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RIAA Forces YouTube to Remove Free Guitar Lessons
Journal written by Bushido Hacks (788211) and posted by
Zonk
on Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:21 AM
from the quit-trying-to-learn-things-you-ungrateful-grubs dept.
from the quit-trying-to-learn-things-you-ungrateful-grubs dept.
Bushido Hacks write "Is it so wrong to learn how to play the guitar? According to NPR, a record company ordered YouTube to remove videos of a man who offered to show people how to play the guitar for free. One of the songs that he taught was copyrighted, and as a result over 100 of his videos were removed from the internet. 'Since he put his Web site up last year, he has developed a long waiting list for the lessons he teaches in person. And both he and Taub say that's still the best way to learn. If someone tells Sandercoe to take down his song lessons, he says he will. But his most valuable videos are the ones that teach guitar basics -- things like strumming, scales and finger-picking. And even in the digital age, no one holds a copyright on those things.' How could this constitute as infringement if most musicians usually experiment to find something that sounds familiar?"
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RIAA Forces YouTube to Remove Free Guitar Lessons
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Fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://canuckster.org/)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
(http://neolicity.blogspot.com/)
People have figured out chords to songs from the radio for decades. Is playing the song for a friend, or teaching them the chords, a violation of copyright? Then I should be signing checks to the RIAA every other day, it seems. But that is silly; it's just simple sharing. Doing it over the internet is nothing new (although, doing it over the internet commercially is something else. If anyone makes money, it should be the artists).
Here is a little sharing of my own. I figured out the chords to 'Cloudbusting' by Kate Bush the other day. But I won't post the actual chords (which might be 'copyright violation', supposedly), instead, I modulated the song to a different key. So actually they aren't the chords to anything: And anyway these are probably inaccurate, like 95% of internet chords.
Re:Fair use (Score:4, Insightful)
Oops... I was wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
Justin could make good money selling DVDs. More power to him for chosing not to, but he doesn't have the right to make that choice on the songwriters' behalf.
Justin does sell DVDs, as you can see at his site [justinguitar.com]. So really, these freebies are in part adverts for his products.
Essentially, he is using copyright material for his advertising campaign. It's no different from when Coca-Cola's marketing people ripped off 7 Seconds of Love's song Ninja for an Argentinian TV ad. Whose side was everybody on then?
HAL.
Re:Oops... I was wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.kaeding.name/)
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.positech.co.uk/)
Try to think it through before spouting knee-jerk anti-copyright nonsense.
And don't make us laugh by suggesting donationware (seen not to work or anything but a trivial scale) or state sponsorship. I don't want the government to approve all entertainment, and neither should you.
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine two scenarios:
1. you write successful book/album and it stays copyrighted indefinitely, bringing you income forever
2. you write successful book/album and the copyright expires in 14 years, depriving you of income
Under which scenario are you MORE likely to write a new book/album?
> J K Rowling (Harry Potter) was an unemployed single mother when she wrote her first novel.
And it was a hugely successful novel. She could easily have hung up her writer's cap and lived off royalties from the first book, but she felt compelled to write more Potter novels. Why? Just for the money? You want to tell her that to her face?
It's time to stamp out the myth that "without copyright, nothing creative would ever be produced." It wasn't true in the past, it won't be true in the future. The only thing that won't be produced is fat-cat middlemen who think music isn't something to be ENJOYED, it's merely something to be bought and sold!
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:5, Insightful)
Media companies don't want to encourage the creation of new works, they want artificial scarcity. They want to create the impression that making music, making pictures, writing stories, and making videos is some kind of black art that only they can do and that costs millions in investments. As far as they're concerned, if teaching music were outlawed, it would be all the better because they could just keep selling the crap they are selling right now.
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Come on, guys. The vast majority of rock music uses the same few chords. They're not secrets. There's really no use in trying to hide them!
