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Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

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Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#81

Post by Argorak »

afro88 wrote: post #79
anigbrowl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boo hoo. He's promoting his own internet radio show, it's up to him to work out clearances. He asks what basis they have for doing it, like choice of law etc., well read the ToS, that's why it's there. 'Other people do it too!' is about the most juvenile argument there is, and the fact that they haven't experienced problems yet is neither here nor there. Maybe Universal hasn't got around to yanking stuff from them…

People might be downvoting this because of it's tone, but it's correct. If you're putting up radio shows, DJ sets or anything that uses other people's music you need to clear each track in it. Owning a piece of music doesn't entitle you to broadcast it, it merely entitles you to listen to it.

This is a tricky subject. If you are german, you are entitled to broadcast it.

Germany has mandatory licensing for broadcast through GEMA.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#82

Post by kalleboo »

anigbrowl wrote: post #78
kalleboo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the stranglehold. This. If you get a promo from an artist, ask them, "Is this under copyright with a label? Sorry, in that case I can't play it."

Actually the correct response would be 'can you give me a release to play it.' Everything is under copyright with someone, refusing to deal with any labels whatsoever just means punishing any artist that dares enter into a publishing relationship with someone else.

Even if you get a separate license on the side, Universal will still take your music down from SoundCloud. Just like how news services take down public domain NASA video from YouTube. They have a special direct relationship that doesn't follow DMCA or any other rules.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#83

Post by kalleboo »

earbitscom wrote: post #72
kalleboo wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the stranglehold. This. If you get a promo from an artist, ask them, "Is this under copyright with a label? Sorry, in that case I can't play it."

Isn't that akin to not blogging about a great startup because you don't like their VC? There are better ways to stick it to the man.

Except in this case the VC is getting your blog shut down for writing about them.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#84

Post by Dylan16807 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #75
amckenna wrote: post #30

The part that really gets me is that Universal isn't even trying to help people "do the right thing". In the email from Greg Morris he states: "The problem I'm having is the ambiguity of the feedback. For example, on the first strike you just said "Universal Music" said I used one of their tunes. The set started with an Ellie Golding song which I thought was the problem. So I removed that and re-uploaded. It was then…

Oh boo hoo. He's promoting his own internet radio show, it's up to him to work out clearances. He asks what basis they have for doing it, like choice of law etc., well read the ToS, that's why it's there. 'Other people do it too!' is about the most juvenile argument there is, and the fact that they haven't experienced problems yet is neither here nor there. Maybe Universal hasn't got around to yanking stuff from them…

In an actual legal case it is your right to be told exactly what you are charged with. Universal is taking actions based on copyright law but outside the legal system and refusing to be specific. This is allowed behavior but it is extremely distasteful.

It is not acceptable to mistreat someone because they are doing 'something' wrong.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#85

Post by anigbrowl »

Argorak wrote: post #81
afro88 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People might be downvoting this because of it's tone, but it's correct. If you're putting up radio shows, DJ sets or anything that uses other people's music you need to clear each track in it. Owning a piece of music doesn't entitle you to broadcast it, it merely entitles you to listen to it.

This is a tricky subject. If you are german, you are entitled to broadcast it. Germany has mandatory licensing for broadcast through GEMA.

Well, you'd still owe a fee as the broadcaster. Unless I'm very muh mistaken, you can't just buy a bunch of CDs and then have public performance rights; it's just that as long as you pay the GEMA fees, rightholders can't decline to license the work to you.

Here's a good Techdirt article about GEMA (and regular readers will know I usually find TD a deplorable source due to poor reportage, but this is an exception): https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130425/17042522839/how-g...

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#86

Post by anigbrowl »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #84
anigbrowl wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boo hoo. He's promoting his own internet radio show, it's up to him to work out clearances. He asks what basis they have for doing it, like choice of law etc., well read the ToS, that's why it's there. 'Other people do it too!' is about the most juvenile argument there is, and the fact that they haven't experienced problems yet is neither here nor there. Maybe Universal hasn't got around to yanking stuff from them…

In an actual legal case it is your right to be told exactly what you are charged with. Universal is taking actions based on copyright law but outside the legal system and refusing to be specific. This is allowed behavior but it is extremely distasteful. It is not acceptable to mistreat someone because they are doing 'something' wrong.

In an actual legal case you'd also be liable for damages. I agree it's unhelpful of Universal to just yank the material without providing feedback on what, exactly, infringed their copyright, but the fact remains that the responsibility for copyright clearance lies with the person who wants to copy the work, not the rightsholder.

I agree it's distasteful, but given that Greg seems to be well-established professionally there's no way he doesn't know this. It's rather absurd to see him accusing SoundCloud of 'stealing' his subscription fee - ie complaining about the loss of his property interest in his SC account - while at the same time thinking he can help himself to all the raw material, ie other people's published music.

Yes, it's unfair that broadcast radio stations get all their music for free by default, while internet DJs don't, legally. They get that because they banded together and negotiated for those rights. That's the solution: collaborate with other internet radio DJs and draft a blanket license agreement for noncommercial reproduction, then shop it to labels.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#87

Post by conatus »

oceanstone wrote: post #26

The one looming question is, does Universal have access to spectrum analysis products of tracks, or the actual sounds themselves? If they have access to the actual sounds, they'll be able to harvest song ideas from private tracks. No bueno.

Judging by my above comment, probably spectrum analysis.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#88

Post by CapitalistCartr »

bphogan wrote: post #64
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building upon the cultural contributions of our past is how all of human civilization was built. Until the late twentieth century. Disney (for instance) strips our culture like a jackal, yet buys senators (such as Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings) to subvert the law so they can keep it a one-way flow. To allow a few to subvert all of human existence for their personal gain is obscene.

I understand that's how culture works. But I'm talking about the fact that because of Disney, this is now how it works, and it should not be surprising that this is happening. There's a big difference between "how it should be" and "how it actually is."

I agree completely, there is a big difference between how it should be and how it actually is. But its obvious that Disney's vision of reality isn't how it works. Culture works by sharing, still. How it will work going forward is up in the air yet; we can still control the outcome by not giving in.

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#89

Post by chippy »

dang wrote: post #13
chippy wrote: post #2

Original article from a couple of days ago http://doandroidsdance.com/features/soundcloud-boldly-releas... "SoundCloud seems to have given Universal the keys to the car within the last month, and is allowing the media giant full access to flag accounts’ records without any communication whatsoever with SoundCloud. "

Thanks. We changed the url from http://www.dancingastronaut.com/2014/07/soundcloud-continues... . Btw, stories can't have both urls and text, so your submission text was lost. We're going to fix that so a message comes up when users do it.

Great stuff, thanks for changing it!

Re: Soundcloud Releases New App, Allows Universal to Flag Your Account

#90

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

kalleboo wrote: post #71
polemic wrote: post #38

So SoundCloud users had a good run, but now the popularity of the service reached critical mass and raised the ire of the labels so they're knuckling under like every other provider. SoundCloud (sensibly) doesn't want the burden of dealing with the massive copyright infringement by it's users and outsources the job to the owners of the tracks. Now I get that it sucks that you don't get explicit explanations of what i…

> If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the stranglehold. This. If you get a promo from an artist, ask them, "Is this under copyright with a label? Sorry, in that case I can't play it."

Can I plug MusicBox (http://www.mymusicbox.me/) real quick? We curate killer songs from the best indie artists and send them (for free) to a list of over 10k. We work directly with the artists and indie labels, so no issues. We want to support them, not screw 'em.
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