Hip Hop

Listen to 45 million songs (Popcorn time for music)

2 followers

Listen to 45 million songs (Popcorn time for music)

2 followers

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@staringispolite Yup, the moral and legal bits get mixed in a discussion like this. Please correct me if there's case law to the contrary but I don't think any of the song videos on YouTube, whether the visuals are an original work or just lyrics, would qualify as fair use. Time shifting a recording for personal use is protected because that use is personal. The line gets blurry at some point. Friends + family movie night is okay but movie night in the park with 50 people is not, regardless of whether or not admission is charged.

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12yr ago

CryptoPoops

Yeah I don't know if any YouTube issues have been in the courts at all (or how to search that). I wonder if anyone's tried to take down an original music video for a song in the first place... At first glance though, it does seem like lyrics could conceivably count as "provides the public with a benefit not previously available to it, which would otherwise remain unavailable" (especially since that's the clause the Google Image Search qualified under).

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12yr ago

@staringispolite sorry that's not how Youtube works! if that were the case, all those videos would be in violation of copyright. Making something new with someone else's work, without a license permitting using that work, does not make it your work! It just makes you in violation of their copyright. The way Youtube now allows all these music uploads is that they identify the songs in the video using special software and pay royalties to the copyright holders (through ASCAP or SoundExchange). It's a small, piddling amount, but this is how Youtube has managed to move past the endless barrage of illegal uploads + takedown notices. It's also why you see a little "buy this song" widget on the right side of the video description for these types of videos.

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12yr ago

@staringispolite YouTube music videos are not protected under any of the 4 factors. I don't have examples of specific cases, but as someone who has been affected by Google's automatic copyright protection system, Google definitely takes down videos in accordance with DMCA. Further, to correct your second point: Image Search is a gray area, because the ones violating copyright are the websites hosting the image. Image search services claim to only point to existing content. If a copyright holder wants to issue a takedown request, they have to go after the hosts of their content. Lyrics sites are *not* ok. Lyrics sites are frequently taken down due to violating copyright. Lyrics copyright belongs to the songwriter, and lyrics sites are supposed to pay a licensing fee to host those lyrics. This is a great read on the topic: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browb... and note two things: RapGenius used to claim a "commentary and critique" fair use provision (never defended in court) and is now paying licensing fees for lyrics hosting. Duchamp's Mona Lisa would fall under the realm of parody, but it also existed long before these copyright laws were really tested in court. A much better example is Shepard Fairey vs AP on the Obama "Hope" poster, in which Shepard Fairey was accused of violating a photographer's copyright when he used a photo without permission to design his poster of Obama. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/1...

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12yr ago

CryptoPoops

Wikipedia seems to claim otherwise, but who knows how reputable wikipedia is :) @rrhoover - Yeah, good discussion!

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12yr ago

My background in this is through photography. I've done a fair amount of research and reading to build background for that. These numbers are pure guesswork, but for every one case of persecuted fair use I'd guess there are at least 10,000 cases of violations committed under the guise of fair use. If you a 5th grader decides to include a thumbnail of a Time magazine cover in a report about the lead story in that issue, that's fair use. But if that article's about blue whales and our fifth grader grabs a National Geographic image of a whale from Google Images, he/she is breaking the law. People somehow develop a sense that their willingness to pay is the fair market value of IP. This applies to both 5th graders and professionals at ad agencies with real budgets. A common justification for violating federal copyright law is, "It wasn't important, I would have gotten someone else to do it for free. You should have been thankful for the exposure." This kind of flippant attitude is typically why even individuals who hold valuable copyrights tend to be fairly defensive about the nature of that protection. I'd venture a guess that .01% of the US population owns or manages any intellectual property of notable value. Part of what makes these issues tricky is that a court has to assess the social contribution of a derivative work. It feels a bit odd for a court to determine whether or not something is art. But that's the case. Lyric videos certainly do not pass this test. Shepard Fairey was one of the most interesting cases in a long time. Sadly Fairey lied, tried to destroy evidence to cover up his tracks, was discovered, and nearly went to prison for it. Rap Genius most likely would have lost had they went to court, but they could still stake a much more viable claim to fair use than the user-generated, "I don't own or make money from this" content on YouTube. That's why it's nice to have a big pile of VC $$.

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12yr ago

CRATES IS HIGH™

This would be a dope integration with a project I'm the maker of, Crates is High-a Hip Hop, Rap, and R&B record club. Check it out: https://dig.vnyl.st/app-cratesis...

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8yr ago

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