Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes • Hacker News Board

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#91

Post by bonoboTP » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

jalapenos wrote: post #87

Borealid wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copyright and patents are absolutely not the same thing at all. A patent makes it illegal to use a particular idea, by any means. It is a limited-time universal monopoly on a set of specific "claims" (the selected applications of the idea). It has nothing to do with whether someone copied you or not. A copyright is a prohibition on someone copying you, with certain exceptions where they are allowed to do so ("fair us…

I think you want them to be meaningfully different, for whatever reason, but at the end of the day, they both come down to "if I did the thing you already did, and that you laid claim to through some form of artificial statutory fabrication of rights, you can sue me". Whether that means me exploiting having heard your song by playing your song myself, or exploiting your invention I examined by building it myself, the…

See my other reply parallel to yours. There's no principle of "I did it first, therefore it's my property!". For example, if that was so, you could report an invention and get a patent for it without disclosing exactly how you did the thing. After all you did do it first, so it should be off limits by the (non-existent) "I did it first" principle. Instead, patent law requires "sufficiency of disclosure", meaning that you MUST disclose enough information that another skilled person can recreate the invention from the specified information. You get the time-limited exclusivity in exchange for disclosing the method so that others can work on top of it, refine the technique etc, so when the time comes that the patent expires, there will be improved versions. It is explicitly there to inspire others to work on the thing afterwards, just with some time delay.

Blurring distinct laws and their nuanced purposes into some generic "I call dibs!" principle is exactly what the propaganda part is. Because that creates a kind blurry haze in people's minds that even fills gaps that none of the existing laws currently block out. So people will feel like "that just feels illegal, but I can't exactly say what it violates". A kind of FUD around doing all manners of free intellectual activity in society.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#92

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 3:13 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #89

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube has those policies in place in order to comply with copyright law, yes? In the long run, I would expect smaller platforms to adopt similar policies as they grow, in order to achieve compliance with copyright law.

> Youtube has those policies in place in order to comply with copyright law A lot of it is just CYA and enforcement theater. YouTube could pretty much have one dedicated account manager for someone with the subscriber count of Beato who would work as a first-line of defense against frivolous/bogus copyright claims. > I would expect smaller platforms to adopt similar policies as they grow But then the content creators…

>YouTube could pretty much have one dedicated account manager for someone with the subscriber count of Beato who would work as a first-line of defense against frivolous/bogus copyright claims.

Are there any Youtube alternatives which actually do this, though?

I don't think it actually makes a difference whether Youtube hires the lawyer, or whether Beato hires the lawyer. It comes out of Youtube ad revenues either way. It's better for Beato to be the one to choose who he wants to represent him.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#93

Post by codedokode » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 3:36 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #10

One answer to this madness is to starve the beast: never buy any music or any content from an established company. Torrent everything. It may not work at all, but at least you can tell yourself you're not helping the bastards.

You must be working at an AI company.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#94

Post by rglullis » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 4:05 PM UTC

0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #92

rglullis wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Youtube has those policies in place in order to comply with copyright law A lot of it is just CYA and enforcement theater. YouTube could pretty much have one dedicated account manager for someone with the subscriber count of Beato who would work as a first-line of defense against frivolous/bogus copyright claims. > I would expect smaller platforms to adopt similar policies as they grow But then the content creators…

>YouTube could pretty much have one dedicated account manager for someone with the subscriber count of Beato who would work as a first-line of defense against frivolous/bogus copyright claims. Are there any Youtube alternatives which actually do this, though? I don't think it actually makes a difference whether Youtube hires the lawyer, or whether Beato hires the lawyer. It comes out of Youtube ad revenues either way…

Except that YouTube wouldn't have to hire a lawyer to do any of that. A single Jr account manager from Google should be able to have a dashboard that can reject/overrule bogus claims, and send an automatic response to the copyright trolls telling them where to go if they want to escalate this and get real lawyers involved.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#95

Post by benji-york » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 4:15 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #54

falcor84 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a copyright, people are allowed to do anything similar to you, so long as they do not derive their work from yours. That is patently false for music - a songwriter's claim today that they never heard a slightly similar hook from 40 years ago generally doesn't hold in court.

