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Comment by janerik | Hacker News Reader

And again: "Unfortunately, this UMG-music-content is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the respective music publishing rights."

Good to have a proxy around.

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I went through YouTube's copyright dispute process, and said it was a fair use derivative work. YouTube's response is apparently to ask the copyright owner if they feel it's fair use. Which, of course, they didn't.

Ironically, it was LMFAO's label that had the problem, and yet LMFAO posted the song to their Facebook and Twitter profiles. C'est la vie.

Out of curiosity, what do you feel qualifies it as fair use? That's a fairly specific doctrine (in the US, at least).

Courts have ruled remixes/mashups like this one are fair use.

What cases are you talking about when you say "like this one"? There absolutely is no statutory fair use protection for mashups in the general case, and I'd be shocked if the case law is anything but subjective.

The original PSY Gangnam style video is blocked in Germany, so I don't think your dispute will have any effect. Can you make it available for download? I would really like to see (and hear) it.

I saw you made the audio available for download. Good stuff, thanks a lot, I enjoyed it.

Honestly I don't get the deal with Germany forbidding access to so many youtube videos. I've been there on vacation a few times and it was nearly impossible to find some (legitimate uploaded) songs in youtube, even from the VEVO channel. Big thumbs down for GEMA.

Their policy (verbatim):

"Whoever wants to playback or perform music in public in Germany will become, as a rule by doing this, a customer of GEMA."

Translation: "We don't give a damn about you being the owner of your creations or if you want to use non-restrictive licenses (CC for instance), you'll give us money whether you like it or not"

Yes, especially with a population of over one fourth of the US and internet penetration of roughly 80% (most of it broadband) one might think Germany is a big enough advertising market for the right holders to pressure the GEMA.

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