And, why does the RIAA always try to squelch those who are interested in learning guitar? Don't they need a steady influx of "talent" to exploit?
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www1.istockph...ind_your_own_busines)
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www1.istockph...ind_your_own_busines)
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Interesting)
The number of songs that use a standard blues progression is STAGGERING. Half of a Blues Brother's CD is straight blues progression, which you can find being recorded by any other reasonable blues artist.
The number of songs based off of George Gershwin's I've Got Rhythm are so numerous, jazz improvisers know the progression by heart so they can be more versatile at jam sessions and gigs.
What's the lesson, RIAA? Lack of a copyright, or non-enforcement of a copyright, produced MORE art. Enforcement of a non-existent copyright KILLS art. The RIAA is killing the goose in search of more golden eggs.
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, no. In 1994, SCOTUS found that using a melody from another song is legal fair use [benedict.com], if the new version is genuinely a new song, even if the entire song is noticeably similar to the orignal.
Anything else would effectively be a ban on the creation of new music - there are extremely few places where genuinely new melodies are being created, and most of those are experimenting with bizarre tunings or similar things. The number of possible pleasant-sounding melody themes in the 12-note scale is not so large that we're still capable of finding large numbers of new ones. Most new songs just put existing melodies together in new ways. SCOTUS declined to ban the creation of new music, so there is no such thing as a copyright on a melody, only on the complete song.
Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:4, Informative)
"The RIAA is usually (more) rabid about defending guitar tabs and such... I honestly find it funny, in a pathetic sort of way."
Nope -- the RIAA doesn't care about guitar tabs, either. The RIAA has had nothing to do with the shutting down of the guitar tab sites, just as they had nothing to do with this -- the submitter was lying, and he fooled you good and proper. All the record companies care about is the copyright on the recordings. That's why they sue people for trading copies of recordings.
I guess it's easy to use "RIAA" as a catch-all for anybody who attempts to protect their rights in a way that we find distasteful, but I think it's important to understand the difference between record companies and publishing companies, and the respective rights that they hold. To fight your enemy, you must first understand them.
I honestly don't understand... (Score:1, Insightful)
Oh, because the RIAA aren't artists?
The guitar website in question (Score:5, Informative)
I'm calling bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
The RIAA owns the copyrights on recordings. Publishing companies own the rights to music and lyrics. If it's an "unauthorized public performance," it's ASCAP and BMI -- who represent the rights of composers and songwriters -- who get you. Not the record companies. Not the RIAA.
That's the ugly truth here -- sometimes it's the composers and the lyricists who are the bad guys. Not everybody who protects their rights (or, perhaps, overprotects in this case) is the RIAA.
This raises the question: did the submitter really think the RIAA was behind this, or was he having a joke at Slashdotters' expense? If the latter, it's worked -- there are already several posts from people who are just shocked that the RIAA would do such a thing.
If this pisses you off, you should be upset at ASCAP or BMI -- who, again, are run by and for composers and lyricists. The RIAA doesn't have a monopoly on evil.
Re:I'm calling bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
A followup to my own post. The copyright claim was filed by ABKCO [wikipedia.org], which happens to be both a record company and a publishing company. So, stating that they were hassled by a record company is correct -- because in this case, the record company has a music publishing arm.
Per the Wikipedia article, ABKCO was also behind the Verve / Bittersweet Symphony mess. It appears that the article has already been updated to reflect ABKCO's action against the guitar lesson fellow.
Wraa (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://blog.mzzt.net/)
What does the RIAA have to do with this? (Score:3, Informative)
(http://www.animats.com)
This isn't an RIAA issue. They sell recorded performances. It's the copyright in the composition that's involved here. That's licensed separately, in the US usually through the Harry Fox Agency. [harryfox.com]
Sheesh (Score:1)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday November 01, @12:01PM)
I'm not a big fan of the RIAA's tactics, but in this case, a performance is a performance. What difference does it make about the performance's motivation?
