Do you post covers legally?

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by raysachs

Maybe they only go after you if you're any good. All I play is covers and I've posted several to Soundcloud (mostly private, but a few public) and I think I even had a couple up on YouTube briefly (before I had an multi-track recorder and was just doing the odd video recording of myself. Nobody's ever been in touch with me.

Maybe what I'm playing isn't even recognizable to an algorithm - I'm pretty bad and the only chance I have is to play completely my way, which may not set off any alarms. I just use them mostly for self-critique but occasionally I'll share something with a few friends and those are available to the public.

Ahh, the benefits of sucking!

As I probably buried in my wordy response, I don't think the SC places do anything unless you post something that is being "aggressively" protected, i.e., they're subjecting themselves to some liability of they keep it up. Face it, the audience is pretty darn small, and no money is changing hands.

And, just because you haven't been caught yet, doesn't mean you aren't still infringing on someone's copyright. That does expose you to some risk. Whether it's worth worrying about or not is up to you. Most folks don't worry, it seems!

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

This discussion is making me feel happy that I took down my soundcloud account, reinforces why I'll never post on youtube and reminds me why I went on an internet diet!

Which is great... unless you're trying to book gigs, and need something to showcase for prospective bookings.

If you know what you are doing, you can stream MP3s using your own web page and possibly even video, but not everyone knows how or has the capability on their site. Oh, and you're still violating copyright; you just might not get caught (as quickly) as on a streaming service.

It adds up to a conundrum for the working cover musician.

Originally Posted by Chipotle

Which is great... unless you're trying to book gigs, and need something to showcase for prospective bookings.

If you know what you are doing, you can stream MP3s using your own web page and possibly even video, but not everyone knows how or has the capability on their site. Oh, and you're still violating copyright; you just might not get caught (as quickly) as on a streaming service.

It adds up to a conundrum for the working cover musician.

Which reminds me why I gave up performing!

[raysachs]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

And, just because you haven't been caught yet, doesn't mean you aren't still infringing on someone's copyright. That does expose you to some risk. Whether it's worth worrying about or not is up to you. Most folks don't worry, it seems!

I'm sure by the letter of the law, I probably am. But I'm not doing it for any commercial purposes, not making a penny on anything or trying to. And I seriously doubt that more than one or two people other than those I specifically and intentionally share stuff with ever stumble upon the few songs I have up anywhere. So, I don't feel any guilt about it at all. And if it ever became an issue, I'd happily enough just take it down.

But now I'm intrigued by how close you'd have to be to sound like an original version before a bot would have any chance at all of picking it out. Because, really, I'd probably think of it as a huge compliment if some bot somewhere recognized one of my recordings as being a version of a Neil Young or Dead or Stones tune. It would be quite the validation!

But I don't think it'll ever happen...

-Ray

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by merlin666

So what exactly is all included in a cover and a copyright? There are cover bands that can replicate the recorded music quite faithfully. But at my level, for most songs I change the key to suit my limited singing range, simplify the chord sequence, and more often than not butcher the melody when I sing, ix up or forget verses, and garble the words (yes I am that bad). Plus if I do this in public I acknowledge the origin of the song (if I know it) and apologize for mutilations. These supposed copyright issues are extremely confusing, and there is a need for clarity for the level of quality that is needed to deem something a "copy" of something else.

This case is actually quite clear-cut. What you describe still qualifies as a cover, and when you perform it in public, you are, technically speaking, violating copyright. Whether that copyright is enforced is of course a completely different story. Where there is no judge....

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by raysachs

I'm sure by the letter of the law, I probably am. But I'm not doing it for any commercial purposes, not making a penny on anything or trying to. And I seriously doubt that more than one or two people other than those I specifically and intentionally share stuff with ever stumble upon the few songs I have up anywhere. So, I don't feel any guilt about it at all. And if it ever became an issue, I'd happily enough just take it down.


-Ray

I'm with you 100% in that you shouldn't feel any guilt about your practice.

But as my experience shows, you may not get away that easily. None of your intentions (not making any money, being prepared to take a video down) matter if push comes to shove.

I, too, would have taken down that YouTube video I mentioned in my first post, if given the opportunity.

But no, the only way I even knew what happened was by being locked out of my YouTube account. It was suspended, and I was unable to access it, let alone upload any videos.

I had to complete YouTube "Copyright School," an online course, first in order to regain access to my account. With a copyright strike come quite serious consequences. For example, if you have an unresolved strike, you won't be able to post any video that exceeds a certain length. Other restrictions apply, too. And, as others mentioned, once you have been dinged with three strikes within 90 days, you're banned from YouTube. Forever.

As for "the few people stumbling across your songs," I can tell you that those few people include savvy and greedy lawyers. That's what lawyers do, and they know that a) they can get away with harassing unsuspecting people who don't mean evil, and b) that doing this is a gold mine for them.

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by DesertTwang

when you perform it in public, you are, technically speaking, violating copyright.

Actually, if the venue you are playing has paid all the appropriate licensing fees, you aren't violating the copyright. You can play covers at that venue (or the venue can play pre-recorded music, or a radio station etc.) and those licensing fees pay the appropriate copyright/royalty holders. That's the whole reason for the licensing and fees in the first place.

