Comment by juliusdavies | Hacker News Reader

Comment by juliusdavies | Hacker News Reader

I see Ed Sheeran's (as well as Katy Perry's) successful copyright defenses as evidence song writers are doing fine. Katy Perry's earlier defeat (for Dark Horse) luckily reversed on appeal last year. Toni Basil also had an interesting copyright victory last year related to 1980's "Mickey" - although her result seems very narrow and technical (related to copyright termination and works-for-hire) and only about the recording, since she never wrote the song in the first place.

Whereas Marvin Gaye's heirs' successful litigation against Blurred Lines is very concerning (see: https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2018/07/blurred-lines-b... ), although as has long been the case with copyright litigation in the USA - it really all depends on the jury !

Personally, when I listen to Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up" right next to "Blurred Lines" I really cannot comprehend the jury's result. I guess they both employ a cowbell very prominently? But I wasn't a member of the jury, so it wasn't up to me. I find the Katy Perry result to be at least a little bit of a close call based on my own listening.

>I see Ed Sheeran's (as well as Katy Perry's) successful copyright defenses as evidence song writers are doing fine.

Song writers backed by huge companies are doing fine, but what about independent producers?

Honestly, I think if I wrote something significant enough that I got sued for it - that's probably a VERY good sign about my own prospects and future as a musician.

Lil Nas X was completely independent when he created Old Town Road with a complete copy & paste of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's music. So even in cases of absurdly blatant copyright infringement the artist might still do okay !

I'd prefer if song makers could produce in freedom rather than deal with getting sued or winning the lottery that is getting signed.

Trent Reznor doesn't enforce copyright and it's famous for not doing so.

The Reznor/Ross track that Old Town Road was built from carries a Creative-Commons Non-Commercial license.

But Old Town Road is obviously commercial. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross currently receive a significant portion of the royalties (more than Lil Nas X!).

> Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross currently receive a significant portion of the royalties (more than Lil Nas X!).

Do you have any source on this? Reznor has stayed mostly quiet about Old Town Road aside from mentioning it was strange at first but he doesn't really mind it. They worked out a deal but I don't think the terms were ever made public. Could he have demanded a large share of the royalties? Sure. But do you have proof he did?

Lil Nas X reports in Variety that Reznor/Ross might be getting up to 50% of the royalties (he wasn't sure exactly).

https://variety.com/2020/music/news/old-town-road-recorded-f...

There's also a comment on Reddit that sounds pretty believable (Reznor: 37.5, Ross: 12.5, Lil Nas X: 21.25, YoungKio: 21.25, Billy Ray Cyrus: 3.75%, Jozzy: 3.75%). https://www.reddit.com/r/musicindustry/comments/bu3gd1/comme...

Once you’re successful you become a worthwhile target of frivolous lawsuits, I guess that’s a sign of success.

If someone has even heard my song and thinks it's good enough to be worth suing over I must be doing something right...

You don't have to be large or even get sued for them to affect you. Gyu Beats had a video where he recreated Aphex Twin's "Ageispolis" from scratch. And Die Antwoord's label copyright-claimed all revenue from that video because Die Antwoord sampled Ageispolis (unedited, with permission). It's likely an automated copyright claim, but does that make it any better?

https://youtu.be/SQriRPIvCd4

If Aphex Twin copyright-claimed the song that would be another thing. But this is like if someone else sampled Ghosts 34 and Lil Nas X claimed original copyright ownership of the sample.

That's Alphabet/Google/YouTube ContendID law, not copyright law.

You can argue legal merits all day but the reality is the little guy doesn't have much chance against FAANG lawyers without a lot of financial backing from elsewhere

All of the FAANG companies have railed against the overreach of DCMA Takedown Notices. However, they are bound by law to comply with them.

No they are not. They are required to comply or take on liability.

That is part of the rules required of distribution sites like YouTube, Apple Music, Spotify, etc., as defined in US law as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA). Hence the name "DCMA Takedown Notice".

Maybe...

Until 2019, 100% of the royalties for the song "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve, released in 1997 and their most recognizable song, went to the Rolling Stones. The Verve sampled the distinctive repeating string theme in that song from the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time", released in 1965. The Verve even got permission to use the riff from the 'Stones record label prior to releasing "Bitter Sweet Symphony."

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/23/726227555/not-bitter-just-swe...

Marvin Gaye's estate is one of the most notorious copyright trolls in the music industry. We've only heard about the big songs (Sheeran, Blurred Lines) but they've gone after a number of indie musicians as well.

