Artist Not Allowed To Stream His Own Music

the_arrow writes "Scottish artist Edwyn Collins wanted to stream one of his own songs on MySpace, but it seems that copyright misunderstandings make him unable to do so. According to the article, 'Management for the former Orange Juice frontman have been unable to convince the website that they own the rights to A Girl Like You, despite the fact that they, er, do.' Collins said, 'I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.' His wife added, 'MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright.'"

Comments

Registered?

[mcgrew]

In the US this would be a non-issue; here one can register a copyright with the Library of Congress for a very small fee, and your certificate is proof you hold copyright.

Is there anything like that in Britain? TFA doesn't say if the song's copyright is registered, or even if it can be in Britain.

Re:Registered?

[LihTox]

Also, in the US you do not have to register it to own the copyright. Placing a copyright notice on the work is sufficient.

You don't even need the notice; every bloody thing you write is copyrighted unless explicitly released into the public domain. That's one of the many screwed-up things about US copyright law; you can have copyrighted material which gives you no indication as to who owns the copyright, let alone how to contact them. If you want to sue for damages, though, then registration will get you a better payoff; and registration serves as proof of ownership, in case there is a dispute over who actually wrote a particular song.

Re:Not always a problem

[mcgrew]

You must not have RTFA;

"I naturally blew my stack and wrote to MySpace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn's track? ... Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't."

Once again this shows the REAL reason the majors don't want P2P, even though it has been shown to increase sales -- it also increases indies' sales. Opposition to P2P is part of the majors' war against the indies.

Does Britain have a law that would allow him to sue Warner? I would think they must.

Re:Not always a problem

[sarahbau]

MySpace didn't just assume that someone else owned the copyright. In this case, it seems Warner Music Group was trying to claim they owned it, when they didn't. Perhaps at some point, Warner sold his CDs, while he retained copyright, or something.

Re:Not always a problem

[Rogerborg]

You must not have RTFA;

Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

Re:Think

[ByOhTek]

So true, so true.

That, and the competence of the developers there has to be some of the worst on the web. Why should the competence of any of their other divisions be any better?

Yup...

[Urza9814]

Many years ago I had a myspace profile entirely removed for uploading one song that I created using 'cat [textfile] > /dev/audio'. Yea. Apparently the title I decided to give it was too close to a song that they had listed in their database as being copyrighted or something so they killed my entire profile immediately. I sent a couple emails to the address they had given to contact in such cases and I never got a response. I'm amazed he even managed to get in contact with anybody...

Re:Amazon sells the track

[s0litaire]

The Record labels DON'T have rights to sell the track (their rights to sell ran out years ago!)

The Blog post said:

A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him.

So the music label is basically stealing Edwins work and not paying him.

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

The flaw here is that these artists (and people in general) still think they own rights. They don't. The rights have been transferred to the corporations who, with the cooperation of Congress and other corporations, control everything. The artist doesn't own the song in the view of either WB or myspace, and that's why he can't stream it.

No, the flaw here is you didn't reading the article before posting.

"He owns the copyright," Maxwell underlined, "as he does for most of the music he's recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped 'in perpetuity' to use the contract language of the major record company)."

Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.

Re:Think

[wastedlife]

Erm, while it is usually the case that the artist(s) will sell the rights to the label to get a record deal, if you had read the summary even, you would have seen that Mr. Collins does in fact own the rights, and the label does not. Warner Music is illegitimately claiming copyright, and MySpace is taking their word over the actual owner's.

Well of course!

[tkrotchko]

"MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright"

Do you think that's by accident? The major labels have gone out of their way in the past 10 years to convince the governments and public that they are the sole gatekeeper for music. It's to their benefit to create that thought so that passing laws to codify their position and become the sole gatekeeper for music actually seem reasonable.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[IDtheTarget]

It is most definitely about MySpace. It doesn't matter what Warner claims (even if it was illegal and they could be sued for theft), MySpace has the duty to investigate the claim of copyright. It's not even that hard! Go to the U. S. Copyright Office Search Page and type in "Collins Edwyn" and the sixth link to return is "Girl Like You". If I can find it in 2 minutes, how long should it take MySpace?

Re:Think

[conureman]

Considering that MySpace purports to be a musician's site (or used to), and it seems to be the leader in it's niche, perhaps he thinks that it would benefit others if they could be convinced to remove their head from their ass.

Re:iFail

[Mister Whirly]

No, MySpace originally started out as a way for bands to get their stuff out there, and maintain contacts lists easily. It is why I signed up for it about 4 years ago. Facebook started out as a way for high school and college friends to find each other easily. I remember way back I think you even needed a school email to sign up for Facebook.

Required by Law

[spun]

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits. Any publicly traded corporation can be sued if they put anything else but the bottom line first. They have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for their shareholders. If they use shareholder money to promote art, make music, and support artists without making money for said shareholders, they are breaching that fiduciary responsibility.

Re:Think

[NoodleSlayer]

Wow. You can't even read the quote? Warners has admitted that they incorrectly asserted copyright on the song and in fact don't own the copyright. This guy has never worked with a major label, does in fact own all his copyrights, and has only licensed the song for time-limited, non exclusive publishing in the past.

Re:Think

[Locke2005]

Like if I showed up at your house, said I owned the place, and everyone simply agreed with me and kicked you out of your home. What?!? That could never really happen! Oh wait... it could.