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What’s fair about “Fair Use”?

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Robin had an idea for a post about “Fair Use” in the copyright law. There are many ways that people do not want to pay for the music that we create and this is one of them. Some of the fair use exceptions make sense but the definition gets stretched beyond it’s original intent. I do take exception to “news reporting”. It’s a for profit activity so how do they get a free pass?

Here’s an extreme example: A YouTube video of some idiot an ill-informed individual trying to use “Fair Use” to get around copyright infringement claims from the YouTube Content ID program.

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Home » copyright infringement

YouTube Content ID Program

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Thought I would revive this conversation. One of our readers e-mailed me and mentioned that YouTube no longer pulls videos for copyright infringement if music a client purchased elsewhere, is used on a YouTube video but YouTube has the rights to the same music via a 3rd party deal. In this case our reader has a deal with Rumblefish and states that the video producer will simply get a letter stating that Rumblefish has the rights to the music and that would be the end of it.

Anyone else know about this? Has YouTube changed their position? I was under the impression that YouTube was pulling videos for copyright infringement if the music conflicted with their third party deals.

Here’s a link to the previous thread and it’s worth reading the comments. GoDigital Thread

[Update 01-18-2012]

This was recently posted by Lee from Audiosparx and seems to answer the exclusivity question. Until Rumblefish or YouTube specifically answers some of these questions we will all be a bit in the dark.

Lee said:

YouTube’s stated requirement is that only holders of exclusive content can submit such content to their Content ID program.

By requiring exclusive content, this avoids the scenarios where Rumblefish earns money from music licenses sold by other libraries, and gives an affected client a clear path of who to communicate with if they receive an email notification that their video may have content that is owned or licensed by XYZ (e.g. the company they licensed the music track from).

In other words, YouTube is saying that the Library XYZ must be the ONLY licensing source for a track if they are submitting that track to YouTube’s Content ID program, not that the track is available for license at multiple libraries and Library XYZ happens to be the only library submitting the track to YouTube’s Content ID program.
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[Update 08-12-2013]

FYI – The following companies are known to be involved with the YouTube Content ID Program:

AudioMicro
AudioSocket
AudioSparx “Internet royalties” program
CDBaby “Sync licensing” program
Crucial Music
Fine Tune Music
GoDigital & Social Media Holdings
IODA: Independent Online Distribution Alliance
Kontor New Media
Magnatune
Music Beyond
Music for Productions
The Orchard
The Music Bed
Rumblefish
SourceAudio

Home » copyright infringement

Follow up on Tunesat trial

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Here is the follow up to the May 2009 post. This was written in July of 2009.
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I thought I would catch everyone up on my trial run with Tunesat as a number of people have expressed an interest in this service. There have been a couple of glitches to report but I’ll start by reposting part of my earlier post so those who are not up to date will be.

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You start with sending Tunesat your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.
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So here we are at 07-12-09 with a couple of problems.

1.) After many promises of running a 2nd quarter 2008 scan within a month of my signing up (May 2009) they have yet to deliver it. Only last week I was finally told they would not be able to deliver that quarter. They would send me May 2008 last Friday and July 2008 by next week. Still waiting for May… In all fairness they have extended my trial way beyond the 45 days. It’s a bummer though, the whole point was to compare their detections against my BMI statements. Very disappointed, I asked for any previous quarter and was told they didn’t have a full quarter!

2.) A number of shows came up in the scan where I had no idea of how the music got on the shows. I called the production company of two of those shows and talked to the executive producer. Naturally he was concerned but one of the great things about Tunesat is the ability to go to their website and listen to the detection as it came off the air. I let the executive producer from the show log in to my account and he played back a few of the detections. He promptly said they were not his shows! They only had female hosts, these had male hosts and American accents (his shows are out of Canada). I called Tunesat and spoke with Chris Woods who explained that they get the schedules periodically and then re-update a couple of weeks later if there are any schedule changes. As these shows were aired in May the schedules should have updated and been corrected, didn’t happen. One of the shows just re-aired and I recorded it and verified that indeed the Tunesat scan did not match the show schedule.