I think I'll put out an album of covers and call it a "training album". Then I can avoid paying royalties! Wheeeeeee!
Does the article actually say that? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://redjacket.ws/)
Not only that, the phrase "RIAA" doesn't even appear in the NPR article.
Didn't anyone bother to proof read the article before posting it, or did another strikingly similar (but different) article about guitar and YouTube get linked?
"A Record Company" != RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
Summary doesn't mention one aspect... (Score:3, Insightful)
Taub sees the videos, at least in part, as a marketing tool for his paid instructional Web site, NextLevelGuitar.com.
Justin Sandercoe also has a teaching Web site -- justinguitar.com.
This does get uncomfortably close to using copyrighted material for profit (e.g. these videos are basically promotions for their sites, which are ad driven and have videos and products for sale.) Considering there are tens of thousands of amateur performances of copyrighted music on Youtube that aren't threatened I wonder if the RIAA sees it this way too.
By the way I'm all for fair use (and am no fan of the RIAA), but this seems a little murkier to me than the summary makes it out to be.
Oh, I weep for the future. (Score:2, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday February 25 2005, @08:30PM)
NO MORE GUITARISTS - ALL TEACHERS SUED
RIAA innocently shrugs shoulders and says, "wot?"
Other Guitar Lessons & Tab (Score:1)
Not necessarily "Fair Use" (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.ashdreams.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday December 17 2003, @01:31AM)
One of the tests of fair use is if the offending use of said work is non-commercial. While the videos themselves are available for free, they contained advertisements to the teacher's pay site: they could be construed as advertising for it. Thus, the work could be construed as being "for profit" and thus not falling under fair use.
I'm not saying I necessarily agree with this interpretation, but I do think it's a good idea to give both sides of the story.
Re:Not necessarily "Fair Use" (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.unity08.com/)
Yes, it is infringement (Score:1, Informative)
Some tutors and teaching books do use accurate transcriptions, but they have to pay royalties. For example, several of the major guitar magazines (Guitar Techniques etc) carry complete transcriptions of famous music, but they do pay royalties on those. Often they leave out lyrics because that reduces the royalty charges (GT for example does this).
No its not nice, but it is legally established fact.
Selling Songs (Score:2)
(http://home.happyface.net/)
I don't believe you can listen to someone else's song, figure out the notes, and then sell that to someone else. It seems to me that the original composer aught to be able to control that.
The kinda reminds me of the websites which were offering music lyrics for free, and earning revenue from advertising. I remember a number of those websites were shut down (some by police force). Although now it seems like they're everywhere, so I don't know what changed.
1 Song = 100 Videos? (Score:4, Insightful)
Baby Seal Analogy (Score:3, Funny)
I'm waiting... (Score:3, Funny)
(http://youtube.com/thedarkener)
Guh!? (Score:2, Interesting)
How about asking the fscking artist if it constitutes copyright infringement? If they say yes, will they still pull ALL of his vids because of a misstep like this? God damn the RIAA.
covers (Score:3, Insightful)
That is nothing (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.houghi.org/)
They have even videotaped it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTp7UrhCOmk [youtube.com]
However I was singing my own song and I am now have asked the RIAA to sue THEM for putting my nusci on line.
You know, those people realy are there to protect me, REALLY!
The Future Of Life..... (Score:4, Funny)
1. The Red Cross will copyright blood, an prohibit its usage without written consent.
2. The SAG will trademark all acting, including lying to your parents about where you were last night.
3. The MPAA will claim ownership of all video recordings.
4. The RIAA will claim ownership of all audio recordings.
5. No work, of any type, will be allowed without the explicit approval of the Teamsters.
6. No one may participate or watch baseball, despite it being the national sport, without written consent from the MLB.
7. Everyone must change their name to John or Jane Doe, becuase all other names will be trademarked.
8. Sexual intercourse will be classified as "Unauthorized Genetic Experimentation", and prosecuted as such.
9. ASCAP will copyright the concept of the "Birthday Party".
10. The AKC will trademark the term 'Dog'.
11. All colors will be trademarked.
12. All smells will be trademarked.
13. Someone will patent 'Oxygen' and all of its allotropes.
14. You will have to pay a royalty fee for waking up in the morning.
15. Languages will be copyrighted/trademarked.
I hope I die before people in the United States are forced to wear neutral gray clothing, live in neutral gray colored houses, speak in monotone voices, and communicate using hand gestures because everything else will have been copyrighted, patented, or trademarked.
