Universal Sends DMCA Takedown On 1980 Report

An anonymous reader writes "For many, many years, every time some new technology has come along, the music industry has insisted that it's going to "kill" the industry. The player piano was supposed to kill live music. So was the radio. And, of course, every time this happens the press is willing to take the industry's word at face value. In 1980, the news program 20/20 posted a report all about how "home taping is killing music," with various recording industry execs insisting the industry was on its last legs unless something was done. Someone posted that 20/20 episode to YouTube a few years back, where it sat in obscurity until people noticed it a couple weeks ago. And suddenly, Universal Music issued a takedown notice for the show. Universal Music does not own 20/20, and there were only brief clips of music in the show. It appears the only reason for Universal to issue the takedown is that it doesn't want you seeing how badly it overreacted in the past."

Comments

People send takedown notices almost randomly

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed a bunch of home-filmed performances of amateur pianists playing various Mozart stuff had been taken down, because some random publishing company claimed ownership, just to plaster them with ads -- and the company gets the ad revenue.

Anybody with a brain would realize that the work is hundreds of years old, and the performance in question is owned by the poster (the guy sitting at the piano), but apparently forcing your ads onto other peoples youtube vids in this manner has become a trendy revenue stream for cocksuckers. Almost as trendy as the sucking of the cock in the first place.

Re:People send takedown notices almost randomly

[HermMunster]

Those Mozart pieces of music are in the public domain. If someone performs a musical piece from that era that works then automatically becomes copyrighted--only that performance and not the actual work that it was based on.

There are penalties for false DMCA claims but no one goes after the abusers. This should have been established up front and tremendous penalties should be levied against those making false claims. The impact of a false claim has a much larger impact than some individual violating copyrighted materials, IMHO.

The purpose of the monopoly ownership of these types of works of art was to encourage creativity. They were granted monopoly over these works for a limited time knowing it would be put into the public domain afterwards.

Back then the content creator's claim were that if they didn't have monopoly rights and all things went to the public domain there'd be no reason to create. So, the government, in an effort to ensure everything went to the public domain to help ensure culture survived, granted them this right, not the other way round.

More damning than that

[rudy_wayne]

I recently came across an old copy of Modern Recording magazine from early 1981. There is an article about how cassette decks are evil and home taping is hurting the record industry and the RIAA commissioned a study that that they hoped to take to congress as proof that new laws were need.

But a funny thing happened. The report was shelved when it revealed that people who owned home recording equipment spent 75% more money buying music than people who didn't own an evil cassette deck.

If only we had Video and Youtube in 1910

[l0ungeb0y]

Then you'd see first hand from the late Mortimer I. Luddite III with his frantic pleas to stop those infernal horseless carriages from destroying his buggy-whip business he made just days before being struck down and killed by a Model T going a whopping 10 miles an hour through the town square.
Innovation and progress is only good so long as the established powers that be profit by it.

Re:The more things change...

[grantek]

The cool thing is their greed is being eaten away from the other side as well - home recording, powerful computers/software, and the internet is making it easier and easier for artists to get a quality product to an audience, bypassing the "music industry" altogether - at least for recorded music.

I don't think the **AA-type organizations have any coherent picture on what the future of media should be, other than "everyone should buy every release of the same shit over and over again".

Re:Or maybe

[flyneye]

My interesting idea is to go ahead and share music, never paying a cent until the music industry is very actually teats up.
Musicians will once again be able to make a living playing music. Give it away and charge for performance. It really is the only realistic way for music to even work. Give it away and charge for performance. Music will thrive with actual musicians rather than office flunkies controlling it.
Yes, kill the industry completely f**king dead. We don't need them, never have, and would've ALWAYS been better off without them.