UMG claims rights to a song and hijacks the artist's YouTube revenue | Hacker News Reader

UMG claims rights to a song and hijacks the artist's YouTube revenue

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137 pointsslipstream-41 comments

Pretty egregious, and something which one would hope you could sue Google for. In this case aiding in the infringement of Copyright because it is the Content ID system, with a borked refusal policy, that are allowing UMG to pirate the artist's music and to make a profit from it. Not only from the artist but anyone who was paying license fees to the artist are now having their video revenue get hijacked by UMG.

Seems like class action status might be possible.

> Pretty egregious, and something which one would hope you could sue Google for.

From the facts described, UMG is fraudulently interfering with Google's relationship with a legitimate business partner in order to commit criminal copyright infringement.

Certainly, someone should be prosecuted -- by the DOJ, not just the victim -- but I don't see why Google should be the primary target (if anything, Google should be among the plaintiffs in the civil action.)

That would be an interesting construction. From an engagement perspective it is probably easier to get a lawyer on spec based on class action status but if the DoJ could be brought in it would certainly give us something that the courts might be able to use to clarify automated takedown as it relates to the DMCA.

This really is copyright theft - not what MPAA keeps claiming that pirating a movie is. That's just copryright infringement. Here, UMG is actually stealing the copyright rights of the artists and makes them its own.

sue Google

Sure, if you've got a few hundred thousand dollars, five years, and are OK with being blacklisted from Google during that time.

I agree. This comes up frequently enough that it seems like there could be a legitimate class action of some kind.

Even in the FB post, there's a lot of "me too"'s.

At the very least offer to sit everyone down at a table and talk it out (I'm still partial to the unarmed combat solution, but that's me).

I'd assume that Google/Youtube's TOS include a clause such that any issue you might ever have, can only be resolved by arbitration. Lots of companies are busy making sure that merely using their service means you can't press a class action lawsuit.

Have those ToS-es been tested in court? (Or more relevantly, ask a lawyer who is familiar with the subject. It may be that not everything falls under their forced mandatory arbitration.)

This comes up every few months. ContentID is a system for ensuring that the major labels get paid, and people who don't have enough money for legal representation lose out either way.

Yeah, and fair use doesn't exist on YT for all intents and purposes. Effectively ContentID is actually much more restrictive than real copyright law by far, and there's nothing anyone can do about it because YT is a private company and you don't HAVE to use them (although the lack of competition is disheartening).

It is an unfortunate situation all around, one that I don't see changing any time soon... Only legitimate competition could fix this.

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That's an extraordinarily disingenuous description of the status quo.

MegaUpload was explicitly meant to host pirated content, and Kim Dotcom (a convicted felon) explicitly arranged for it to be seeded with pirated content. It was possible to use it for other things, but that's not why it existed.

I get that the popular narrative is that he's supposed to be a victim, but let's be honest about it: he didn't "fail to be restrictive enough", he actively aided, abetted, and encouraged copyright violations.

Using Mega as an example of a victim only makes you look like a kook, a liar, or a moron to the people who actually need to be influenced.

That's an extraordinarily disingenuous description of the status quo.

Then are we going to pretend that the Music Industry didn't try to sue YouTube out of existence and possibly only survived thanks to Google's deep wallets?

If you need deep corporate wallets to protect yourself to create a service like YouTube its not hard to see how a system like ContentID might come about to protect yourself from lawyers. Mountains of "pirate" evidence or not, protecting yourself from Hollywood's lawyers is expensive.

Civil lawsuits != prosecution.

Different problem than the one that the coward who deleted his posts was talking about. Sadly, we lost context because he hit delete after realizing that he was wrong.

That said, YouTube survived those lawsuits and continues to exist because of laws that the music industry itself lobbied for... they just hadn't considered all of the ramifications terribly deeply.

There are lots of companies that don't have Google's deep pockets that survive because of the DMCA. So while it's true that YouTube was sued, and that Google defended it, it's absolutely NOT true that the only way for a content company to survive is to have Google's access to capital.

> Civil lawsuits != prosecution.

Yes, the act of initiating legal action is prosecution, whether the action is civil or criminal. We don't call the people doing that act "the prosecution" in a civil case, but the act itself is still prosecution.

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There's less than zero value in bringing Megaupload into the discussion at all. They're not some 'content hosting site' that was 'aggressively prosecuted'. Megaupload was run by pirates who left mountains of evidence that they were ensuring that their content site was filled with pirated content.

Do you have an actual example of an actual content site that was aggressively criminally prosecuted?