I wonder why they are called 'royalties'..... Is it because the rights-holders like to feel as if they are kings over everybody else?
Time to free the music (Score:1)
Everyday we get more examples of how outdated current copyright laws are and how they're spawning negative effects in multiple ways, be it by outlawing many people who are naturally using the capabilities of current technology, possibly ruining their lives by legal action, limiting creativity and access to knowledge created by humans for humans. This knowledge should benefit all humans equally considering that all human knowledge is the product of society as a whole, present and past.
It is time to free the music in the same way as opensource software frees software from being detained by ever more avid companies trying to lock down knowledge.
A GPL-like license for musical creations would be a good step forward, making music free for personal use, while still permitting fees to be collected for the commercial use of the creations. Artists could also be credited a part of ISP's revenues in function of how many downloads there would be of their creations, be it in the form of songs, partitions, etc...
Also the organisms the are supposed to redistribute the money they are collecting for artists should be reformed to be better retribute the artists.
I'm thinking of this example i read yesterday concerning the Sabam (artist revenue collecting association in Belgium). The owner of a little restaurant/concert hall/bar reported that in order to play music he had to pay money to the Sabam, as much as other much bigger places. Also he noted that the small bands that performed there never received any money from the Sabam, eventhough he had to pay artist rights to the Sabam every time there was a concert.
So to distribute the money they collect from many sources, the main criterium used by this organism are records sales & so well known artists get almost all the money & little known ones get close to nothing in many cases if they even have the chance of seeing any money at all.
Apparently doing their job correctly which would mean considering what artists are actually played or perform in these places is not an option. I think it should be and current technology allows to collect this information pretty easily.
RTFA SUBMITTER LIED (Score:2)
I don't understand (Score:2)
Lessons... (Score:2, Informative)
14145415
Here's another quarter of them:
141415415
And the rest:
345
For the non musical, 1234567 represents the notes in any key. The upper paragraph represents about 200 years of rock and blues history, ranging across tens of thousands of songs. Almost all of the songs have a copyright but when you play it yourself no copyright can be claimed because it's your version of a song not the version that has a copyright, hundreds of songs of course are the same exact chords and the same exact rhythm, mostly because that's what makes a genre. Of course you can't blatantly rip off a song and collect on it when it's someone else's music, but you can play it as your own, or make something similar!
There is hundreds of years of president to back up "you can play it", if this changes the RIAA is going to have to shut down every coffee shop and dive bar that employs the poor musicians they are so eager to exploit once they write songs that turn into hits.
theft of culture... (Score:1)
Where does the RIAA fit into this? (Score:2)
I'm not sure I understand how the RIAA fits into all of this. They are about policing the use of recordings produced and distributed by their member companies.
I was under the impression that if someone else (other than the original artist) performs the piece, then it falls under the broader and more reasonable terms of compulsory licensing of sheet music, which should be handled by an entirely different organisation since neither the original performing artist or their recording company really has any standing here (unless one of them wrote the music - and even then, licensing terms for sheet music are fixed.).
As long as the guy on Youtube wasn't silly enough to include part of the original music in his video clip, none of this should be a problem.
RIAA (Score:1)
Smells like evil... (Score:1)
A simple consensus for what is good, would be that which is for the greater good. Yes, the nature of good (and evil) is open to interpretation. Feel free.
