Holy shit!! That REALLY sucks Kelly!

Kelly, what exactly is a DCMA violation? I am very close friends with a copyright/intellectual property attorney who has done free/pro-bono work for me when I was attacked on the web (I routinely call him up for free legal advice for personal as well as professional needs). I am very eager to contact him about this and see if anything can be done. I hope that you might only have to take the videos down for a little while, as opposed to permanently. Maybe I can get a letter from my friend that he or you can send to YouTube.... I make no guarantees but I will see what I can do.... this really sounds like an over-reaction on YouTube's part, considering how many music videos and other material that is up there of a more commercial nature. If Prince is covered by a law that does not allow anyone to cover his music or to make recordings of covers of his music, then the law really stinks and it really ought to be changed... Artists are always covering other artists work...maybe they have to pay a fee or something, but I really don't know, andd if that is what happens maybe there would be a clause for those that are not making any profit from it (I mean, it's not like you are selling these videos), maybe covers of lyrics can be covered under the "Fair Use" of the Copyright Law, whic would state that the lyrics are being used for "study and reference purposes" and for "academic" type uses.... and literary copyright expires, I think, after 17 years, so you could reprint (and presumably copy/sing his lyrics) without him having a leg to stand on, unless music lyrics have the same protection that films do, now under the new copyright law foisted on us under pressure by Walt Disney... I am sufficiently annoyed (and troubled) that I will contact my friend immediately...

By the way, if Prince had an agreement with Universal that granted them copyright or any ownership of the tapes or whatever, those might still be in effect even if Prince is no longer with that label, kind of like how various groups and individuals have cds of music released under their old/various labels, kind of like Frank Sinatra, has the Best of Frank under the Columbia, Reprise, and Capitol labels, and you all probably know or have heard how some labels prevent the music under their control from being released or reissued... there is a lot of great music whose copyright has clearly lapsed but which is not being released or re-issued because the labels refuse to release them for whatever reason/s.. the labels may or may not own the copyright, but they own the physical tape/s or recording media that the recordings are on... initial agreements of artists with their first labels sometimes prevents those artists from doing recordings with other labels until a certain time has elapsed... Copyright is a funny thing.... the British label Proper does nothing but release music whose copyright has expired (music before 1950 for the most part) and sells these lapsed copyright recordings (including some amazing box sets) and whose sound is usually pretty incredible (they do a great job of remastering early recordings), at dirt cheap prices and, last I heard, Proper was being pressured to stop their releases, but, gratefully, they are apparently still continuing, at least, for the time being...

Yours in spirit, sympathy, and understanding, Kelly. I will let you know when I learn anything.

let's expatriate!

Well, I knew what a gold and brown shower/rain were before. From now on, I think I'm gonna call this copyright-related rain o'crap a purple shower/rain.... whew, what an education... I hope y'all know that I love the music you guys and gals played, just hate the copyright stuff concerning it (you should all feel great about that show, I hope you don't let this copyright business put any damper on it... it's just too bad you can't share it with anyone online)....

By the way, would someone please tell me what the set list was for the most recent show? And as a further digression, maybe someday all of you could have a performance of copyright free tunes and film that baby and put it on youtube.... You could call it the Fuck BMI and ASCAP and the lawyers they rode on show....

A

it's going to be like the old napster days where you have to post everything misspelled so it's harder to find.
and then it will cease to be cool because of all the suing.
and then people will just stop using it

and then google and everyone else may finally learn you don't make money by NOT giving people what they want.

Ok, I talked to my friend the copyright/intellectual property attorney in Washington, DC, who gave me a fascinating, if depressing, lecture and run-down on the copyright law, which concerns anything of a tangible medium/form... First, he informed me that a party does not have to be making money in order to be found guilty of violating copyright. He suggested that a way to get out of the present unhappiness and to get the ability to put the videos back up might be a simple priocess of paying a royalty to Universal or whoever owns the copyright to the material (the videos being on YouTube does constitute a performance of the material, and one without ther permission of the copyright holder and/or one without a royalty being paid to Universal (kind of as if a radio station played music over the air and did not pay a royalty to BMI or ASCAP... He noted that pizza parlors usually choose not to pay royalties to either of these organizations and so do not sing the official Happy Birthday song to their patrons on their birthdays, and so have chosen to make up their own birthday songs). He said that the people/firm/copyright owner who sues for violation of copyright can choose to sue either for A) statutory damages (which is $100,000 per event) or b) actual damages. So, if someone was ticked off that a song was performed illegally/without a royalty being paid, they could choose to ask for $100,000 or, if it was a suit against a person who stole the most recent edition of Harrty Potter before it was printed and then printed it illegally and made a fortune on it, the copyright holder of the Harry Potter books could sue for the actual damages in lost revenue, which could, in this hypothetical case, be millions of dollars....

Copyright used to be for an initial period of 35 years with the option to renew for 36 more years (or 35 + 36). Then, in the 1970s, a revision of the copyright was enacted, to help provide for the financial security of the creator of the work in question and his/her immediate family. This extended the copyright period, so that the length of a copyright was now for the length of the lifetime of the creator plus an additional forty or fifty years (or Life + 40/50). Then, fairly recently, in 1998, the Republican Congress, under extreme pressure from Walt Disney Corporation, passed a law that extended the length of a work's copyright again, as Disney did not want Steamboat Willie and Mickey Mouse to fall into public domain. The new law now extends the copyright of a work to cover the lifetime of the copyright holder plus an additional 70 years(!!!) (or Life + 70).... In addition, works made before 1978 that had already been copyrighted had their copyright extended by another 20 years (Life + 90 (!!!)) This means that Steamboat Willie will fall in the public domain in 2023. Another thing to note is that no additional works made in 1923 or afterwards that were still copyrighted in 1998 will enter the public domain until 2019, unless the owner of the copyright releases them into the public domain prior to that. (Wikipedia has a good synopsis of the law: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy...ension_Act as well as links to lots of places that argue against the copyright law's extension of copyright.

This really sucks.... I understand that the copyright law is meant to protect a body of work so that someone doesn't lose out on the benefits that might accrue as a result of their creativity, but, as my friend observes, the new law really stifles creativity.

Funkn,

A

And the Jesus toast.