RIAA Forces YouTube to Remove Free Guitar Lessons 341
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?"
Fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Funny)
Fair use smair fuse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fair use (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:Fair use (Score:4, Insightful)
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Carlos Mencia already did that.
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Taking an entire routine would be like taking an entire album. Also, you are positing somebody doing a comedy act, not non-commercial instruction or criticism.
Basically, you are making your point by amplifying the situation in question, which is not valid.
A more precise analogy would be if you did a comedy instruction video in which you took individual jokes from various comedians (credited) and showed how they could be told with different t
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The 'copyright violation' is just the excuse they are using to get them off the market.
Is it really fair use? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I've technically broken copyright laws almost every day of my life, because yes: we all tell each other lyrics, chords, stories we've read etc etc ad nauseum. Even when I took singing lessons, my teacher was always giving me copies lyric
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)
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I play in a few bands and recently checked out a book from 2000 called "The Band's Guide to Getting a Record Deal". In the book it explained a lot of the stuff that comes between me writing a song in my bedroom, and you listening to it on a nicely packaged CD. It's a hell of a lot more complicated (and bullshit-loaded) process than you'd imagine.
The mi
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> of chords and lyrics, that melody, that drumbeat.
No, it's just the melody and the lyrics that make the song. You write them together on one piece of paper, put a title at the top and sign your name to it and you are done. That is called a "lead sheet" and it's all that is "written" when you write a song. The melody part counts for half the money and the lyrics count for
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This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:3, Insightful)
Innovation itself is at risk because of this stifling stranglehold. This is why the pirates mock the legal warnings of microsofts and the RIAA.
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
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He's saying that if you can write one book, and live off the proceeds forever, you lose that particular incentive to write another one.
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Income twenty years from now is discounted to nearly nothing. This is especially the case if you are signing over rights to your work. If there were a rule that reverted copyright to the creator after fifteen years, you might have a point.
You assume the reprinted 40yr old books will sell at the *original* price. The $1000/yr would automatically be inflation adjusted as the price of books go up. A 40yr old book that is still selling would produce useful income every year.
Re:This is Madness - eradicate all copyright! (Score:5, Insightful)
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What would be truly fair is if supermarket-stockers made a fair living wage.
They do. They make exactly what the job market says they should be making. If stocking were a more difficult skill, the supply of capable stockers would go down and they'd make more. If more stores open and they need more stockers than are available, they'd make more. Until one of those things happen, the law of supply and demand says they won't make more.
You can argue all day about what constitutes a "good" wage, but supply and demand is busy setting the true fair value. Complaining about that is
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.
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Try to think it through before spouting knee-jerk anti-copyright nonsense.
Try to think it through before spouting knee-jerk pro-copyright nonsense.
Copyright as it is currently implemented is only one of a virtually infinite number of ways the law could be organized with respect to intellectual endeavor.
Stop pretending there could be no better alternative when not even something as simple as the copyright period has been scientifically justified. Let alone justification for the current regime.
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Let me know about these other wonderful ways of rewarding investment in intellectual property. There is the current system, there is communism (hardly a hotbed of great IP), there is patronage, and government subsidy. Which one are you keen on? and feel free to explain how it will sti
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The RIAA was founded in 1952. It was started to ensure that all records would be compatible with all players.
We all know that before 1952 there was NO MUSIC, NO BOOKS, and NO MOVIES!! Because they could not exist without the RIAA and the financial incentives the RIAA gives to artists to produce music!
My grandparents talk about music they listened to in the 30's and 40's. Obviously they are lying because back then we didn't have 100+ years of copyright, and there
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Re:Fair use (Score:5, Insightful)
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Look at it this way: neither did Jimi Hendrix.
That said, I agree with your other points. Just not the one about "depending" on the internet to learn how to pl
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That really bugs me though...
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)
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Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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RIAA and MPAA have used at least 50 by now.
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Re:This bit is always amusing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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We're watching a media industry commit a slow suicide. When it dies, they'll blame it on those who merely wanted to hear and view their product.
True, but it's not "their product". They're just middlemen in the process of being squeezed out.
They might even have to get real jobs where they actually do something productive for their money. One can hope.
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DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed conten
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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.
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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.
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I don't understand why it doesn't fall under fair use for educational purposes. Learning to play guitar is a form of education. It's not a public performance in the form of a concert or playing in a bar.
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"I don't understand why it doesn't fall under fair use for educational purposes. Learning to play guitar is a form of education. It's not a public performance in the form of a concert or playing in a bar."
Whether these would fall under fair use is something that a court would decide. I sure ain't the hell no lawyer, but I agree with you that there's a fair chance that it would. But, it looks like it won't get that far. Whoever owns the rights to the Rolling Stones lyrics and music -- ie. Messrs Jagger o
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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.
What about wannabe lip-syncers (Score:2)
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Wraa (Score:3, Insightful)
What does the RIAA have to do with this? (Score:3, Informative)
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]
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Does the article actually say that? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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Does TFA actually say anything about videos actually being taken down?
It's a little confusing. The article about the take-down is mentioned in the first paragraph, which is a actually follow-up to the main article with pictures on that page. The bulk of the information is in the audio broadcast on the first "listen" link.
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?
They only say "music company" on the broadcast segment.
"A Record Company" != RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
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"Nevermind not reading TFA. People don't even read the posting."
It's actually worse than that. Just like "RIAA", "a record company" was a figment of the submitter's imagination. This is a public performance licensing issue, not a recording copyright issue. Record companies have nothing to do with this.
The submitter trolled everybody real good.
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)
NO MORE GUITARISTS - ALL TEACHERS SUED
RIAA innocently shrugs shoulders and says, "wot?"
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Some would consider that hell.
Not necessarily "Fair Use" (Score:5, Informative)
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)
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Selling Songs (Score:2)
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 we
1 Song = 100 Videos? (Score:4, Insightful)
Baby Seal Analogy (Score:3, Funny)
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I'm waiting... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
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covers (Score:3, Insightful)
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Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
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?
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Oh, the humanity!
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Copyright
Star Spangled Banner
America The Beautiful
USAF Theme
USMC Theme
NAVY Theme
Hail To The Chief
I have played guitar for over 30 years, I Have my own style. I play keyboard, I play drums, I play just about everything I can get my hands on. But if you want to get technical that style is based on other styles, without which I would never have developed my style. Fingers are so long, guitars have so many strings sizes and frets, there are only so many notes, eventually everything could be cop
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 a
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 sta
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?
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)
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.
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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.
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that's not so old.
"but I've seen Matlock a lot of times "
That is!
The DMCA needs to be modified so that ISP are still not liable for what people post(which was the main selling point) and only have to take stuff down if given a court order.