YouTube Music Copyright

Here's what I wanted to put in my video description but didn't have enough space for:

First off - this is a video of four guildmates and myself in World of Warcraft failing doing a 5v5 arena in fun ways, with terrible music and soundbites laid over the top. If you don't like it, I don't care - it's more for our posterity than anything.

The other reason for this video is as follows.

Essentially this video has had two versions. The first one I uploaded a couple of nights before this current video, and it had been up for about 5 minutes before I got two e-mails from YouTube telling me "not to worry! It's ok! There's nothing you need to do, even though both Universal and WMG have claimed rights to the audio track on your video. But everything's fine, don't worry. Oh by the way we've muted the entire audio track. But don't fret; we have a large selection of terrible, DRM-free, sound effect-free music that you can put into your video instead! But you don't have to, because everything's fine."

At this point I decided that everything was not fucking fine.

Here's the original music listing from that first video, some has changed, some has stayed the same:

W - W no Theme
A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Wicky Pocky
Skindred - Cause Ah Riot
Eiffel 65 - I DJ With the Fire
Danny Kay - I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
Daft Punk - The Brainwasher
HALCALI - Peek-a-boo
Monty Python - Traffic Lights

So not your orthodox music list full of big names and classic titles. I can imagine Daft Punk would be a cause for concern for the overly-doting music companies, but the others!? Really?!

Therefore I immediately removed the video (thanks DevilShroom for your sympathies!) and got very cross so went to kill some unicorns to make myself feel better. I had spent over a whole hour (!!!!!!!) making this video, choosing its music, its sound, and then two hours uploading it to my YouTube account. This is my time wasted and my bandwidth just thrown into the toilet.

Now why do the music companies do this? Of course the music companies are feeling very sorry for themselves. With the introduction of p2p networking and newsgroups, fewer people are buying CDs and just downloading music illegally. Who hasn't done it? I feel for their loss, as it must be annoying and money must be lost along the line somewhere. However, TOUGH BALLS! It has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen as long as the internet is around. Yes, by all means, throw the threat around of prison sentences, fines and bans! That's how you'll get a few people to stop illegally downloading, but in reality, nothing short of a) stopping the release of all music from now on or b) destroying teh interwebs will keep this from happening.

And that's not even my main point!

That is where people can download music onto their computer/mp3 player/entertainment system and enjoy it without handing over the cash. However, my video chopped little bits of each song up so horribly and badly that no-one at all would hop onto YouTube, think "Oh I fancy listening to a bit of Wicky Pocky, I think I'll load up Steve's video and skip to that tune. It's not the whole thing, but never mind, I only like listening to each song in 45-second stints." So no-one is going to be able to salvage much from this video as it is.

Yes I know, the point is that I'm infringing copyright just by having them in my video and that I'm claiming that I actually created absolutely everything in it. Bollocks! I would estimate that well over half of all videos on YouTube have something that infringes copyright (in the literal sense) one way or another. Either by having a particular piece of music (like I have here), or a recording of a game (like World of Warcraft here), or a TV clip, or someone else's video on YouTube. I agree, YouTube do claim this:

'By clicking "Upload Video", you are representing that this video does not violate YouTube's Terms of Use and that you own all copyrights in this video or have authorisation to upload it.'

That's what they say. But come ON. I'm not using this video for profit. I've made it as a joke video for people to watch, enjoy the silly sounds and music, and see me fail at a game I've played for five years. If I was planning on making some money off the fact that loads of people were watching this and that I was expecting the music to help me make that money, and wasn't planning on giving it all straight to the music companies (WMG and Universal by the way), then fair enough! It should be removed post haste! I did not, however, wish such a thing. I really think it's time for people to stop blindly yelling "witch" whenever anyone uses something creatively (that's a metaphor for plagiarism disputes; I was quite pleased with it!)

I'm not going to go on about how corporate policies are ruining our lives and their capitalist schemes are tied in with the government who are wanting to control us for no apparent reason, and that they make too much money anyway that it doesn't matter if people all download and use music without permission or authorisation. I'd just sound like a mediocre punk album. However, I think there is some logic in that WMG and Universal (who have actually muted another video of mine - In Old Ironforge - for certain countries, because I used one piece of music in it that belonged to them) should just step back for a second, let the red rage fade away, take a breath, and think about the whole situation for a few minutes.
a) If people are using their music in videos on YouTube or Metacafe or anything like that, does it really matter? These videos are non-profit, mostly harmless, and by punishing the majority, they hurt the innocent.
b) Could this not be good advertising for the music companies? Many a time I've seen people ask in comments: "What song is playing at 0:46?", "Man that song is awesome, I need to check them out" etc. Lots of people (myself included) actually list these songs in credits or 'More Info', giving credit to the artists who created them. If not, they almost always get revealed in other comments on videos anyway. It's just like hearing a song on the radio, or indeed Spotify! These people will then be likely to go and look into purchasing this music (or illegally downloading it, but that's their choice), which is basically a free sale made for WMG or Universal. YouTube is one of the biggest sites on the internet - everyone has heard about it, and millions of people view videos daily. Even my videos have quite a few views!
c) YouTube is run by one of the world's top companies - Google. They have, to the best of my knowledge, never charged any money directly to their customers for using their services. Google Web Search, Google Earth, Google Maps, Google Checkout, YouTube, Chrome, Google Mail, Google Videos (pre YouTube), iGoogle, Google Scholar, Google Translations, and the list goes on. One has to assume that virtually all their profit comes from advertising. Why not try and convince Google to advertise on YouTube some of the music label's acts and so on? Instead of tearing music out and punishing people for it, why not leave it in but request acknowledgement of whom it belongs to? Why not convince Google to put in a 'credits' box, in which people can select artists, songs, and record companies, and give credit where credit is due?

I'm sure there has to be a better solution for everybody here. The likelihood is that this video will get muted too, although I have chosen some extremely obscure music to put in it, and have given full credit to the artists in the list below. Thanks for reading guys, I hope you feel the same way as I do.

I'm going to keep uploading this video with slightly changed music each time until I get to a formula where I'm not punished.

Music used in this video:

W - W no Theme
A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Wicky Pocky
Tokyo/Mew Mew Power - Barbie Girl
Danny Kay - I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts
Michael Torpey - Breathe/Banjo Kazooie Remix
HALCALI - Peek-A-Boo
Yumi Matsuzawa - ありのままで
Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Tetris Theme

Video used in this video:

Gameplay from World of Warcraft (Wrath of the Lich King)
A video by storpey (myself) called "Steve Plays FEAR Alone in the Dark".

All created on Cyberlink PowerDirector 6.

Also, sorry for not updating this blog in a long-ass time. I really couldn't be bothered!