I think they mean that they can for instance use the song non-professionally.

There is no legal distinction between violating copyright "professionally" or not.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#96

Post by benji-york » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 4:17 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #65

amelius wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they mean that they can for instance use the song non-professionally.

How is that different from a patent then? I don't think anyone would sue you for patent infringement against your hobby project. IP only typically becomes an issue when you want to make some money from your work, and then someone claims that it's actually their work, and thus should be their money.

> I don't think anyone would sue you for patent infringement against your hobby project.

You are mistaken.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#97

Post by bigyabai » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 4:54 PM UTC

AstralStorm wrote: post #75

bonoboTP wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't an artist or band just make songs and upload them to the platforms directly? And do live shows. What extra does a label give? As you said, they used to invest in artist development and were indispensable for producing the physical media at scale and distributing it to physical record stores everywhere, including internationally. Today all this is much simpler to manage.

You can. You will not be seen unless a label or some big name promotes you. Radio? Forget about it. Big concerts next to big agents? Nope. Thing is, breaking through or even is ever harder.

It's worth nothing that we don't live in the 1980s anymore. Radio play, opening for Nickleback, selling merch - all of this matters much less than having a dedicated Internet following. We have lots of examples of musicians in the modern era eschewing radio play entirely, only for radios to beg for licensing rights to play their music. Or successful artists who started their own label or bought-back the rights to their masters. The times have changed quite significantly.

The other thing people seem to forget is that many of the original labels were talent agencies. The reason they promote anyone at all is to try and recoup the investment of supporting all of them. You don't have to empathize with record labels, but modern artists can absolutely "scale" without someone artificially inflating their popularity.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#98

Post by mixmastamyk » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 4:59 PM UTC

Borealid wrote: post #76

falcor84 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With a copyright, people are allowed to do anything similar to you, so long as they do not derive their work from yours. That is patently false for music - a songwriter's claim today that they never heard a slightly similar hook from 40 years ago generally doesn't hold in court.

The burden of proof of infringement is on the plaintiff in either case. If you have an obscure patent nobody has ever heard of, you can win the suit by showing that the defendant had the same idea you did - you don't need to show their work derives from yours. If you have an obscure song nobody has ever heard (or even an unpublished one!) you are going to have a difficult time proving infringement for a similar riff.…

They got George Harrison for a different song that had a similar melody. Don’t think it was identical, though would have to investigate.

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#99

Post by nwallin » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 5:20 PM UTC

Borealid wrote: post #35

rsp1984 wrote: post #23

It gets even crazier when compared to other IP law: Engineer makes an invention: Write 30-Page patent application. Multi-year patenting process with USPTO, pay 1000s of $ if DIY, 10x that if using an IP law firm. Multiply by 4x if going international. With luck, patent gets issued 3 years later. It protects you for 25 years, but only if you have deep pockets for an IP lawsuit in case someone does copy you -- and with…

I think it's worth mentioning that with a patent, nobody else is allowed to use the patented idea. This holds even if they have never heard of you before, and were entirely unaware your patent (or your version of the patented concept) existed. You are granted a monopoly. With a copyright, people are allowed to do anything similar to you, so long as they do not derive their work from yours. Someone unaware of your wor…

> With a copyright, people are allowed to do anything similar to you, so long as they do not derive their work from yours.

John C. Fogerty famously got sued by John C. Fogerty for sounding too similar to John C. Fogerty.

https://blogs.law.gwu.edu/mcir/case/fantasy-v-fogerty/

Re: Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

#100

Post by strunz » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 5:25 PM UTC

rglover wrote: post #83

Labels would make a fortune if they just set up an online license request store. Any track in various lengths for various prices. Once you pay, you're granted a license. Could take a few minutes for a podcaster to search a song, buy a license for the right length, and you're done. Have a URL that displays a license and instruct creators to put that at the bottom of their video/audio description. Then, any bots can sc…

That defeats the whole point of this issue. These uses are fair use, they shouldn't have to license anything. You can't teach music without playing it, Youtube is just allowing rights holders to make claims without any evidence or punishment for being wrong.