Guide to online streaming

[Doug Young]

Acoustic Guitar just published an article I wrote as a guide to online streaming. Hope it's useful:

https://acousticguitar.com/a-guitari...ive-streaming/

[Frostie]

Doug, this is great. Thanks for sharing this article with us. Thoughtful, thorough, and useful.

[Neil K Walk]

Thanks, Doug! Could you do a follow up on the legalities of doing cover songs on social media? I know that YouTube has some sort of method of monetizing covers in order to compensate the publishers but it seems like a taboo subject even if there is no desire by the performer to profit from their rendition.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

Thanks, Doug! Could you do a follow up on the legalities of doing cover songs on social media? I know that YouTube has some sort of method of monetizing covers in order to compensate the publishers but it seems like a taboo subject even if there is no desire by the performer to profit from their rendition.

This is out of my area of expertise, but (deep breath as I go way beyond what I'm qualified to say) my understanding is that technically, streaming cover tunes (or posting a video, or audio, etc) requires that you pay royalties. There are all kinds of people who will say, "but I'm not making money off it". Doesn't matter, not legal, the song isn't yours. What You Tube has done is to try to do a sort of end run around this by letting you post a cover, and then hopefully notifying any copyright owner (thru their Content Match) and letting the copyright owner either enforce the law by making you take it down, or say they will ignore the law and either put ads on your video, or just say they don't care. No police are going to come and enforce this law, so if the owner chooses not to enforce it, then that's the end of it. So You Tube is trying to make this a win-win situation without actually changing the laws. But they ultimately let the copyright owner decide how their property can be used.

Other platforms deal with it differently. I just posted Teja Gerken and my new CD to various streaming services using DistroKid, and they handle it for us. We had two covers. They will handle (for a small fee :-)) paying the owners the required royalties for us. For the actual CD, we had to get rights from Harry Fox, which we could do, since we knew how many CDs we made. We don't know how many streams we'll have, so it's nice that someone will handle that for us, and I think it's nice that the authors will get paid. (I hope they put those few cents to good use!)

Other places, like here, facebook, etc, there's no mechanism. If you choose to post covers, technically, you're in violation. The copyright owners could force you to take it down, or sue you for the royalties you owe them. Will they? Only if they catch you and think it's worth their time. A few copyright holders are known for being a bit fanatical about it. Others aren't.

I'm sure there are some lawyers on AGF that could correct me if I'm wrong and explain further.

My preference is to avoid covers. There are too many great public domain tunes out there, and I'd rather hear something you wrote than a cover anyway. You'd be adding to the music available in the world. And it avoids all these issues. But that's just me, and I know most people like covers.

[The Bard Rocks]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

My preference is to avoid covers. There are too many great public domain tunes out there, and I'd rather hear something you wrote than a cover anyway. You'd be adding to the music available in the world. And it avoids all these issues. But that's just me, and I know most people like covers.

Doug, thank you for the explanation. It coincides with my own understanding, but it is more detailed.

Now, regarding the portion of it that I am quoting above - I agree, but feel it is a shame as many composers would be flattered to know their creations are getting played even if they weren't getting paid all those pennies. Without a well-established reputation, one must be a strikingly talented composer to make in the world without covers. And if you do away with words, it only multiplies the difficulty. Most people want what they know. And covers have stood the test of time. Most of what we write today won't, just as it was 50, 100 years ago. Most, not all; that's part of why we keep writing.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Acoustic Guitar just published an article I wrote as a guide to online streaming. Hope it's useful:

https://acousticguitar.com/a-guitari...ive-streaming/

Thanks Doug…

Awesome descriptions, and summation of the options.

That link is going into my 'favorites' for friends and fellow players downstream!!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by The Bard Rocks

I agree, but feel it is a shame as many composers would be flattered to know their creations are getting played even if they weren't getting paid all those pennies. Without a well-established reputation, one must be a strikingly talented composer to make in the world without covers. And if you do away with words, it only multiplies the difficulty. Most people want what they know. And covers have stood the test of time. Most of what we write today won't, just as it was 50, 100 years ago. Most, not all; that's part of why we keep writing.

