Lawrence Lessig On Copyright Laws And Creativity

Using examples from YouTube, Stanford law professor and copyright activist Lawrence Lessig discusses the influence of "remixes" and "mashups" of existing art on culture as a whole, and ponders the fate of participatory media in the face of out-of-date copyright laws.

Complete video:
http://fora.tv/2009/02/26/Remix_Steven_Johnson_Lawrence_Lessig_and_Shepard_Fairey

Video shown here taken from ForaTV Channel on YouTube.

MarloweDK... gone.

Again, another musician account has mysteriously disappear from YouTube. This time it's MarloweDK's. And again, it was a clear case of fair use material.

Thomas Risell, who goes by the monicker MarloweDK, is a well-educated bass player who hosts his own website, playbassnow.com, for teaching and has created quite a big fan-base which can also be considered his students. Today, they were all horrified when they discovered the infamous YouTube's pink rectangle along with the so feared sentence: "this account has been suspended." After hoping for a mistake in the playbassnow forums this was confirmed by Thomas himself:

"Well, maybe its a little less dramatic but still very bad, read on…
ARGGGRRRR!! MY YOUTUBE ACCOUNT IS CLOSED!! ON COPYRIGHT ISSUES (my play-alongs), most of my videos were hosted there and are not available rigth now"

"And im not able to open a new YT account, im a “persona non grata” as far as they are concerned"

A couple of days back I wrote about other two accounts being suspended: joch84's and Munkybarz's. If YouTube's actions in the past serve as any indication, we can only predict that more and more user accounts who "violate copyright" will start to suddenly disappear. The problem with this is, how many people are "infringing" in YouTube? Is this the beginning of the end for YouTube?

Thanks, Neil.

Finally, an artist had something to say about the Warner-YouTube spat. Sadly for us, it's not what we would've hoped for. In an article written by Neil Young in his own website, he addresses the issue from the point of view of a WMG employee.

In his article, Young basically says YouTube offers different deals to each record deal, which includes different revenue money; as opposed to the old days when radio offered the same deal to every record label and artist to play their songs. Warner was the first to negotiate a deal with YouTube back in 2006. The other labels followed, but negotiated a better contract. According to Young, Warner merely tried to get the same deal the other labels got, and YouTube wouldn't hear of it. This, at least in my own personal opinion, still does not justify the removal of hundreds of user-generated content and LRRG videos.

Reading a bit more, I came across this small paragraph, which I found quite interesting:

"Today's web world has created a new way. Artists today can go directly to the people. There is nothing standing between the artists and their audience. Freedom of expression reigns."

Really? artists can go directly to the people? nothing standing between them? I guess that would be except for the big-ass multi-million dollar corporation which is removing the fan-made videos, and the artists' own videos! Judging from that small paragraph, I can conclude Warner is really good at one of two things: brain-washing their artists, or keeping them from knowing their modus operandi of video removal.

Granted, his opinion could've been worse. At least he took the time to comment on it, unlike that Danish tennis player whose name won't be mentioned.

Read the complete article by Neil Young.

YouTomb -- you monitor us?, we'll monitor you.

Worried about how YouTube's automated video-signature flags videos and gives complete freedom to the copyright holders to block pretty much whatever they want, completely ignoring and bypassing the "fair use" clause in the U.S. Copyright Law, a student organization -MIT Free Culture- started this project hoping to reform it.

Basically, YouTomb monitors those videos on YouTube which are the most popular, often featured in other web sites, and serve as a source as to who has removed what and why. Browsing through some of the removed material, it becomes aparent some companies will claim copyright on anything. If you make a video of yourself, you better not have a mole which resembles the Mickey Mouse logo -- it would probably get removed. "Please use Mole-Swap and try again."

But I digress...

The fellows at YouTomb also keep a count on how many videos have the companies removed by themselves, WMG not surprisingly ranking at number one with over 4,600 videos taken down; counting only the claims by "WMG,"not those by "Warner Music Group" and other variations of that name which has become a euphemism for "copyright fascists."Of course, in a site of this nature, they could not lack a blog to express their thoughts and feelings about this wonderful world of corporate monopoly we're facing. Contributor Kevin Driscoll was kind enough to take some time out of his life and browse through this blog and the Living Room Rock God community and dedicating an article on YouTomb to our cause. (Thank you, Kevin!).

So, are you still wondering what happened to your favorite video in which some kitties were headbanging at the rythm of Metallica? I suggest you browse through YouTomb's content. WMG might have claimed copyright over the music... or the kitties (they might've looked like Sylvester the cat).

YouTomb's main web site.
YouTomb's stats.
Kevin Driscoll's Article: "Won’t get fooled again, hard rock fans react to Warner/Universal takedowns."

Munkybarz and jloch84's accounts suspended

Just when we thought things were looking up, they deliver a blow like this. Two important musician YouTube accounts were suspended: jloch84 and Munkybarz. Both bassists, and both damn good at it. Munkybarz specially was the object of a huge following by players from all ages, since his videos served as a huge inspiration for young rookie players, and his huge library of rock bass lines got other older musicians and music fans to re-discover some classic rock songs and records.

We in the music community are affraid this might be a new way to deal with the evil copyright infringers that we apparently are in the eyes of the big record labels. As of late, many of us have stopped being afraid and contested the videos we got removed. Some even got a notification with the magic words "dispute successful."Maybe it's a bit of a conspiracy theory, but one cannot help but to think their new strategy might be: "no accounts, no counter notifications."

This theory can seem like a stretch, but ask yourself: "why else would they close these two accounts?" and while you're at it, "is my account next?"

Would YouTube Music be the solution?

Mr.Kafka might be on to something. Not Franz, but Peter, from All Things Digital. In his point of view, the most viable solution for the record companies-YouTube conflict is a simple one: just rip off MySpace. Creating a YouTube Music would not solve everything, but from our perspective, as YouTube users/musicians, would be a really nice option. This would create a new style of MTV, going back to basics for what MTV used to be: Music. Only, this way, we, the users, would have compelte control over what videos to watch and when, without stumple upon them by mere chance, having to sit through another episode of "The Real World."

But the promise land doesn't end up there. If they were to make a deal similar to Warner's back in 2006, this would mean pretty much carte blanche for any covers we might want to play: from Red Hot Chili Peppers, to Barney the Dinosaur. That is, as long as no executive looks at another in the industry that is YouTube and yells out: "why is he making more revenue than me?!"

Go ahead and read both articles by Peter Kafka for the entire story and his own theory of why YouTube Music should be created, and how it should work, as opposed as just reading my rambles and rants.

Media Memo: How to solve the big music/YouTube spat: copy MySpace.
Media Memo: YouTube = MTV 2.0. Time to turn that into a business.

Sony's in

Living Room Rock God jouxplan also let us in on some good news: Sony Music Entertainment re-signed with YouTube instead of following WMG in their tantrum for more dough. We can only hope UMG and EMI follow their lead, and see the mistake Warner is living in (hint: see the WMG share chart). According to the articles posted by jouxplan in the forums, the details of the new deal are unclear; might have something to do with YouTube's testing of the new "download" feature in some select videos.

Thanks, jouxplan!

Articles:
Sony Music Re-Ups With YouTube; First Major Label In Second Wave, by Staci D. Kramer for paidContent.org

YouTube renews music video deal with Sony Music-sources, reporting by Yinka Adegoke; editing by Bernard Orr for Reuters.com