Slashdot Mirror
Prince DMCAs YouTube To Block Radiohead Song
Enigma2175 writes "CNN is reporting that videos from the Coachella music festival showing Prince covering Radiohead's 'Creep' have been removed by Prince's label, NPG records. Thom Yorke of Radiohead, when told of Prince's action, said 'Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our... song.' No comment from YouTube or Prince yet. Under the DMCA, YouTube is not required to verify the entity making a request is actually the copyright holder and this seems to be just another example of DMCA abuse." As the article points out, Prince seems to have a love-hate relationship with the Interwebs.
Radiohead's ownership of the song's copyright, Prince's ownership of the performance copyright, and the video recorder's ownership of the recording copyright. Prince asked for it to be pulled on his claim. Radiohead could sue him if he didn't properly license their song, though.
Under the DMCA, YouTube is not required to verify the entity making a request is actually the copyright holder
So let me get this straight, some person or group of persons could go and put a claim on every video on Youtube now and they'd have to take them all down...since they're not required to verify the entity making the request? That seems a bit silly doesn't it? What's stopping someone from mass emailing them with requests for a huge chunk of videos?
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
The performer of a song has a copyright protecting that performance, although obvs. not in the underlying song. Unlike a songwriter (who cannot block covers because of the compulsory license) a performer can block reproduction of the performance. So it seems as if Prince is acting within his rights to assert a copyright over the performance, at least under U.S. law. Whether that copyright trumps fair use, etc., I don't know. But it's not correct to say that Prince has no copyright because he didn't write the song. Like most Slashdotters, I hate the DMCA, and I think it's madness for Prince to try to block this stuff, since it's good advertising and he'll sell more albums if he doesn't, but there it is.
Later... I hate this web stuff, these Intellectual Property burglars are taking food right out of my childrens mouths. WHAAA
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Obviously Prince is going to challenge him to a game of basketball and the winner gets their way :D btw if you don't know where that's from, trust me, it's funny!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Radiohead owns the copyright of their original copy of the song (if they own the master media onto which it was recorded, and didn't release it from copyright control). That gives them "performance copyright", which lets them require permission from the first other person to "perform" their original recording (either a reenactment of producing the song using new instruments, or just playing back the original recording over speakers in the air to a large crowd or over other broadcast media like radio or TV soundtrack). But after they release the first public performance, anyone can perform the song, provided they pay the pre-set "mechanical" royalty rate (determined by the number of listeners in the venue's capacity, not necessarily those actually hearing the performance, though webcasting is per actual listener). The mechanical rate is low, like under $0.001 per listener, designed for repeated broadcast at rates recoverable by whatever commerce is operated using the performance.
But Prince does own his own performance of that song. He owns the copyright of his own performance, though not of the song he's performing. He's merely performing a song that copyright law lets him perform so long as he's in compliance with the royalty laws that pay Radiohead. Unless Prince was the first person other than Radiohead to perform it publicly, Radiohead doesn't have control over the public performance of the song, just the right to collect the royalties when it is played by whoever wants to.
Copyrights are fairly simple, if taken step by step. That doesn't stop them from being bullshit, especially when practiced by musicians, who always use copyrighted content from other artists without respect to the "original's" copyright.
When someone does something in public, I have the right to see it. I have the right to remember it. I have the right to record what I see and remember, even if the law these days is wrong and can stop me (like most copyright laws, and of course the Hollywood-written DMCA). And if I recorded it, I have the right to show it to anyone I want. This is a freedom of expression that copyright infringes. And since YouTube promotes Prince's commerce much more than it competes with it, no copyright is promoting "progress in science and the useful arts". In fact, this DMCA abuse is killing that progress, right when it could be exploding, but instead miserly copyright owners are pretending they represent "progress", when all they represent is profit.
--
make install -not war
As Kevin Smith once revealed:
t's 3 in the morning in Minnesota. I really need a camel . Go get it. - Prince
(Yes, I know it was partly farcical, but the basic premise is sound - he's a loon.)
"Powers. I have them."
I can see both sides of the issue here.
One on hand, this is an ugly example of DMCA abuse and goes against the wish of even the copy right owner.
One the other hand it's one less Prince recording on the internet.
I'm inclined to side with Prince here since the public welfare outweighs the individual IP.