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by Chipotle

Actually, if the venue you are playing has paid all the appropriate licensing fees, you aren't violating the copyright. You can play covers at that venue (or the venue can play pre-recorded music, or a radio station etc.) and those licensing fees pay the appropriate copyright/royalty holders. That's the whole reason for the licensing and fees in the first place.

Yes, of course. I should have mentioned that - I just got the impression from the post I was referring to that we were talking about a venue that wasn't paying those fees. Thank you for clarifying.

[Gordon Currie]

The whole YouTube thing is really a minefield these days. As someone posted, if you are a musical act that does covers, or you include a few, you still need these days to have some performance video clips for bookers - thus opening yourself up to (inadvertent) copyright infringement.

My duo does mostly originals, but we have distinctive arrangements of three copyrighted songs. We decided to upload performance videos to YouTube, but keep the account Private. We then embed the video in our site. We do NOT send anyone to YouTube. Essentially we are using YouTube as a storage site.

If there is ever a time we want to promote our own YouTube channel (for the monetization opportunities), we will do it on another account and tightly control the content to avoid infringement. It could be disastrous to find oneself locked out of YouTube AND all promotional videos blocked.

Also, Vimeo is an alternative for streaming videos - they are FAR less interested in policing casual non-revenue generating infringement than YouTube (the revenue models are different).

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Ok I'll have a go. Firstly performance of covers live and publishing covers are two different matters (in terms of how they are handled) and here we were talking about the latter, but as you ask..

In the UK royalties for live performance of copyright works are collected via the Performing Rights Society (PRS). It is the venue's responsibility. not the musician, to handle this i.e. they must have a licence if they are to have public performances of copyright music. When I worked as a gigging guitarist I was sometimes asked by the venue for set lists of what I was going to play, with details of composers. This is for the venue to fill out their paperwork.

This is true, although - as far as I can remember - in over 50 years of playing in public, I've only ever been asked for a setlist once: and that was last month at the Green Man festival. We played the same venue last year and weren't asked. A very strange experience to have to list the tunes and try and remember the composers (a couple were old blues tunes), and of course I had no idea about publishers. We didn't have a fixed set list anyway - "hmm, what tunes are we actually going to play?".

Of course, most of my gigs have been in pubs - most of which (not all I suspect) would have the licence you mention - and others would be private functions, weddings etc.

I do have my own youtube channel, with a handful of videos, both of myself playing partial covers, and videos of copyright material taken from elsewhere. Most have been up there for maybe a year, no copyright strikes yet.
One or two have been up for as much as six years, with a max of 10K views. No warning yet. However, one of those tunes is a traditional folk tune, the other an old R&B tune - possibly public domain - although both are by famous artists. One has had 10K views. The dodgy ones - where I would expect to have to remove them - are a couple of old Dylan bootlegs, up for a year, no more than 200 views each yet.
I'm not monetising any of this (I've no idea how I'd do that), but I realise that's no excuse when it comes to copyright.

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by Gordon Currie

The whole YouTube thing is really a minefield these days. As someone posted, if you are a musical act that does covers, or you include a few, you still need these days to have some performance video clips for bookers - thus opening yourself up to (inadvertent) copyright infringement.

My duo does mostly originals, but we have distinctive arrangements of three copyrighted songs. We decided to upload performance videos to YouTube, but keep the account Private. We then embed the video in our site. We do NOT send anyone to YouTube. Essentially we are using YouTube as a storage site.

If there is ever a time we want to promote our own YouTube channel (for the monetization opportunities), we will do it on another account and tightly control the content to avoid infringement. It could be disastrous to find oneself locked out of YouTube AND all promotional videos blocked.

Also, Vimeo is an alternative for streaming videos - they are FAR less interested in policing casual non-revenue generating infringement than YouTube (the revenue models are different).

Great information here. Thank you!

[keith.rogers]

This is the kind of email I get from YouTube for covers that they have an arrangement in place with whomever has claimed the copyright. (I have no idea who these folks are, and I suspect some are not valid, at least not in the USA, but I don't quibble.) I have not received a strike ... yet!



P.S. When I look at the videos on the YouTube Studio site, these will have the text "Copyright claim" underneath the Published/Unpublished status. (Never saw one on videos that I have always had as Private, but that doesn't mean they might not send me an email, I suppose.)

[merlin666]

Very interesting. Now from the other side of the coin, where do I go to register my original material to be sure the copyright bots will get it right?

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by merlin666

Very interesting. Now from the other side of the coin, where do I go to register my original material to be sure the copyright bots will get it right?

copyright.gov is the place to go to register your songs with the US copyright office.

If you post original material, and state that you have the copyright to it, whether registered or not, it's unlikely you'd get pinged by a bot, unless you have written a song that borrows words or melody significantly from something else, and then it'd be a longshot, I suspect. (I post original music from local singer-songwriters on a different channel, some registered, some not. None have ever triggered a copyright notice.)

[Chipotle]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

copyright.gov is the place to go to register your songs with the US copyright office.

Someone can probably correct me, but I don't think that's how the YouTube etc. bots work. It is still the copyright holder's responsibility to enforce it, which is why lots of stuff probably stays up without issue. But big bands (cough*Metallica*cough) are sometimes very active in enforcing their copyrights, as are major labels, in part because they have the resources to hunt for violations and take action. I'm not sure how you get your song "listed" in the YouTube copyright bots but it probably involves having enough clout.

Just registering your copyright is not sufficient to automatically get YouTube etc. to handle violations for you.