y


If you wanted to cover say "Oops I Did It Again", you could purchase the license you need easily online since HFA handles all the publishing entities.
OOPS!...I DID IT AGAIN
Writer(s): MAX MARTIN, RAMI
HFA Song Code: O08183

Publisher Represented By HFA
UNIVERSAL MUSIC-Z TUNES Y

I may be off base on how the costing works, but according the the first link, anybody doing a cover would have to pay 1 cent per view the song gets. While 1 cent isn't much, it certainly adds up, many covers get tens or hundreds of thousands or even several million views.

For someone just posting covers on Youtube, and isn't getting any money out of this in the first place, this means the more successful they become, the more money they lose. For someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income, this makes recording cover songs unfeasible. Essentially, this discourages innovation, it punishes people for being successful. If people aren't receiving any money for the cover, they shouldn't have to pay.

Yeah, I clicked the link but kept arriving at a page requiring you to sign up before you could even search the database. Not sure if I just wasn't going to the right place but I backed out because I have enough accounts that I created once and now can't remember the user name or password to. Anyway, that would be cost prohibitive and self-defeating to the purpose of doing a cover or trying to gain any popularity from it. Say you set a somewhat modest goal of 100,000 views. That's $1,000, and the average Youtuber doesn't have that lying around to spare. It does seem that if you have an account you can nab the names (and contact info?) you need without purchasing the license. But if you can't get in touch with the people in question, you effectively have no chance of negotiating your way into not having to pay anything. I don't think Max Martin cares about making people pay to do a free cover of Oops!, but he probably also doesn't care to deal with a bunch of extra phone calls or emails every day asking him for permission, so he likely isn't gonna respond to any of those requests and those people are stuck having to pay.

Re: funkpunkandroll's question, I think the more popular YT artists, once they reach either a certain number of subscribers or consistent views, eventually get a bit of ad money; I remember some makeup guru being sued because she was using part of a song in her intros or something, but she had over a million subscribers so YT started putting ads on her vids and the original songwriters weren't getting any of that. Still, the money they get from those ads might be pocket change compared to what this law would make a song cost, if you had to buy the license for it.

I really think this is just a sorta-good-intentions idea that is turning into a badly written proposal, and they need to really think about what they're trying to accomplish here before they go writing blanket-statement rules. Something as simple as clarifying that Youtube isn't an 'on demand' service for the purposes of this proposed law would handle it well enough.

[LordEctar]

Feb 26, 2015 15:14:19 GMT -5 icefire9 said:

For someone just posting covers on Youtube, and isn't getting any money out of this in the first place, this means the more successful they become, the more money they lose. For someone who doesn't have a lot of disposable income, this makes recording cover songs unfeasible. Essentially, this discourages innovation, it punishes people for being successful. If people aren't receiving any money for the cover, they shouldn't have to pay.

You make money off of advertising that is attached to the video (same if they add the cover for purchase on iTunes). If someone wants to cover a song they didn't write, they should have to pay the proper royalties. I don't see any argument that could convince me otherwise. Many of the YouTubers who cover songs are actually represented by a company, they are most likely paying royalties.

Remember - even if they aren't making physical money, they are using someone else's work to promote themselves. Right there is a benefit they would not be paying for and it is wrong.