Photo: Rick Beato | For 15+ years, Saving Country Music has been on the warpath against the completely ludicrous intellectual property regime that disallows even a small snippet of music to be featured in a podcast without draconious repercussions, including removing episodes, and deleting entire accounts, while not offering any reasonable alternative solutions to the issue.
On YouTube videos, creators can freely filch copyrighted photos and other people’s videos virtually free of ramifications. You can take an entire 2 1/2 hour film, impose it over a background, and upload it to YouTube, and usually avoid any problems. But feature a barely audible 8 1/2-second clip of music underneath audio dialogue, and you could have your entire podcast career evaporate overnight.
Music labels have been leaving major opportunities to promote their catalogs and performers on the table with their punitive copyright claims that make it impossible to feature music on music podcasts and other platforms. And instead of trying to build a system where perhaps there’s more reasonable revenue sharing or other opportunities for artists and songwriters through these podcast platforms to promote their music, it’s the punitive measures of record labels that eliminate these opportunities in lose/lose scenarios.
Music video podcaster Rick Beato with his massive 5 million-plus subscriber base finally got fed up with it, and posted a rant on Tuesday, August 19th about this, and, it’s a thing of beauty.
“I hate making these videos, but I really need to because it seems the only thing that ever gets done is when you talk about this stuff,” Beato starts off. But one of the nauseating things about this issue is that we’ve been talking about it for going on two decades, and still nothing is getting done about it. Saving Country Music posted about this issue in 2024, and in 2020, and as far back as 2010, with no real movement on the issue.
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Go here to read more on this issue:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/rick-beato-is-right-to-rant-about-music-copyright-strikes/
[Thanks to Jamie Krutz for alerting us to this problem. Https://www.jamiekrutz.com]
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Understanding Copyright in Music (Part I): Types of Works and Rights
By Keith Kupsferschmid, Digital Music News
The creation and delivery of music to audiences requires collaboration between a variety of creative individuals and businesses, including songwriters, music publishers, performers, producers, and record labels. All of these creative individuals and many others play an important role in crafting and bringing music to audiences, and it’s important that each understands and appreciates their rights under U.S. copyright law. This three-part series explores those rights by discussing: (i) the different types of works and kinds of rights for music under copyright law; (ii) the different types of music licenses; and (iii) the remedies for copyright infringement.
To understand how music and those who create and distribute music are protected and compensated, one must first understand certain copyright basics, because copyright is the primary means by which songwriters, composers, artists, publishers, and other music creators are protected and compensated for their works. To understand copyright in music one must understand that there are two distinct kinds of copyrighted works in any given song—a musical work and a sound recording.
Two Types of Copyrighted Works Protected in a Song
Copyright law protects original works of authorship, including literary, dramatic, musical, audiovisual, and visual works. Examples of such works are movies, novels, songs, computer software, and photographs. Importantly, in the area of music, there are two different types of copyrighted works:
Musical Works: These include any work that consists of musical notes and lyrics in a musical composition.
Sound Recordings: These include any work that results from the fixation of sounds without a visual component, whether musical or spoken. This is the music you actually hear, and it includes digital downloads, music on CDs and vinyl, podcasts, and recorded speeches.
It’s important to be aware of these distinct types of copyrightable works because there are likely different copyright owners for any one given song, different kinds of music licenses, and slight differences in the kinds of rights in copyright law for these works.
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Go here to read more on Copyright – Part I – Lots more info:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/news/understanding-copyright-in-music-part-i-types-of-works-and-rights/
This story originally appeared on Digital Music News. (Find Part II there)
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/
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Understanding Copyright in Music (Part III): Copyright Infringement
By Keith Kupsferschmid, Digital Music News
Part I of this article discussed the different type of works and copyright rights in music. In Part II, we discussed different types of music licenses. In this final part of the article, we’ll discuss what happens when someone does not have a license to use the musical work or sound recording and the use is not otherwise allowed by the law. This is known as copyright infringement.
When is a Musical Work or Sound Recording Infringed?
Anyone who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, engages in an act that is covered by one or more of the exclusive rights of a copyright owner is an infringer of copyright unless:
The musical work or sound recording is not protected by copyright (for example, if it’s in the public domain); or
The act is permitted by an exception in copyright law.
In other areas of law, in order to be culpable, the actor must have had knowledge or intent to do the wrongful act. Not so in copyright. Copyright infringement is determined without regard to the intent or the state of mind of the infringer. In other words, it makes no difference whether the infringer knew what they were doing constituted copyright infringement. The only time that the actor’s state of mind may come into play is when a court is determining how much money in to award to a copyright owner in damages for the infringement.
How To Prove Copyright Infringement
Courts usually require a copyright owner to prove that they owned the copyrighted work, and the defendant violated one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. In a case where infringement of the reproduction right is alleged, since there is seldom direct evidence of the offending act, a copyright owner may prove infringement through circumstantial evidence establishing that: (1) the defendant had access to the original work, and (2) the two works are substantially similar.
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Go here to read more and the consequences thereof:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/understanding-copyright-in-music-part-iii-copyright-infringement/
This story originally appeared on Digital Music News. (Look for Part II there)
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/
If that’s not enough, two other books you might find helpful include All You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald S. Passman, which includes information about the legal financial and practical information about music copyright and is considered by many to be the industry bible on music copyright; and Music Money and Success by Jeffrey and Todd Brabac, which includes detailed information about licensing and royalties. [Most libraries have both of these books, as does COMBO.]