Even though I am disappointed in these glitches the service is pretty amazing. The fact is I found out that we had much more music airing every month than I thought. Even though some of the schedules did not match up, the music was aired and detected.

I am still waiting for May and July 2008.

Home » copyright infringement

Tunesat fingerprinting, Scripps Networks and BMI royalties.

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I wrote this post on another blog in May of 2009 and thought it would fit well here.
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I recently signed up for Tunesat’s trial period. For those of you who don’t know, Tunesat is a service that monitors (according to them) all shows, on 100 Networks, for detections of your music.

You start by sending them your music (after signing a contract), currently via a DVD (no FTP yet), and they “fingerprint” it to compare to their monitored networks. For the trial period they will run a scan on Q2 2008 and also 45 days going forward from the day they get you into their system. The cost for the trial period is 50 cents per piece of music and 20% of any monies you recover. In my case I sent them about 150 cues for a fingerprint cost of $76. You are provided with an account page at Tunesat with a list of the detections that include the name of the channel, show name, episode name, date/time, cue title (title you submitted to Tunesat), duration and finally a “Listen” link to hear the detection (with dialog). They started monitoring my cues on 05-07-2009 and to date (currently 05-29-09) they have “detected” about 500 uses of those cues (Q2 2008 scan will be in about a month). The point is to check for copyright infringement, shows that that are using your music and not reporting it and/or cross referencing against your cue sheets.

Many of the shows detected were on Scripps Networks which has not been paying any performance royalties.

Though I have made my living for many decades making music in various capacities, I had very little knowledge of music libraries. In 2004 my wife and I made a deal to write and produce about 100 cues for a TV production company. Through a series of miscommunications and lack of knowledge, on everyone’s part, we ended up with a lousy contract and learned that most of the shows were for Scripps Networks. One thing we did insist on is the ability to re-use the music which they agreed to, as long as we re-titled.

I know all about the controversy regarding re-titling but for us it was the only game in town. I submitted our completed cues to many, many libraries and the only ones interested were those who offered the now typical “re-titling” option (BTW these libraries were found submitting through the Film Music Network). I was not going to let the music sit on the shelf so I went for it. How the re-titling controversy will play out is anyone’s guess.

In 2006 I placed our music with two different libraries. Over the course of the last three years one library has done an excellent job of placing the music but the other has never placed one piece. I was curious. Was the one successful library a fluke and/or the other library inept or dishonest? I will know more about this aspect when the Q2 2008 scan is run but I have learned that the library that has done well for us has placed some of our cues with Scripps. This I did not know and I made sure to let them know. To say that they were surprised I knew this is an understatement! But the nature of the business is that they (like many other libraries) supply a hard drive of music to production companies and from that point it’s hard to know where the music ends up. I do think that now, with a service like Tunesat, I can at least let them know I know.

Now to a hopeful sign. The whole Scripps issue with BMI has been bugging me since I found out about it in 2004. I had called BMI a number of times in L.A., N.Y. and Nashville and few people knew what I was talking about. When they did they had no clear answers except that BMI was negotiating with Scripps. After observing all of the Scripps shows on Tunesat and getting more incensed I started calling BMI again. After a series of calls I finally got through to a couple of people who got right on the case to get me some answers. Today I got a call from BMI saying they were a few months away from finalizing a deal with Scripps and that Scripps was deciding what shows would be on a blanket license or per program. BMI also said payment would be retroactive.

I’m always the “infernal” optimist so I would like to think this will happen. Needless to say I will keep on my contact at BMI and hope for the best. The person at BMI did state the Scripps was not their longest running negotiation but (as she said) there are a lot of lawyers involved!

As I find out more about Tunesat, Scripps Networks and BMI I will update.

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