1) YouTube is American, based in America, subject to US copyright law. It doesn't matter a damn where Radiohead is from, because the jurisdiction that counts is the one where the law is being applied. The DMCA is a 'merkin invention, being used on a 'merkin site. Ergo, Radiohead's country-of-origin is irrelevant.
2) Performance right is recognised in UK copyright law. So Prince is entitled to copyright in his performance of the song, even though he does not hold the copyright in the lyrics or the musical score.
If Prince failed to get the appropriate licence to perform the song, as others have noted Radiohead have a course of action for breach of copyright in the lyrics and/or score. They have no grounds to get the video restored, because they don't hold the copyright in the performance and that's the right that the video infringes.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
If Prince doesn't want the free publicity, give him what he wants and ignore him. Then continue to ignore him when he releases a new album or comes to town. There are plenty of great musicians who aren't so dogmatic and naive about copyright issues.
... song:
You're much better off watching Radiohead perform their own
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxpblnsJEWM
OCILLA, the part of the DMCA dealing with takedown notices, requires the copyright owner to make an affirmation under penalty of perjury. Perjury is more likely to be a crime than petty copyright infringement, which is far more often treated as a tort.
> Under the DMCA, YouTube is not required to verify the entity making a request is actually
> the copyright holder and this seems to be just another example of DMCA abuse.
Under the DMCA the person who put the material up can file a counter-notice asserting that they have the legal right to distribute the item. YouTube can then put it back up with complete impunity and the only way Prince can get it taken back down is to file a copyright infringement suit (within 30 days) against the person who put it up and convince a Federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction. There are criminal penalties for filing a false DMCA takedown notice, and the target could also claim damages.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
> As the article points out, Prince seems to have a love-hate relationship with his fans.
Fixed
The DMCA is working exactly as intended. To help stamp out alternative methods of distribution and protect the entrenched publishing industries. The only abuse here was committed by the people who voted for and reelected the politicians who enacted this law. I don't get it. You people wanted near infinite copyright. You want 100 years of war. Well now you'll get it. You have been given what you want, and now you're complaining about it. A more schizophrenic bunch I've never seen. The government is acting on the will of the majority. All this blathering about corporate and government conspiracies is just so much bull. Quitcherbellyachin' and vote them out if you don't like it! That or admit once and for all that majority rule is a miserable failure.
What?
Unless the performance has creative elements which stand on their own, i.e. the arrangement, the guitar solo, the intonations chosen when singing the lyrics, etc. Of course, that would technically be a composer's copyright, but that sounds confusing, so most groups that deal with legal fan-made recordings (i.e. the Internet Archive's Live Music Archive) usually just refer to it as a performance copyright. Basically, what it boils down to is that Prince's performance constitutes a derivative work, and unless Radiohead is now releasing their music under a copyleft, they have no say in the matter. The most they could do is ask the fan to remove the creative elements from the derivative work that Prince owns and release whatever is left, but the result would probably be incomprehensible, assuming that such removal were even possible. (Alternatively, they could try to prove that Prince's additions to his arrangement were too minimal to justify copyright protection, but that's likely to be very difficult.)
;)
My god. Somebody on slashdot understands copyright. I'm stunned!
Video being uploaded again in 5...4...3...2...
By 100 people now, instead of just one. Just out of spite.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sadly though, the companies who have already commited such acts (false takedown notices) have not yet (to my knowledge) been charged with perjury, nor have any penalties been levied for time/labor spent or other damages to the parties who were "required" to take down the content.
Perjury is more likely to be a crime than petty copyright infringement, which is far more often treated as a tort.For now... keep in mind, as many forget here, there is a Criminal Copyright Infringement law -it's just not often used (but has successfully been used recently - either by the MPAA or RIAA - forget which, but you can find it on Groklaw and here).
The next step by the **AA and others, will be to try prosecuting under both angles (civil and criminal)... Winning them penalties and jailing miscreants.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
Prince wanted the Video removed.... In case his fans realised how Crud his music was compared to Radiohead's work...
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
I work for the IP department that would handle this if I worked for google, but I don't work for google.
DMCA takedowns are no-questions asked "Under perjury, I own this, remove it, NOW" legal letters that range from "I am sueing you for 10,000 euros for every 30 seconds it's visible" to "this person has something that only looks like mine, but I want it removed."