I'd love to hear more about these cases, but probably they all settle with non disclosures. :-(

Are you aware of any specific instances?

I recently learned that the Eagles is also a big one: they will copyright-strike any cover, no ifs, no buts.

Not share earnings, not demonitize, straight to strike.

I mean, you're supposed to ask permission to make a cover. That's kind of their choice?

You don't need permission to make a cover, in America, there's a thing called a compulsory mechanical licence that anyone can obtain. Prince was notorious for "denying" people permission to cover his songs, but in reality it seemed that people were just being polite, and/or afraid of his general power in the industry (said with the full awareness that he both took a battering from Warner Bros and also meted out much battering to his own fans).

> I mean, you're supposed to ask permission to make a cover.

No, that’s actually a specific carve-out in US copyright law dating back to the Copyright Act of 1909.

It’s certainly a nice thing to do (like weird al and parodies), but it’s not required, and it’s completely useless for a budding singer to “ask permission” to do a cover from a popular artist or group, the request will go straight to the bin unread.

> That's kind of their choice?

Of course it is, but a copyright strike is a heavy handed and damaging choice. The Eagles are apparently notorious for this behaviour.

Keep in mind that whilst you don't need to ask permission, you do need to obtain a mechanical license and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the artists covering (particularly on YouTube) haven't done this.

Keep in mind that a mechanical license wouldn't cover you on YouTube anyway - once you're making a video for your cover you now need a sync license which you do need permission for.

The concept of a sync license is insane.

Only if you sell it. The Eagles will copyright claim an hour long video with 5 seconds worth of a cover of their songs. So you either take the video down, send all monetization to the Eagles for the entire video, or remove the 5 seconds.

> send all monetization to the Eagles for the entire video

From the last instance I’ve seen that wasn’t even an option, the video was struck down and that was it.

Granted that was a cover not just a small bit of cover inside a longer video, but the cover-er specifically noted the Eagles opted to neither revenue-share (which was the cover’s state as it’d been properly content-id’d as a cover) nor demonetise, just take down the video entirely.

He also cites Rick Beato as having repeatedly had analysis of Eagles songs taken down.

Though maybe it’s because YouTube only has revenue sharing, you can’t send 100% revenue to the eagles?

It's possible I am wrong on the specifics there. I was going off memory of a video that covered this topic.

Given their experience in signing off on a bad, exploitative deal at the inception of their careers, and the fight they had to get control of their songwriting catalog from David Geffen, I really can't be surprised.

Once (at least!) burned, forever shy. And they're not wrong: what YouTube does is also exploitative. Anybody on YouTube who's building a career on publicising the reprocessing of other people's music in any way, is building on sand. In no way are they any better off than the Eagles were under their original contracts.

Leaving the question, is it better to do react videos on Creedence because the owners aren't issuing copyright strikes, when you know that Creedence was robbed?

Ah yes, “we’ve been burned therefore we’ll be taking the risk of getting you banned from the platform you’re trying to make a following and money on”. That sounds so nice of them.

There is an automated system for requesting and getting approval for covers, if you want to "cover" your ass while covering a song. (Ahem.) It basically says "yes" and logs the fact that you requested it so you have proof that you fit in the cover carve out you reference.

NOTE: This was explained to me by a musician/producer. I don't have firsthand knowledge of the system.

> Marvin Gaye's estate

Not precisely (or at least not in this instance), from TFA:

> The claim over Thinking Out Loud was originally lodged in 2018, not by Gaye’s family but by investment banker David Pullman and a company called Structured Asset Sales, which has acquired a portion of the estate of Let’s Get It On co-writer Ed Townsend.

I think Sheeran was lazy and lifted Gaye song too close. But since it's the estate trying to milk everybody without real respect to Marvin Gaye's legacy[0] .. I'm ok with them losing.

[0] personal opinion but still

This suit was from Ed Townsend’s estate.

Even if Sheeran defended himself successfully, it was an 8 year court battle. There are systemic issues that go beyond the verdict.

A friend of mine who is a managing partner at a law firm specializing in IP law once told me that "once a case goes to a jury trial, it's a 50/50 chance that you win--and the odds only go down from there."

Amusingly, Warner Music themselves can't tell the difference between Dark Horse and Joyful Noise (the song supposedly being infringed upon in Dark House)

https://youtu.be/KM6X2MEl7R8

Reply on news.ycombinator.com