Sure, that's another reason to do covers, and indeed most people want to hear what they already know. It doesn't change the issues with legally releasing releasing them. As far as the composer being flattered, that could well be - there was even a Colbert show recently where Paul McCartney was clearly tickled by a Korean Boy Band doing Hey Jude!. The problem is that the people who own the rights to most popular songs are often corporations, with banks of lawyers who don't feel as flattered :-) It's unfortunate that there isn't some easy way for it to be handled in these situations.

My comment on my preference was a bit off-point - just my preference, and I don't even always follow it, I have done quite a few cover arrangements, even teaching one in the online workshop I'm doing next week. But I'd encourage people to try to write their own, at least some. It brings new songs into the world, which is a good thing.

[Neil K Walk]

Thank, Doug. The reason I ask is because when I inquired about a potential gig the person in charge basically asked me for a demo reel. I've read that in order to get established you pretty much have to play covers and gradually mix your own stuff in. Doing a Google search, I even found something from Berklee School of Music that essentially tells their students "go right ahead!" Based on my own educational background I'm actually not surprised; my own education in the visual arts was sorely lacking in legal matters.

[Chipotle]

Anyone know the minimum upload bandwidth you can have and still get a passable stream?

I keep seeing the number 2.5Mbps, for just 480p/30fps video. Even in the best of times I get less than 2Mbps upload, and with all the traffic right now, it's often below 1Mbps. Am I out of luck?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

Anyone know the minimum upload bandwidth you can have and still get a passable stream?

I keep seeing the number 2.5Mbps, for just 480p/30fps video. Even in the best of times I get less than 2Mbps upload, and with all the traffic right now, it's often below 1Mbps. Am I out of luck?

There are sites that list this info. Here's one article:

https://restream.io/blog/what-is-a-g...for-streaming/

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Neil K Walk

Thank, Doug. The reason I ask is because when I inquired about a potential gig the person in charge basically asked me for a demo reel. I've read that in order to get established you pretty much have to play covers and gradually mix your own stuff in. Doing a Google search, I even found something from Berklee School of Music that essentially tells their students "go right ahead!" Based on my own educational background I'm actually not surprised; my own education in the visual arts was sorely lacking in legal matters.

Yep, for gigs where they want background music, etc, people almost always want covers. That's a different situation. There, the club is responsible for paying the performance rights fees to BMI and ASCAP. So totally different - all this rights stuff gets complicated, there are different rules for live performance, CDs, streaming, video, movies, TV, publishing sheet music, etc.

Sending a demo reel one-to-one to a venue owner shouldn't be a big issue. If it's online, it can be an unlisted url. Technically that's still a violation. You Tube can still flag you even if the video is unlisted, or even private. SoundCloud tells you not to upload covers, etc. But you're less likely to get caught than if you're releasing a viral video that has a million views or otherwise attracting attention, and if it's private, it'd be harder for someone to sue you claiming you had a lot of downloads. So if you're called out on it, you'd just take it down. Again, technically, not allowed, but realistically, probably not going to cause you a problem (but I'm not a lawyer :-) )

[anton]

Great article Doug. I am taking David Hamburger's Fingerstyle Five course, and coincidentally he just switched to using OBS to live stream and then archive on Youtube. Previously he was using Zoom, and the improvement in quality in the archived video using OBS is amazing. I think there are more hoops to jump through, but assuming one can get everything to work it sounds like the payoff is worth it.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by anton

Great article Doug. I am taking David Hamburger's Fingerstyle Five course, and coincidentally he just switched to using OBS to live stream and then archive on Youtube. Previously he was using Zoom, and the improvement in quality in the archived video using OBS is amazing. I think there are more hoops to jump through, but assuming one can get everything to work it sounds like the payoff is worth it.

I suspect the improvement is largely You Tube, tho OBS has lots of cool features and lets you combine good audio and multiple video sources. Al's You Tube stream was pretty spectacular, basically the same as uploading a video to You Tube. It's definitely more work than, say firing up your phone and connecting to Zoom or Facebook, but it's not too bad (and free!)