All Posts Tagged With: "prince"

Last week I heard in the news that Prince was cracking down on YouTube and eBay for not protecting his copyrights. What I am reading in the news is that he is removing grainy videos of his concert in the UK as well as pirated music and videos. There has been no mention of the lip-syncing videos or those where someone else is singing one of his songs.

I used his song in a video and it was taken down. The fact that my video was removed from YouTube still doesn’t sit well with me. Last week or so, I contacted YouTube to find out who to contact regarding my video. They gave me the name of Robert Allen at Universal Music Publishing Group and today I decided to contact him as I felt that there was some misunderstanding about the content of my video as I wasn’t sure about who actually looked at the video to get it removed. This is what I wrote:

From: Kenya Allmond
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 8:53:13 AM
To: robert.allen[email omitted]
Subject: Questions Regarding Video Removed from YouTube

Mr. Allen,

I was given your name by YouTube as a contact person regarding my video that was taken down being accused of copyright infringement. The video was of my boyfriend lip-syncing to Prince’s Kiss. We were driving along and the song came on the radio, he got really into the song so I took my camera out and recorded it. I thought he was really funny so I posted it to YouTube primarily for the purpose of sharing with friends and family. This was a home video.

While I understand that Prince’s song was in the video (it came on the radio) and was the point of the video since my boyfriend was lip-synching to it, I don’t understand why the video from removed. Under what circumstances is a home video considered to be infringing on copyrights? Am I as a consumer required to license the music in a lip-sync fan video? How much would such licensing cost?

Please provide guidance as I am confused that my video was removed and would like to know what course of action to take.

kenya allmond
kenyaoa[email omitted]
vm/f 202.478.0490

Below is the response I received.

From: Allen, Robert
Date: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 11:21:35 AM
To: kenyaoa[email omitted]
Subject: Re: Questions Regarding Video Removed from YouTube

Under U.S. Copyright law, the copyright owner of a musical composition has the right to permit or deny the synchronization of that musical composition in any audio-visual work. Many of the writers administered by Universal Music Publishing encourage the synchronization of their musical compositions in audio-visual works displayed on YouTube; however, others do not. We respect these decisions by our writers and act accordingly.

Best regards,

Robert Allen

I just love canned responses that don’t answer my questions. Prince is not mentioned by name even though I know that he wrote this song per my legally purchased CD at home. While I know that a copyright holder “has the right to permit or deny the synchronization of that musical composition in any audio-visual work” this email does not specify if it is even possible to even get permission as I asked in my email. His response also specifically mentions YouTube. So does that mean that I can put the video up on some other video sharing site? I won’t but I’m just asking.

At any rate, if Prince does not want fans lip-syncing his songs (or singing them) then I will have to respect that. But I will also have to accept that perhaps I shouldn’t listen to them anymore for fear that I or anyone around me might be tempted to sing them.

This is my personal opinion. I wonder how the rest of the internet especially those who have had videos removed are reacting. I think most people are upset with YouTube but this is not a YouTube issue. Imagine the implications of video recording a wedding, party or other gathering where music is played. An artist might think it is infringing on his/her copyright if posted to YouTube or the scores of other video sharing sites out there.

Yesterday I received a lovely notice from YouTube indicating that one of my videos was removed due to copyright infringement. The notice also stated that repeat incidents of copyright infringement would result in deletion of my account and all the videos uploaded to said account.

What was the video? Did I record something from TV and post it? Did I rip a DVD and post it? It was none of these. It is a video of the boyfriend lipsyncing to Prince’s “Kiss”.

The email from YouTube said that they received a third-party notification from The Music Publisher claiming that the material was infringing. My problem with this is that they don’t tell me who notified them that my video was infringing their copyright. The Music Publisher? Not only this but they deleted it within a few hours of me making the video public. According to YouTube copyright holders can

sign up for our Content Verification Program which electronically notifies us, removing any room for error, and significantly increases the speed at which we are able to remove any infringing content.

So this is an anonymous, automated process. Even though I love technology, I really hate anonymous, automated processes especially when they take the place of a human. My question is whether anyone actually watched the video that I posted. My suspicions tell me that my video was flagged on the basis of a text search as my description contained “The BF really seems to like ‘Kiss’ by Prince.” My suspicions are bolstered by the fact that Robert Anton’s YouTube account was deleted because of a video where he sang a short portion of Prince’s “Kiss” acapella.

Another video deleting instance was last month when guitar instructor David Taub of NextLevelGuitar.com had over 100 of his video guitar lessons removed from YouTube because a music company accused him of copyright infringement for an instructional video on how to play a Rolling Stones song. Other video questionable take-downs have ranged from videos of friends at a restaurant to videos that had similar titles to TV shows. Again, it’s obviously an automated process.

YouTube has undoubtedly created this process to deal with the large number of copyright infringement claims that it has to process. This is probably the most efficient way to deal with these requests as not removing infringing material can be costly. I do understand that. YouTube/Google currently is embroiled in a lawsuit filed by Viacom over copyright infringement. I’m sure that other companies are waiting in the wings for their chance to collect from YouTube as well.

But this begs the question of “what is fair use?” If I’m at a party or wedding and a song comes on, should I turn my camera off? Am I infringing on a copyright? What about karaoke? If I film or otherwise record someone singing karaoke am I breaking the law? Is a lipsync video pirated? Are these copyright holders using this automated system to get around what would normally be considered fair use?

I am going to submit a counter notice because I am interested in seeing what will happen. In the meantime, I have posted a version of the video without sound to see if it will be deleted as well.

Of course this video has lost its point without the sound. I wonder if “The Music Publisher” considers mouthing the lyrics to a song copyright infringement.