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Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

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Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#61

Post by sametmax »

zaarn wrote: post #51

Easy and stupid solution: Make it illegal to falsely claim copyright on a piece of media and additionally make transparent and fair processes around Notice&Takedown required for all larger platforms. Youtube's DMCA mechanism is a black box, you get told you did some bad and you can say "no I didn't do bad" at which point the black box will do things and after a few days agree or not. If someone files a copyright clai…

Powerful entities are getting less and less liable to the public every day. And it's mostly because of us: we don't make them pay any mistake, so they carry on as long as it profit them.

Google is not your friend. It's a for profit company that protect its interests.

Basically, they won't do anything because:

- they don't care. They never did. They used to pretend they did when they were not the leader. Now they are.

- they won't gain anything from changing the status quo.

- they won't lose anything because of it. You content is just a tiny small drop in the sea, and they own the biggest and most popular ocean. And the fish never rebels.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#62

Post by kartan »

jpttsn wrote: post #39
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

A longer exclusivity term makes it possible to recoup more investment costs, for those who invest in artists. This theoretically enables larger investments that can support the artist further up front.

> A longer exclusivity term makes it possible to recoup more investment costs

I go to the bank. I ask for a loan. I tell them that I will small marginal profits after 75 years. I do not get the loan.

Even if in some cases this was actually possible. Still, we need to evaluate if it is worth it. All the stories, movies, characters that are part of your formation and your culture will be privately owned and restricted until way after you are dead.

Characters, music, and other cultural assets only become free when nobody cares anymore about them.

We are evaluating the possibility of the creation of some cultural assets against the reality of other cultural assets that are not created because the government sets monopolistic restrictions on them.

There is a sweet spot where creators can live out of their creations. And were citizens can make their own vision of characters that personally meant a lot to them.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#63

Post by kartan »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #25

YouTube sent me a takedown request for publishing a video to my own song (which is published on CD only). They took down the song because I could not "prove" I was the owner. I guess my name being on the cover and my picture was not enough... I.e. - they don't check even if you point out it's a mistake - they always side with the copyright owner by default

> They took down the song because I could not "prove" I was the owner.

Because it is not about rights, it is about power.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#64

Post by jillesvangurp »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

The laws differ per country, which makes this super complicated. One of the complexities is that you cannot actually opt out of copyright in many countries and semi private institutions exist that by default will start demanding fees for other people's works based on vague notion of them being the designated organization to do so. The legalities around this are super complicated but it boils down to private institutions having the right to charge fees for copyrighted work by default.

In Germany, this organization is called Gema and they send takedown notices and demand to be payed for work to which they do not own the copyright which they then distribute among their members. This happens even when this goes against the will of the legal copyright holder and you get absolutely nothing unless you are member. Becoming a member is very long process and is not free. So you have to pay to eventually get the right to get payed. It is effectively the bigger Gema members that grab most of the cash that it collects.

Effectively organizations like Gema are legalized extortion schemes. They get to play judge, prosecutor, and police. Real judges routinely and blindly rule in their favor. Lawmakers are lobbied into submission, etc. Wikipedia has a nice overview of how artists are getting ripped off, misc fraudulent schemes involving Gema, and how money rolls to their exclusive members rather than the artists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEMA_(German_organization).

What happened in this case is that the recordings are in the Gema database which parties like Youtube are required to use to check for potential violations. Of course Gema has no interest whatsoever to prune this database of stuff that shouldn't be there (like public domain stuff) and good luck convincing them to remove stuff from that db. More entries basically means more money for them and the burden is on the payer to prove otherwise. Their strategy is to make this as hard and tedious as possible so they can maximize their profits.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#65

Post by toong »

tallanvor wrote: post #24

It seems to me that a big part of the problem is that Google is focusing on this the wrong way. Rather than automatically assume that ContentID is correct and notifying the user, it should instead notify the supposed owner of the music, and let them decide whether or not to make a claim. If the "owner" makes too many false claims then they should be banned form the service.

I thought that was the way it works ? But they just hit the (virtual) "claim everything" button as fast as they can.

Maybe the problem is that Google can't ban them from the service legally ?

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#66

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Things are seriously whack in regards to posting anything regarding classical music online.

I had a short 1-minute video that I made last year to demo a product. I used the intro to Beethoven's Ninth, second movement, from a recording made in the 50s as background music.

Nobody would post it due to copyright issues. Heck if I could figure it out, and like all things fucked up about having algorithms tell me what I can and can't do online, I ignored it and moved on. Not worth fighting over something I shouldn't have to fight about.

I wonder, however, how many other people do the same thing that I do -- and how that's all going to end up over the long term. Not good, I expect.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#67

Post by onetimemanytime »

yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

>>As for the family, there really isn't any reason they should obtain that copyright. If they wanna earn money with art, they have to create art on their own.

OK, should you benefit from your father's or grandfather's talent in, say, business? Let's treat them equally.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#68

Post by danaris »

dotancohen wrote: post #49
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

How about works for hire? When should the copyright on The Lion King expire when people of all ages had worked on it?

Presumably, based on the GP's proposal, 50 years after its creation.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#69

Post by markvdb »

clon wrote: post #40
yeloboy wrote: post #31

Copyright should only have a term of life (with a minimum duration of 50 years in case the artist dies at 20-30) and that's all. Tell me one reason this shouldn't be the case. By then, the studios will have taken a profit (or been a commercial failure but that's not on us) and so will have the artist. After the artist dies, there's no reason to "support the artist" anymore and while there is the effect of post-mortem…

Lazy rich child A's dad built a house, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (maintenance, taxes). Lazy rich child B's dad wrote some music, which he and his children can benefit from for marginal costs (publishing, taxes). I know - in one case it is a physical object, and in the other - immaterial. But both houses and music can offer enjoyment and can be benefited from financially, and thus h…

This comparison is intellectually lazy or maybe even dishonest.

One difference between a house and a recording is marginal cost of replication/reproduction: not zero in case of a house, effectively zero in case of a recording.

Without a government granted monopoly on copies, the marginal financial value of a copy is close to zero in all but the most exotic cases.

With a government granted monopoly comes a real cost: enforcement, and loss of social value. How does one justify that?

Authors' descendants do not have a $DEITY granted eternal right to exploit the author's work, and rightly so. This is why "intellectual property" can be more accurately described as "intellectual rights".

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