ContentID is a system for keeping Viacom et al. from launching more billion-dollar lawsuits against Google.

It looks like this issue was resolved because the OP was willing to use the "appeal" process at Youtube. This is good to hear.

https://www.facebook.com/41670261867/photos/a.10150273836606...

For HN folks who don't recognize the name - Bjorn Lynne used to be part of the demoscene and wrote MOD song files under the name Dr Awesome. He worked for Team17 Software and wrote the soundtrack to Worms and many other games.

Unless you're another multibillion dollar company, you are a resource to Google, not a customer or a peer.

Also, this is a good lesson in why people should be careful about how they license out their music in the first place.

But god forbid you put a 30-second clip of you and your friends messing around, with a Beyonce song in the background or whatever.

I am not a lawyer, but this appears to be in direct violation of the license agreement that UMG made with AudioSparx:

PROHIBITED USES 3. Licensee may not claim ownership or authorship of the Tracks licensed herein.

REMEDIES Parties' rights and remedies in the event of a breach or an alleged breach of this agreement by defaulting party shall be limited to affected party's right, if any, to recover damages in an action at law. Notwithstanding the foregoing, no failure by either party to perform any of its obligations herein shall be deemed to be a breach hereof, unless the other party has given written notice of the alleged breach and allowed 30 days for the breaching party to cure said breach following such notice. In no event shall Licensor be entitled by reason of any breach or alleged breach to enjoin, restrain, or seek to enjoin or restrain the production, distribution, exploitation, advertising, promotion, or publicity of Licensee's project or projects, or elements thereof, which integrate the audio content licensed herein.

http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/legal/terms_of_service.cfm

On the plus side, this means that you don't have to go after Google which probably has the right to put ads on any video and pay anybody they want for those ads. On the downside, you can't file a DMCA takedown on UMG's content and will need a lawyer to get compensated for the breach of contract. If you just want to get the issue resolved going forward, you could probably send a cease and desist telling them to stop claiming ownership over the music and they will stop.

Perhaps there needs to be a version of the Creative Commons with a group kill-switch, where if a licensee violates the terms of the license, they lose the rights to use all CC-KS works until the violations have been remedied.

Not sure I'd go that far, but it's certainly an argument for CC-BY over CC0. With CC-BY they must credit you, and you can then either trivially prove your ownership of the work, or demonstrate copyright infringement (if they have violated the license).

That's a great idea, isn't there a common "defensive patents chest" for this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PatentFreedom Looks like they got bought out by an Intellectual Ventures clone. One of my regrets in life is that I have lived within trebuchet range of the main IV office, and never did anything with it.

http://defensivepatentlicense.org/ - if you license all of your patents under the DPL you then get free licenses to all other DPL patents. Your membership and licenses are revoked if you sue any other member for patent infringement.

I know that here in California, there is a non-profit named California Lawyers for the Arts[1] that will help artists get connected with lawyers who know copyright. It might be worth contacting them or a similar organization near the author for more info.

[1]http://www.calawyersforthearts.org

(Disclosure: I have known a few people who worked for CLA.)

(from the FB thread, just now)

Bjorn Lynne Hi all. As an update to this situation, I am happy to say that the Universal Music Group claim on my video has now been released.

I have not had any communication with/from UMG, but what seems to have done the trick is that I used the "appeal" process at YouTube after I was told that my original dispute had been rejected by UMG. Going through the "appeal" at YouTube is a pretty scary process, because YouTube uses some very strong language to warn you that you may face legal action and/or your YouTube account may be shut down. I did it nevertheless, I was that hell bent on getting UMG to stop monetizing my music and claiming ownership of it.

After a couple of days, I received notification from YouTube that the UMG claim against my video had been released. I think that the "appeal" process is the only thing that UMG takes seriously, because the way it works is that, if they still want to uphold their claim on the music, they have to issue a legal DMCA takedown notice and provide legal argumentation as to why they own the rights to that video/music. Obviously they could not do that, because the music was composed by me, and it was very easy for me to prove that. So it appears that, when they saw the appeal, they released their claim.

I'm still angry with UMG over their handling of this. First of all, they used non-exclusive stock music (which in this case happened to be composed by me) in a product and then entered that product into Content-ID at YouTube. This is explicitly against YouTube's Content-ID policy, which clearly states that in order to use Content-ID, you must fully own the content exclusively. Which they didn't. Admittedly, anybody can make a mistake like that, and I wouldn't have made a noise about it, if they had then released their claim when I disputed it and explained the situation. But they didn't. They waited the FULL 30 days that they are allowed in which to respond, and then they upheld their claim. That's when I got angry.

