"Google's YouTube and the Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music label, are in advanced discussions over a licensing agreement that could lead to the creation of a premium site for music videos, according a person briefed on the talks."
The backstory here is that the sub-divisions of the sub-divisions of the media leviathans that control all the world's music, probably going back to our simian ancestors' rhythmic stick-banging, if they had their way, had worked out a way to accept uses of their music tracks in YouTubers' uploads, namely by running advertising against those videos on the YouTube site. This arrangement was worked out as a way for the labels to avoid looking like Super-Colossal/Special-Gigantic Dickheads for, say, taking down 30-second videos of toddlers dancing around to music by Prince (even though such a use is absolutely, unequivocally and obviously an instance of Fair Use, a legal principle neither the music labels nor the film and television studios appear to grasp, and not a violation of copyright in any way).
Except, apparently, UMG decided there wasn't enough money in this arrangement which, to be fair, would also have allowed potentially infringing uses to stay up and generate ad revenue. So now UMG has changed its policy to Automatic Takedown when the Content I.D. system finds one of its songs on YouTube. This has led to the usual indiscrimate corporate censorship, in which even uses of Universal content falling under Fair Use result in robot takedown with the added chilling effect that the victims are afraid to seek redress because they don't want to be sued by the Big Bad Wolf. Don't think this is happening? Well, here's an example:
This viral video, made by DustFilms, was a smash on YouTube until UMG took it down. Now it's a smash on Funny Or Die.
Take on Me: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos
Parody has long been acknowledged as Fair Use - and it's not even one of those difficult-to-figure-out Fair Use cases. The US Supreme Court, in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., a landmark case, held unanimously that a parody that reproduces a substantial portion of a copyrighted work, even for profit, is still protected speech under the Fair Use clause of the 1976 Copyright Act. DustFilms' amusing series of "literal" music videos are clearly parodies. Case closed.
So, automated takedown or not, YouTube's removal of this video (and subsequent "literal music videos") at UMG's request is nothing less than illegal corporate supression of protected speech. The trouble is, when this kind of thing happens, no small-time artist has the financial ability to take on Universal's legal machine. This is where we are today with copyright in America. The corporations that control the vast majority of the intellectual property that makes up our popular culture - which many would suggest is the stuff of our collective consciousness as a people, and very much a subject for art and criticism - are rich enough to illegally cock-block anyone who dares to create that art or criticism.
I know this firsthand, after having worked at a smallish media corporation with a giantish fear of being sued for infringement and seeing the chilling effect, every single day, of that fear on the media we were trying to create. That's bad enough, but at least that company had a legal department and a world-famous top executive; hell, if we had gotten sued, we could have noisily fought back. Individual artists rarely have that chance.
Then today comes this news that UMG's new "solution" for this "problem" is to start a new "premium" website with YouTube for their music videos. Sigh. Just what we need, another fucking online video site.
I get that these old media companies are desperately trying to navigate the uncharted waters of the new media space - or rather, are desperately trying to ignore the long-existing charts because they don't like the lay of the land and hope to miracle some kind of Northwest Passage through it - and it's not easy to do. Nor is it easy for them to watch their old business models crumble all around them. I can sympathize with them, if I screw up my face and squeeze my eyes shut and clap really loud and believe in fairies, just a little bit.
Maybe this UMG/YT premium site will be the answer to old media's prayers. But if it incorporates the same censoring, restrictive, Big Brother-ish, anti-fan oafishness of their efforts so far, there's little chance of success.
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