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Why does the music industry want you to "steal"?

23 January 2009

As an experiment, I created a video and uploaded it to my YouTube channel.

This video unlawfully included a copyrighted music track, Holiday by Green Day and I fully expected it to be pulled as soon as the infringement was detected.

Sure enough, I received an email from YouTube this week advising me that "Your video, Autogyros Over Tokoroa, may have content that is owned or licensed by WMG". Rather than pull the video, they simply muted the soundtrack so as to remove the offending audio material.

Now I have no problems with this and I'm surprised it took as long as it did for Warner Music (WMG) and/or YT to detect this infringement and take action.

So why did I do this?

Well because I wanted to demonstrate why WMG deserve much of the piracy they suffer.

You see, I have tried to get ahold of someone at WMG to find out about the cost of legally using this copyrighted music on a YouTube video -- to no avail.

I've rung Warner Music NZ on several occasions now and asked for someone responsible for licensing to contact me.

So far I've heard nothing, zilch, nix, nada.

I even tried contacting APRA, the Australasian Performing Right Association.

Since Warner themselves don't seem interested in actually licensing their music for use on YT vids (only strong-arming those who use it without such licence), I figured that perhaps APRA could act as the intermediary. After all, on their website they say:

"Since 1997, APRA has also been able to offer a number of reproduction licences through AMCOS, a music copyright collection society that represents music publishers and writers from around the world for rights in the reproduction (copying) of their music. These include licences to record music onto CDs for sale to the public, to make radio and television programmes, to provide background music services to businesses, to make ringtones and digital downloads and licences to use production music"

Surely they'd be able to organise a license for me -- wouldn't they?

Sadly, the answer is no.

APRA's Manager of Broadcast Services, Rebekah Nolan told me "the sound recording will be controlled by a record company and you can contact them directly" so it was back to square one.

But wait, it's worse.

Apparently it's not just a case of buying a license to use a track in your YouTube (or other) video. Oh no. You've got to get two clearances. One is from the songwriter (or whoever they've assigned the copyright to) and the other is for the sound recording itself.

The fees associated with this are based on "potential audience, the production's budget, commercial gain, and the subject of the video", according to Ms Nolan.

Now if you're lucky, it'll still take upwards of six weeks for your application to be processed and in the words of Ms Nolan "as you can see, this process appears a bit daunting for some, and is time consuming and often costly. It is, however, the legal way to go about obtaining the rights to use music"

Right now I'm pretty sure I'm watching the recording industry shooting themselves in the foot again.

Why complain so long and loud about people "stealing" your intellectual property and using it in their YouTube (or other) videos if you make it all but impossible for them to purchase legal use of that same material?

If they're going to kick people up the backside for using their music without authority then it makes sense to have a system in place to allow those who want, to simply purchase a license to use online and in a matter of seconds.

Indeed... it might be a great way for YouTube to generate some much-needed and long-awaited revenues -- by acting as an agent for those who want to legally purchase the rights to use copyrighted music in the videos they upload.

The fact that the recording industry throws so many road-blocks and obstacles in the way of anyone who wants to "do the right thing" and pay them money for the right to use their content shows that they're still more interested in suing and prosecuting people than they are in availing themselves of new opportunities to create revenues.

Just look at how legal music downloads have exploded -- now that they're available.

Until they actually offered legal downloads, the recording industry was moaning that the Net would be the end of them -- and now it's their salvation. The same goes for people "stealing" their material for use in online videos. If they don't provide a legal option then people will continue to use the illegal one.

And these are the same people who have convinced government to eliminate the basic tenet of justice (the presumption of innocence) by way of Section 92A of the Copyright Amendment Act which comes into effect here in NZ in a little more than a month's time.

What the hell is going on here?

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