The part that really gets me is that Universal isn't even trying to help people "do the right thing". In the email from Greg Morris he states:
"The problem I'm having is the ambiguity of the feedback. For example, on the first strike you just said "Universal Music" said I used one of their tunes. The set started with an Ellie Golding song which I thought was the problem. So I removed that and re-uploaded. It was then taken down again. You're not even telling me which songs are infringing."
That is infuriating. He is trying to oblige to the request to remove a copyrighted song, but Universal isn't even telling him how he is in violation.
Oh boo hoo. He's promoting his own internet radio show, it's up to him to work out clearances. He asks what basis they have for doing it, like choice of law etc., well read the ToS, that's why it's there. 'Other people do it too!' is about the most juvenile argument there is, and the fact that they haven't experienced problems yet is neither here nor there. Maybe Universal hasn't got around to yanking stuff from them yet, maybe they have proper clearances or pay ASCAP feees, or maybe Universal/Soundcloud is enforcing their copyright arbitrarily...which they're perfectly entitled to do as a private entity. Equal treatment under law only applies to the government, unless you can show you're being discriminated against as a member of a protected class.
So his problem is he doesn't know which song(s) is/are infringing? Take your tracklisting and check it against discogs.com or some other music publishing database, and see which songs were published by Universal Music. Maybe 30 minutes of work for a 1 hour show, tops. The responsibility to check clearances does lie with the person who wants to use a copyrighted work.
Edit: I realize this is an unpopular view, but if you're downvoting I invite you to spell out what you think is wrong about it. Every magazine/website/course aimed at budding record producers/DJs/musicians provides coverage of copyright and licensing issues, to help their readership collect what is owed to them as much as to avoid infringement. There is no way you can be an aspiring or actual professional in the music industry for any significant length of time and not be aware of your basic obligations in this area.
In an actual legal case it is your right to be told exactly what you are charged with. Universal is taking actions based on copyright law but outside the legal system and refusing to be specific. This is allowed behavior but it is extremely distasteful.
It is not acceptable to mistreat someone because they are doing 'something' wrong.
In an actual legal case you'd also be liable for damages. I agree it's unhelpful of Universal to just yank the material without providing feedback on what, exactly, infringed their copyright, but the fact remains that the responsibility for copyright clearance lies with the person who wants to copy the work, not the rightsholder.
I agree it's distasteful, but given that Greg seems to be well-established professionally there's no way he doesn't know this. It's rather absurd to see him accusing SoundCloud of 'stealing' his subscription fee - ie complaining about the loss of his property interest in his SC account - while at the same time thinking he can help himself to all the raw material, ie other people's published music.
Yes, it's unfair that broadcast radio stations get all their music for free by default, while internet DJs don't, legally. They get that because they banded together and negotiated for those rights. That's the solution: collaborate with other internet radio DJs and draft a blanket license agreement for noncommercial reproduction, then shop it to labels.
People might be downvoting this because of it's tone, but it's correct. If you're putting up radio shows, DJ sets or anything that uses other people's music you need to clear each track in it. Owning a piece of music doesn't entitle you to broadcast it, it merely entitles you to listen to it.
Well, you'd still owe a fee as the broadcaster. Unless I'm very muh mistaken, you can't just buy a bunch of CDs and then have public performance rights; it's just that as long as you pay the GEMA fees, rightholders can't decline to license the work to you.
That's why I said "entitled". Yes, you don't have the license unless you pay GEMA (after the fact, btw), but the license must be granted to you at a fixed fee.
I have just had this very issue directly as an electronic music producer.
Was flagged for my own original music NOT on a remix or anything that contained samples but an original jam I made with some classic Roland hardware; Roland SH-101, TR-909, and TR-606! Seems the algorithm they use to flag has many flaws and is automated with no one at the wheel to look at individual cases.
Not sure where soundcloud is going with this, because I pay for the service and replied to them to fix and have heard nothing in over a month.
Moved my song over to mixcloud. I am creating a music app for musicians called Memory Echo if anyone is interested in working together on something different but similar for musicians that are not signed.
