Monday, July 09, 2007

On-Line Guitar Lessons Shut Down on YouTube

Editor's note. I know this is a bit off topic, but thought it is yet another illustration of the recklessness, selfishness, and thoughtlessness of big music:

This reported by NPR:

YouTube Guitar Lessons Pulled in Copyright Spat

By Frank Langfitt

Morning Edition, July 6, 2007. Thousands of guitar students lost a valuable resource last week. The most popular guitar teacher on YouTube saw his more than 100 videos yanked from the site. The reason: a music company accused him of copyright infringement for an instructional video on how to play a Rolling Stones song.

Complete article






Keywords: digital copyright online law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs

4 comments:

John Newlin said...

Excuse my ignorance of copyright law here. When a party claims that another party is infringing on their copyright, is there a requirement that they also show that the infringement causes damages?

Let's say that in this case, the videos do infringe the copyright, but even if they do is the copyright holder somehow being damaged by this? Or does that not matter?

AMD FanBoi said...

I thought that Fair Use included educational uses -- and especially non-profit educational uses. This seems to be both education, and non-profit, as well as evidence that the DMCA is a piece of crap when misused this way.

And YouTube are a bunch of cowards to roll-over this way at the first e-mail or fax they receive from a "purported" copyright owner.

Actions like this one give the public at large complete disrespect for the laws as now written and enforced.

Reluctant Raconteur said...

amd,

I believe that there is a requirement in the DMCA to remove and then sort out the validity (guilty unless proven otherwise), not really optional to YouTube

John Newlin said...

I found a nice article on wikipedia on FairUse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use


Here's a blurb (I hope this is fair use!)

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.


For (1) and (4) in this case, it's pretty obviously fair use. Unless (4) perhaps is cutting into sales of sheet music. Although you don't see the sheet music in these lessons, just the mechanics of how to play the chords and notes.

I'm not sure how (2) and (3) would apply.

Cheers