Great voice, Lea! Love your style.
Just one question regarding your music vlogs in general: how do you manage to acquire the copyrights for all the songs (lyrics) you're covering here?
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Great voice, Lea! Love your style.
Just one question regarding your music vlogs in general: how do you manage to acquire the copyrights for all the songs (lyrics) you're covering here?
It literally just made my morning that you stopped by and listened to my music cover!! :)
Great question on copyrighting. Technically, music covers require two different licences - one that covers the audio, and one that covers the video portion in order to post on YouTube. If I was trying to sell the cover on Itunes or make it available for download - that is where I would need to get more serious about licensing. For those posting the videos online that are free for others to watch - are generally going to be okay. Most artists are thrilled to see thousands of covers pop up - because that means their songs are gaining popularity.
So what happens if an artists decides that they don't want you covering their song? Technically, they can take action if you haven't purchased the copyright licensing. All of the legal resources I have read say that the worst they can really do is ask YouTube to remove your video, or simply have the ad revenue from the video split with them. This could be a problem for someone if they have a huge YouTube channel and are making money from their ad revenue.
This is the beauty of Dtube. If an artist was unhappy that their song was covered on Dtube - they wouldn't be able to have it removed. They also wouldn't be able to get revenue from ads because that is not how Dtube is monetized. Because Dtube pays out within seven days - they cannot claim future royalties on the cover.
This will be an interesting thing to watch as Dtube continues to grow in popularity. Right now, all of the legal advice centers around YouTube and the ability for a central authority to shut a video down or divert funds. Once artists start seeing the payouts of Steem on Dtube - there may be changes in the law, but i'm not really sure what that would look like.
You're welcome! I'm allocating most of my Voting Power on video content now, and your music is really great.
With regards to the second part of your comment, I'm a bit concerned.
That shouldn't actually be our (content creators) point of view. Like: luckily, they can't catch us. If copyright abuse became an issue on DTube, the whole application might get into serious trouble, and then our all benefits would be quickly gone. Also the fact that this is a decentralized platform doesn't mean that a lawyer can't contact you in order to press charges against you.
If you personally knew that you weren't allowed to use these lyrics, then you shouldn't publish these covers. Again, I love your voice, but besides all the creativity we should all act according to the law. Since you are monetizing your content here, it's definitely a commercial use. So just be careful :-)
Thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts and concerns.
Most artists are thrilled to see people making covers of their music. Imitation is the highest form of flattery and I’m sure many love to see how others interpret their work.
That being said, if an artist ever approached me saying they didn’t want me to cover their music I would of course stop playing their music immediately. Or if they wanted to negotiate a percentage cut for letting me play their music, I would be more than willing to discuss that with them and transfer the agreed upon steem or SBD after the post payout.
The fact of the matter is, thousands and thousands of covers get posted every day to youtube, but you very rarely see any kind of copyright issue. Why? Probably because most artists are very happy to see their songs covered.
I should also mention that getting the copyright agreement is not as simple as just paying a fee. It is a whole legal process and there are many hoops to jump through. That is why cover artists usually only consider going through the whole licensing process when they want to sell the cover.
Also just from a personal standpoint - I can’t write a song to save my life, but music is one of my greatest passions and joys in life. Before joining Steemit, I never would’ve dreamed I might actually record myself and share it on the Internet! Through the support of the Open Mic community, I slowly grew more comfortable sharing my voice. Now creating covers to post here on Dtube is one of my absolute favorite parts of the day. 😊
I can understand your concern, and actually really appreciate that you want to protect the Dtube platform from any potential legal actions. I love posting here on Dtube, and have nothing but good intentions to help the platform continue to grow. I personally see no issue with posting covers, and I actually think I am bringing a lot of value to the platform by doing so. Covers of music is one of the top segments of content on YouTube, and by growing that segment here on Dtube, we will help attract more users and content creators to the platform.
I hope that helps to clear up where I’m coming from. I really appreciate you taking the time to engage with me on this level.
I completely agree, we touched a really interesting topic here and I'm starting to learn a lot about copyrights and licencing right now :-) After your last comment I started to do a little research, and here are my results:
That you actually don't see that copyright issues is due to YouTube's so called Content ID System. That algo analyzes elements of every single video uploaded to the platform in order to determine if a video contains any copyrighted material. If so, the system automatically places a claim on that video on behalf of the rights holder.
That is actually why you can't compare YouTube and DTube at this point in time. On YouTube copyright protection (censorship) is controled and excecuted from a centralized institution, while users on DTube are organized in a self-governed structure.
If you upload a cover song video on YouTube without owning the so called sync license, you will find a claim placed on the video by the publisher, and any ad revenue generated by your video will be paid to that rights holder. It's all done by an algo.
If you upload a cover song video on DTube, the worst thing that may currently happen to you is that I start a conversation about copyrights with you :-)
Still the fact that there is no central control mechanism doesn't mean that you're free to use the content you like.
Very soon the big licencing services like Harry Fox or CD Baby will get in contact with DTube and talk about copyrights with them.
I fully agree that you contribute valuable content to this platform, as I mentioned in the very beginning. Still, I think that especially those of us who attract a certain followership may act as role models in any sense. And from my personal point of view that also includes respecting copyright laws.
Steem on :-)
To be honest, the idea of copyright laws have never even crossed my mind before your comment this morning! I have been researching a lot of this today as well, and it is a pretty interesting topic! They’re definitely seems to be a lot of conflicting information online, and so I imagine the only real way to know what is legal is to speak to a copyright attorney.
I have been researching the mechanical license, sync license and the YouTube algorithm you mention.
I have posted many covers on YouTube, and have never had a claim against my account - which I thought was interesting because the algorithm is supposed to scan every video.
This may be because my research has shown that YouTube has an agreement with most artists to allow covers. Obtaining the mechanical license does not seem to be too much of a challenge, but the sync license comes directly from the publisher or owner of that copyrighted music. The likelihood of them actually responding and negotiating a deal with “small fry” like me is very low. Especially because I am not trying to sell them or put them on streaming services.
That is why YouTube has relieved that necessity by striking a deal with the artist. From what I can tell, if a video is monetized, YouTube reserves the right to give a portion of the ad income to the original artist. Here’s a snippet I found from this article.
I think you are correct that someday these publishing companies will approach Dtube to work out some sort of profit-sharing split. I have absolutely no objection to this! If a certain portion of my post pay out goes to support the original artist, I think that is fair.
Until then, I do not think that trying to contact big publishing agencies to acquire licenses is a very feasible option for someone like me.
I really appreciate you bringing up this important topic. I have learned WAY more about copyright laws today thanks to your question! 😊
If we still have different perspectives on this topic, I completely respect that. If that means that you cannot feel good about voting or engaging with my videos, I would 100% respect that decision. If anything, I respect you more now for being willing to bring up a tricky topic and engage in meaningful conversations about it.
❤️
I should also mention that I am not in anyway closed to the idea of eventually getting copyright license’s for my music covers. You’ve definitely got me thinking, and I will continue to research this further. My initial research just shows that it may not be necessary, and is very hard to acquire for people like me. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t uncover new information as I research it or come up with a better long-term strategy.