The RIAA and its many cronies have been on the warpath for a
few years
now, going after individuals and organisations alike who it considers
to be abusing the rights of artists copyrighted music.
While uploading an official music video without the copyright
holders consent is obviously going to get you in trouble, what happens
when it is a user-generated video to accompany a copyrighted song?
Popular
social network Hi5
is being
sued by large music group EMI for alledgedly allowing users
to upload video content with embedded copyrighted music.
VideoEgg User Creations
Hi5, though not hugely popular in the U.S, does have a large
user
base abroad. Hi5, like many social networking sites, somewhat
recently
opened its platform so developers could create user
applications. One
such application from VideoEgg
allows users to upload their own video creations, which includes videos
with music clips playing as background tracks. That isn’t
anything
particularly new, but it certainly makes for some fun internet
time-wasting.
Though I can’t say whether EMI is a lover of home video
creations or
not, I’m fairly sure that EMI has a legitimate complaint when it argues
that both VideoEgg and Hi5 are profiting in allowing users to upload
copyrighted content to the social networking site.
Stolen Content
VideoEgg
runs
advertisements for its service, and quality applications will always
draw new users to a platform like Hi5. If users haven’t paid
for both
owernship and distribution rights, the content is, by all rights,
stolen.
That is exactly why EMI is suing Hi5, VideoEgg and unnamed
others
for stealing audio content. The problem, as I see it, is that
there
really is no way for users to completely pay for rights to upload
copyrighted audio tracks by way of video to share with a social
community.
And YouTube?
But what about Youtube?
That
is just one platform that allows users to upload content as they
choose. Beyond actually shutting down all social video
communities,
how does EMI really expect consumers to monetize the rights to use
music in video content?
It seems obvious to me that the old rules of copyright will
have to
change, and change quickly. EMI, the RIAA and others will
never stop
crying about the “rights of the artists,” artists who even believe that
such media protection groups are a little off their rockers, not to
mention acting with very little interest for the actual artists, and
users will certainly not stop violating copyright laws to create their
own content.
We are at a stalemate, and it would be sad to
see the
government side with a few money-grubbing companies instead of
promoting the advancement of the internet and social venues.
Conclusions
After all, what do music protection groups really
contribute?
Certainly not as much as social communites have given. Some
artists
have completely dropped the idea of signing with big record labels,
because those companies are only focused on squeezing the life source
out of artists and then dropping them on the curb. That can’t
be
something the government is willing to defend.
But who knows? I don’t. For the time
being, social communities and
websites will have to step carefully to avoid the murky waters
of
copyright infringement, waters that the music business sharks patrol
hungrily. To those of you who might dabble in audio overlays
of your
video content, think twice before uploading, lest you receive an
unwelcome visit from some kook with an RIAA or EMI nametag.
This article is based on a Profy post written by Triston McIntyre