In the case of something that Prince has covered, he doesn't own the copyright on the original song, but does on the performance. So he could request it be removed.
I regularly see stuff from Prince's lawyers, who also do stuff for other independent artists, but it appears Prince is the only one that gets attention for it.
If it's wrong, send a counter notice, counter notices are valid in the US as long as the issue is about copyright. In which case be prepared to goto court and sue the otherguy.
I'm sorry, I know this is OT, but just how was remarking that the value may be different for a different type of day taking exception with the GP's statement (in his .sig for those who don't view them), which was that "the number of seconds in a day won't fit into a short, but they will into a long", and hence the wordplay of "it's always a long day."
I mean, to be pedantic I could go for the informational aspect of stating "aha! You're wrong, it's really 86,164.090530833 seconds" based on the Wikipedia entry, and I suppose I just did. :)
But that's still missing the entire point of the programming joke .sig.
The real informative statement here is that a sidereal day is the time it takes the Earth to rotate around its axis, versus the traditional day which is measured by "the motion of the stars" (apparent motion, really). But that seems like "Bad horse!" -- if we keep kicking we might put our feet through its chest.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
This aspect is what's really interesting. There probably aren't enough data points yet, and we are plainly in a transition period for music distribution technology. The intersting thing to study is to rate artist's approaches to the 'net based on one or more criteria, and attempt to correlate them to success or failure.
I think it would be difficult, if not impossible to come up with any real answer though. First, art is not a commodity so you can't compare Prince as a producer of "1000 barrels of music per day" vs. Radio Head as "1000 barrels of music per day". Secondly, the overall economic climate for musicians may be in decline, and the falling tide may be sinking all the yachts, whether they play on the 'net or not. Whether this decline is due to the the 'net or not is a separate issue that's really rather moot: the cat's out of the bag. The more practical quetion, from the PoV of the musician, is "do I have more to gain by participating in the old model or the new". The answer (pure speculation on my part) probably depends a lot on how you got started. Artists who's careers span the pre-Internet era might be well served by sticking with the old model, whereas new artists might be better off paying less attention to the old model, or maybe even ignoring it totally.
Once we enter a stage where all the currently performing artists started their careers post-Napster, the picture should be more clear.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
What logic? I was merely pointing out that they actually are in England, and if anything I was trying to imply that they may indeed be beholden to more than just US law.
The CB App. What's your 20?
"Prince owns the performance he gave"
No. You and everyone else saying things that amount to this are wrong. Copyright applies to things that may be copied, which performances are not. You cannot hold a copyright on a performance. You can hold a copyright on a recording. You can take legal and/or technological steps to ensure nobody records your performance that doesn't assign you the copyright to that recording. But the performance and the recording of it are different things, and the performance cannot be copyrighted because it cannot be copied.
The words to a song can also be copied, and can be copyrighted. There are two copyrights possibly at play here, and Prince owns neither of them.
I don't think they do, in entirety. Music is subject to compulsory licensing. Now, compulsory licensing may not have come up in this particular case, but the GPL and compulsory licensing are not compatible, so Radiohead licensing their work under the GPL wouldn't have the effect they think it would.
IANAL, and I don't claim to understand copyright law, either, but you can look up compulsory licensing on Wikipedia, which links to the relevant text of the copyright code. Of course, the code is interpreted by case law and such, so that's not enough to really "understand copyright", but that's all I've got, I'm afraid. Worse yet, I can't even assert that only US law applies, though in this case I think it's true.
Judging from the discussion here, most of the comments that come across as confident or assertive are made by people who don't really understand what they are talking about. I wouldn't describe everyone's comments that way, and I've got nothing against confidence backed by actual knowledge, but on the whole I think Slashdot would be better off with a dose of humility.
Thank goodness that Prince issued this ridiculous DMCA stunt, for a moment there I thought he had become an irrelevance to modern pop music scene. This will definitely make me buy his records now.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I just watched the video on YouTube (Streisand effect, anyone?) and found that aside from the original solos that Prince added (which were on-key and quite good), his actual singing of the song was feeble/weak, the song lacked its climaxes at the chorus, and he was off-time when singing the song's verses; he totally bastardized the song. If I were Prince, I would want it taken down too, out of embarassment for how bad the cover was.