Is supporting the RIAA in this instance for the greater good? This too, is open to interpretation; but upon some thought I cannot see a countervailing argument. How is Mr. Sandercore's usage of copyrighted material not fair? How is it not fair use? His technical expertise is his product. The music merely a medium, no different than paper.
(Perhaps it could be said then that plagiarism is then like copying this figurative paper?)
If I remember correctly, Google had a mantra of some form.... a simple, guiding philosophy.
Something like, "Don't be evil.".
While certainly not the first occurrence, this is a perfectly clear example of Google siding with behavior and opinion which are not in the cause of the greater good. Instinctively, and more important logically, this is obvious.
RIAA Taliban? (Score:2, Troll)
From wikipedia [wikipedia.org] [...]A sample Taliban edict issued after their capture of Kabul is one decreed in December 1996 by the "General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf and Nahi Anil Munkar" (or Religious Police) banning a variety of things and activities: music [...] .
Odd company they're keeping.
RIAA (Score:1)
- Floyd
Don McLean Fans will be going to jail now.... (Score:2, Interesting)
(http://insidesecondlife.blogspot.com/)
Chords (Score:3, Insightful)
It's incredibly common to see songs using the exact same chords as each other (maybe in a different key), often with the same strumming pattern, e.g.:
- "Someday You Will Be Loved" by Death Cab for Cutie uses the chords of "House of the Rising Sun" all the way through, except in a different key, and with one chord made minor instead of major.
- "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day and "Wonderwall" by Oasis use the same chord progression - this is just a very common progression.
But no-one cares about that, do they? So why should this case be any different? It's not illegal to play a popular song written by someone else, on the guitar. Try and find an electric guitarist who hasn't ever played the riff from "Smells Like Teen Spirit". So why on Earth should teaching someone to do so be illegal?
Obviously (Score:1)
What next? singing a song would be illegal? (Score:2)
La la, la la la la, la, la la, la la...
wait a minute, someone's at the door...
Just to clear things up: Yes it was RIAA (Score:1)
(http://www.bushidohacks.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 02, @02:44PM)
A. Shrugged it off.
B. Kindly ask for certain songs to be removed or request the instructor to not teach the entire song. (Ergo, the musician would learn how to play the rest on their own.)
C. Compete against the musician by creating their own videos.
A RIAA record company would call their ambulance chasing lawyers.
Remember that RIAA is a union of most of the major record lables. By union, I don't mean like the Teamsters or UAW. Instead, this union is made of large corporate enetities the same way OPEC is made of large oil companies. Many of the members of RIAA are NOT musicians, but lawyers, accountants, and advertising agents many of whom don't know anything about playing music, writing songs, or singing. They do not represent the small time record producers with a studio in their basement. They are not the kid who wants to learn how to play a musical instrument. They are not the high school band teacher, the church organ player, the neighborhood piano tutor, or the retired local musician who teaches their children how to make music.
Their only interest is for you to buy the crap they are selling music rather than developing new music.
youtube *are* sissys . . . (Score:2)
(http://christopherdeckard.com/)
i had a short clip from the film "the cabinet of dr. caligari" on youtube with some music that i produced. it was recently taken down by the request of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung -- which as far as i could tell distributed the film. Of course, the film, being made in the early 1900's is in the public domain, as far as i can tell. so i think this guy knew that youtube had to take it down, no questions asked, and sent them a DMCA letter.
i responded to youtube, this is what they sent back:
the counter-notification procedure is outlined here:
google support [google.com]
the worrisome bit is that i become liable if i am found to "knowingly infringe". this means that if this guys lawyers can show that i knew that it infringed, then i am liable for their costs. what happens if i win? nothing. either way, i'm at risk of paying money. especially since i would probably need to get my own lawyer if i were to pursue the issue.
it sucks. this guy is bluffing, and effectively asserting copyright control over something that is in the public domain (unless he legally got the rights somehow).
and it's just not a priority in my life right now. i just happen to really dig the film, and was working on a soundtrack for it, and then i posted one of the clips to youtube.
mr c.
