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Warner Music Files Copyright Claim on A Silent 'Star Wars' Video On YouTube (wired.com)
rgh02 writes:
Earlier this summer, popular YouTube channel Auralnauts received some unfortunate news: Warner/Chappell had filed a monetization claim on their "Star Wars Minus Williams" video through YouTube's Content ID System. More than anything, the Auralnauts were confused -- the video the music company was claiming rights over didn't have any music in it at all.
In fact, the video is almost entirely silent, augmented with a few awkward coughs as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker plod noiselessly toward Princess Leia in a two-minute scene where they're awarded ceremonial medallions. Wired's article describes it as "a tongue-in-cheek tribute" to John Williams' Star Wars score for the film's final scene, also reporting that it had been online for almost three years before Warner/Chappell music publishing claimed rights to all money the video would receive: When I tried to get Warner/Chappell's side of this story, the company offered no comment. But apparently my reporting helped bring the "Star Wars Minus Williams" copyright dispute to an unexpectedly speedy resolution. When Koonce told his YouTube partner manager that a journalist had interviewed him, YouTube stepped in and removed the copyright claim against the video.
YouTube has also created a "Fair Use Protection" program covering legal costs for channels they believe are unfairly targeted with video takedown notices. But the article points out that 95% of the time music companies just chose YouTube's "monetize" option to claim the ad revenue rather than asking that a video be blocked -- and that last year YouTube paid the music industry $1 billion. (Though the music industry insists that amount is still below what they're receiving from streaming music services.)
In fact, the video is almost entirely silent, augmented with a few awkward coughs as Han Solo and Luke Skywalker plod noiselessly toward Princess Leia in a two-minute scene where they're awarded ceremonial medallions. Wired's article describes it as "a tongue-in-cheek tribute" to John Williams' Star Wars score for the film's final scene, also reporting that it had been online for almost three years before Warner/Chappell music publishing claimed rights to all money the video would receive: When I tried to get Warner/Chappell's side of this story, the company offered no comment. But apparently my reporting helped bring the "Star Wars Minus Williams" copyright dispute to an unexpectedly speedy resolution. When Koonce told his YouTube partner manager that a journalist had interviewed him, YouTube stepped in and removed the copyright claim against the video.
YouTube has also created a "Fair Use Protection" program covering legal costs for channels they believe are unfairly targeted with video takedown notices. But the article points out that 95% of the time music companies just chose YouTube's "monetize" option to claim the ad revenue rather than asking that a video be blocked -- and that last year YouTube paid the music industry $1 billion. (Though the music industry insists that amount is still below what they're receiving from streaming music services.)
warner bros. and others who make false claims like this should be penalized in some way--either through fines or by losing their right to file claims in the future..
Better yet, they should lose their copyright privileges. That would put a swift stop to it.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
monetization claim: this is the most interesting part for me: prediction of the future.
The future is behind content identification, not behind content blocking. All content will be quickly identified and ISP will be paying content owners a fee from the money they collect from our ISP fees.
Pirate site and owner site - both will exist and compete in technology and convenience of content delivery (for example, a site might to choose to slap ads on the content, the other site might choose not to, the third site might choose that you pay an additional fee for content delivery, guess, who will be winning the users?) but the ISP will pay only content owners for our clicks.
Never mind this particular monetization claim is ridiculous. 2 min excerpt should be covered by Fair Use act, but in general, that's how it will work in the future.
Users will pay a fixed fee and get all the content on the Internet for the price of that fee. ISPs will take care of owners.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Unless they bought the rights to 4'33"?
Ezekiel 23:20
The amount of time that you have been getting away with illegal behavior is utterly irrelevant.
This is completely untrue.
The amount of time Warner Music has gotten away with their criminal and illegal behavior is completely relevant.
Filing a DMCA takedown for something copyright law does not grant the copyright holder rights over is a federal crime, and the damages Warner is legally responsible for increase the longer their crimes are permitted.
Warner is very clearly guilty of a federal count of perjury (they do not own the copyright over "silence" like Warner has claimed), and a count of fraud and a count of theft of a value that is continually rising with time.
They are also likely going to be guilty of one of two other crimes depending on their near future actions.
Filing a DMCA takedown notice, that has been counter claimed, is a crime if you do not actually follow through with a court case to sue the defendant.
Alternately, if they DO sue, then instead their lawyer is in violation of legal bar ethics laws for proceeding with the case after they are required by law to inform their client there is no basis for the case.
In the first situation above, they can be fined for SLAPP damages. In the second, the legal department is subject to damages for using the courts time and possibly punishments from the bar association.
The simple fact of the matter is that copyright law dictates exactly what a copyright holder can and can not dictate regarding their works, and a 2 minute video with no sound is completely exempt from any assertion of their control.
Also copyright law only allows you to dictate control over works of art you actually have copyright protection over.
You making one song does NOT grant you ownership over every song anyone world wide has made over all time.
Additionally that copyright protection doesn't grant you the right over specific uses of your protected work.
If you don't like that fact, go complain to the government which is forcing you to place any and all works you create under the preview of copyright law that you don't want applying to your works.
It's hardly OUR fault the government is forcing these laws on you and us just the same, but you don't get to choose to ignore the laws and claim rights you don't have simply because you happen to hold copyright protection over something.
If it costs them less to file the claim than the claim than they will get back on the average, they'll do it. There are only two ways to stop them - [1] make it illegal (and then they will only stop some of the time) or [2] make it unprofitable.
Right now the way the system is set up, for very little effort they can file a claim and siphon off the ad revenue. It's a "click here for free money" button. Who in their right mind wouldn't press the button? Right now the ONLY negative side-effect is bad press. And just look what happened here. "You discussed our abuse of the system with a journalist?!" *DING* ((claim dropped)) Imagine that!
It's not that they don't know what they're doing is wrong - it's that they simply don't care. It's just free money until it attracts bad press. I don't blame them, I blame the rules. If I were in their position, I'd probably be doing the same thing. The problem is the "click here for free money" button. The only way to fix the problem is to fix the rules.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
The entire film should be in the public domain by now.