I don't know if UMG ever even looked at the dispute. Quite possibly, it is their policy to always allow the full 30 days to pass, and then uphold their claim, no matter what, knowing full well that the "appeal" process is so scary. In my opinion, this is speculative and legally questionable. Right now, they are probably monetizing hundreds of thousands of videos that contain audio that doesn't belong to them at all, deliberately and knowingly. It's the second time they've done this exact thing with my music (first, with my track "Mystical Pyramids" and then with "Kingdom of the Persians"). And, as one guy commented on this thread, these are the same guys crying so loudly about people copying their music.

Thanks for all your comments, shares and support in this matter! Much appreciated!

All the best, - Bjorn Lynne Unlike · Reply · 1 · 1 min

In the US, once you pay an initial retainer, a layer will sometimes work on a contingency basis - meaning they get one third of the final settlement. Given that UMG is a rich target, and the claim seems very strong, you might find someone like that to drive it. Even if you do, it will be slow, agonizing, and ultimately less than it should be when you win.

Offer to face your counterpart at UMG in single unarmed combat as a way to settle the matter honorably.

Why is it that when I say stuff like this it always gets downvoted?

It's a lot cheaper than involving lawyers, and it has the benefit of letting all participants work through their testosterone and adrenaline, so that after the match they can sit down and discuss the matter more amicably.

A proper refereed and organized fight is a pretty deep bonding experience, for guys anyway.

You're more likely to get, and give, a fair deal to someone that you've done something physical with - it's just how the human animal works.

It gets downvoted because if it's a joke it's not very funny and HN doesn't really like jokes anyway, and if it's not a joke it's a 19th-century kind of bonkers.

It's not a joke, and it works. A boxing match, or even a street fight in which there are no serious injuries, is a good way to bond, whoever wins.

You walk away thinking "This other person is willing to get into a fight with me, and fight fair". And the physicality of it does cause some amount of bonding.

Plus, the adrenaline in your system that builds up when you prepare to get into a negotiation and would otherwise have nowhere to go gets used up the way nature intended, which makes it easier to see things with equanimity afterwards.

That's an excellent starting point for any negotiation (assuming the fight was indeed fair).

We have evolved with physical fights as one of the cornerstones of our interactions with others -- you can repress it, be in denial about it, work against it, or work with it. What should a hacker do?

TLDR:

The point is not "who wins the fight wins the argument".

The point is "let's you and me fight, then afterwards, we can discuss the argument with more equanimity"

We (as a culture) have spent centuries stamping out trial by violence and duelling because as a dispute resolution mechanism it overwhelmingly favors young men with training.

We have in recent years marginalized boxing as it gets people killed or seriously injured, causes lasting brain damage even under controlled circumstances, and normalizes violent behavior.

Edit in reply to sibling: HN seems to have some anti-deep-thread mechanism which hides reply links. Maybe you should find someone to punch about that.

You're trolling right? Because settling legal disputes with Marquess of Queensbury rules is indeed 19th century bonkers.

Who would fight on UMG's behalf? They have enough money to bring any MMA fighter on as staff. Even if you restricted their pool of fighters to employees that they had before the duel was proposed, they have enough employees that they could probably still find somebody that could kick your ass.

To pjc50 to whom I can't seem to reply:

The point is not "who wins the fight wins the argument".

The point is "let's you and me fight, then afterwards, we can discuss the argument with more equanimity".

the problem is, UMG do have their own people for this. every little mom&pop shop has an army of lawyers, but some companies are so despised they need additional resources for challenges like those.

a lot of musicians and movie stars challenge their opponents to fist fights on a regular basis; and sometimes you get a mickey rourke or an uwe boll, brawlers who know what they're doing, or muscled rappers with a shady past and diamond rings on their fingers that aren't for show.

so UMG hires the biggest, meanest colombian war criminals, send them to fist fight college and employ those guys as "sekundanten" (sorry, no idea about the english term here - stand ins for duels).

poor bjorn lynne wouldn't stand a chance.

Didn't Notch tried that with Bethesda over the right to the word "scrolls"? I mean, he tried to try, because AFAIR Bethesda refused the Quake 3 match he proposed to resolve the issue.

And I somewhat agree with your sentiment. Today's process in the US is a huge resource wasting machine that serves only one group - lawyers.

http://www.themarysue.com/mojang-bethesda-settle-scrolls/

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