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

Think

[whisper_jeff]

Wasn't it the major labels that implored us to think of the artists?

Yeah.

Re:Think

[commodore64_love]

P.S.

You say myspace is the problem, but do you think this artist would get different results on other sites like youtube or googlevideo? Youtube's pulled-down every song owned by WB per their request, and that would include this song "A Girl Like You". If Scottish artist Edwyn Collins tried to post his song on youtube, that too would get yanked. The problem is not the dot-com site but the DMCA law which requires the dot-com to take action, or else be fined.

Re:Think

[spun]

The copyright owner's rights are being abridged by a fraudulent copyright claim from WB. 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. Please tell me you are going for some kind of rhetorical approach to a larger argument, and that you are not actually confused on the issue of whose rights are being abridged how.

Re:Think

[jaraxle]

Wow. You can't even read the quote?

Neither can you, apparently.

The artist holds rights to his own works. A major label has laid claim to his works, saying they hold the rights to it. After getting hold of an actual lawyer with said major label, the artist is told "Sorry" and that it will be sorted, but after months it still isn't.

In trying to publish works that the artist owns the rights to, he is told he can't, nor can he apparently rectify the situation with the label causing the problems. He effectively has no rights to his own works at this point.

~jaraxle

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one would think the DMCA gave the site owner the right to get proof thet the plaintiff is the actual copyright holder before doing anything. I don't think the DMCA is the problem here.

One would "think"?

The DMCA REQUIRES the site to take down the offending content when they get the takedown notice. IF the person who put it on the site has a legal right to do so, they have to then submit a counter-claim, at which point the site CAN (but does not HAVE to) put it back up. However, once a counter-claim is filed any repeat takedown notices do not have to be acted upon and it's up to the two parties who filed notice to resolve it in court.
Failure to immediately take down the content makes the site liable, failure to re-instate it when they get a counter-claim does NOT make them liable.

So YES, the DMCA IS EXACTLY the problem.

Re:Think

[Daniel Dvorkin]

whining about MySpace's policies

MySpace is breaking the law, or at least acting as an accessory to Warner's fraudulent claim of copyright. They are also failing to provide a service which they claim to provide. It's not "whining" to bring this to public attention.

Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

So this isn't a story about MySpace. They have been notified of a copyright conflict, so they don't allow distribution of the song. The real story is that labels claim copyrights they don't have, for commercial gain, and are not paying $150000 per song.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anita Coney]

"So this isn't a story about MySpace."

It is about MySpace. Sure the label started the problem by claiming a copyright on a song it did not hold. However, it is now a MySpace problem because the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.

Now that the label has admitted it has no copyright claim, it's MySpace's job to fix it and allow the song to be streamed. The label certainly cannot fix that problem. The fact that MySpace has not done so in three months makes it pretty clear that this story is about MySpace.

Simple Solution

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Stop. Using. MySpace.
Find someone who understands what you're about, and use their service instead. If your business depends entirely on you having a presence on MySpace, you're doing something wrong. Especially now that this may (has?) cost you attorney's fees to sort it out.

Corporations have more rights than individuals

[tekrat]

This is yet another example of Corporations having more freedoms and rights, than people do. People can vote, but corporations can lobby. People go to jail when they break the law, corporations maybe pay a fine at most -- some in fact, seem to get money from the government for breaking the law.

I urge everyone in the United Corp.. uh States of America, to incorporate themselves so that they finally have rights.

Remember that faxed letterhead carries more weight than actual legal precidence....

Re:Not always a problem

[InsaneProcessor]

This sounds like Warner needs to be sued. Big money lawsuit!

Re:Not always a problem

[grahammm]

Which, unlike illegal copying and sharing, actually is copyright theft.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Corporate apologists consider justice to be something like groceries, i.e. something you send someone out to purchase when you need it.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

You can't break the law to make money, yet. But if you, say, ship your manufacturing off to a country that where there are no environmental regulations, then you are doing right by your shareholders. If many companies start doing this, and seeing a profit, then shareholders can successfully sue companies that don't, or replace the boards.

Many people who would never think to throw trash in their neighbor's yard will, essentially, hire someone to throw trash in their neighbor's yard, and they will sleep like babies at night, believing they are good people.