Guy should comply... (Score:2)
(http://jjjiii.livejournal.com/)
This is moronic (Score:2)
(http://mirrorshades.org/wc)
As far as I know even full covers are considered fair use to a point and this guy usually wasn't even playing the full songs -- again I didn't see the specific video that provoked the ire of the RIAA, but even if he just sat there playing the entire song, there were no vocals, drums, any other instruments, etc. Hardly the same performance.
Isn't using even copyrighted material for instructional purposes protected? How many thousands of guitar players initially got interested because they wanted to be able to play one certain song and brought it to an instructor, saying "can you teach me this?" What this guy was doing was no different. Should we prevent all private guitar instructors from teaching their students "Stairway to Heaven"?
Though the RIAA is hardly known for its logical arguments, I'm really at a loss to see how they can possibly justify this crap. And if you want to slant it so the RIAA can understand, this guy was providing a useful service that was -- and could have continued -- to teach hundreds of aspiring musicians how to rock. Some of whom would have continued to learn, perhaps write their own songs, perhaps record an album the RIAA could exploit. And all they want to do is shut off that potential pool of guitarists so that no one will see an unauthorized performance of the introduction to "Sweet Child Of Mine". Morons.
RIAAs mission (Score:1)
(http://vworkers.com/vruz)
To preserve scarcity, thereby preserving the status quo
controlling -for their sole advantage- the bulk of the
benefit that comes from intellectual property they
took away from society.
This mission is at odds with anyone freely playing
the guitar, singing or doing anything but consuming,
unless they pay the established MAFIAA for it.
Cultural neofeudalism will take place, a new dark age
if they manage to manipulate the law, and make the
government pass legislation to their sole advantage
against the public interest.
Next in this saga:
The quest of RIAA against the evil doings of Karaoke.
Authors vs Supermarket Stockers (Score:1)
(http://aboutblank/)
* State Public libraries violate the nature of copyright by 'renting' away copies for 'free' aka stealing. This dilutes and reduces the quality of books. There is no free lunch. The unintended consequence is that you must now read several books to get the same knowlege as one good one.
* An author must recoup years and years of research. Sadly the poor state of copyright law rewards spreading out written works over several books unfortunately because authors do not fully own their efforts.
People do not realize some better books took 7 to 10 years to write. While you finish reading in 1 week, like music, appears simple but no free lunch.
* That is why the Internet is full of junk. It's diluted not worthy of copyright. No intelligent expert gives good answers away for free.
* The difference between 'liberal' supermarket stockers and book authors is that shelf stockers spend their free time watching TV while good authors are hard at work researching.
Isn't it really advertising? (Score:1)
As far as I can see, the RIAA has nothing to do with this, but I have to admit, it makes a much more sensational headline.
If Only! (Score:1)
(http://www.filthynoises.com/)
Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
False. Check the page the U.S. Copyright Office provides [copyright.gov] about fair use provisions. Among the things they explicitly say are covered by fair use and have been tested in the courts, they list "reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson", in particular when used for "nonprofit educational purposes".
Re:Fair use (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday February 16 2006, @06:22PM)
and before someone says "but there's a link to his website so he's technically profiting!"... no, he isn't. Anyone can watch those lessons online for free, he didn't sell it to you. Now if you decide you like his work and want more lessons and want to pay him for lessons that's fine, but you didn't pay him for the original lesson. Think of it as a teacher showing you something in a class, but then you decide to hire the teacher for private tutoring.
Re:Clearly (Score:2)
(http://www.damppaw.com/)
The question is whether the person exceeded such undefined boundaries. Some other comments seemed to think that it may have, which means that it's not very clear. While it may indeed have been appropriate to remove ones that were suspect, it seems overkill to remove everything that person had ever uploaded.