That's a much more legit complaint than the one in the source article, and as an electronic musician myself I can see how that would happen. Sadly Mixcloud has problems of its own, eg this, which I posted here the other day: http://support.mixcloud.com/customer/portal/articles/1595564...
Same thing happened to us, but with a couple of official remixes released on a sub-label of universal. The issue is that the content gets removed before you're able to verify it's yours.
I feel like they would have avoided a lot of negativity if they gave users a time window to verify before removal.
It's been really interesting over the last 24 hours or so to watch the reaction from Joe Kay[0], whose label/collective Soulection[1] has shared hundreds of hours of mixes and dozens of original tracks and remixes on Soundcloud[2], and to an extent (at least initially) built their following on the site (not to take anything away from the impact performances, etc. have had on their growing popularity), but were always at high risk of this sort of takedown due to remixes of popular rap/r&b tracks.
One of my initial takeaways from this development is that while Soulection may not have come to exist without Soundcloud, the "next Soulection" will almost certainly take root anywhere but Soundcloud.
And even if hip hop/trap/neo-soul/etc aren't your style, if you're into any electronic music at all there's probably something for you on Rinse.fm (unfortunately they're more an internet radio station than a platform like Soundcloud, not exactly apples to apples from a user perspective).
Rinse has an FM license now, so they've gone from pirate to legit. It was funny listening to the DJs trying to curb their swearing (50 pound fine per naughty word) in the weeks after they were licensed.
So SoundCloud users had a good run, but now the popularity of the service reached critical mass and raised the ire of the labels so they're knuckling under like every other provider. SoundCloud (sensibly) doesn't want the burden of dealing with the massive copyright infringement by it's users and outsources the job to the owners of the tracks.
Now I get that it sucks that you don't get explicit explanations of what infringed, and I worry hugely about their power to supress content that they actually do not own, but:
1. Stop pretending that you should get a free ride because you're promoting the artist. If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the stranglehold.
2. Don't rage at the service that provides a great product to producers of real, original content, just because you've repurposed the platform to promote your infringing mix.
You're completely right: artists who make mixes and use samples should probably do it above-board and follow all applicable copyright laws.
However, the problems are three-fold:
1) Lack of information. It looks like the new automated process provides no clues on what the infringing content was/is.
2) Lack of appeals process.
3) The fact that previously rolled out systems that have allowed major labels this sort of access to services (primarily YouTube) have been subject to abuse by the labels, taking down content that was original, and there has been no indication given that this won't happen here.
> If you actually give a shit, discover and promote new music from awesome bands that are not beholden to the labels. That's the only way to break the stranglehold.
This. If you get a promo from an artist, ask them, "Is this under copyright with a label? Sorry, in that case I can't play it."
Can I plug MusicBox (http://www.mymusicbox.me/) real quick? We curate killer songs from the best indie artists and send them (for free) to a list of over 10k. We work directly with the artists and indie labels, so no issues. We want to support them, not screw 'em.
Actually the correct response would be 'can you give me a release to play it.' Everything is under copyright with someone, refusing to deal with any labels whatsoever just means punishing any artist that dares enter into a publishing relationship with someone else.
Even if you get a separate license on the side, Universal will still take your music down from SoundCloud. Just like how news services take down public domain NASA video from YouTube. They have a special direct relationship that doesn't follow DMCA or any other rules.
Yes,it really was. I am an old, classic, get off my lawn style person who never signed up for twitter or Facebook and still uses a dumbphone. But somehow I got onto SC and discovered a lot of great music there, which has led to a few hundred dollars of amazon purchases.
So it is something special, and I hate to see them mucking around with it ...
You shoud check http://mycloudplayers.com, it is built over SoundCloud and has some amazing features for discovering new music based on the favorites tracks of the people you follow.
I run a record label (Records On Ribs) and to be fair, SoundCloud have always scanned files for potential copyright infringement and taken files down when they have found it to be the case. The difference is that normally there is an appeals process with a nice backend. It is a little frustrating though because the automated service flags music we own the copyright for (as well as being Creative Commons) and we have to go through the whole process again. The lack of appeals here is the really worrying development.
Why have we, as a society, become OK with handing over policing power to corporations unrestrained by due process? For example, by using sites like Soundcloud. Is it the lack of civics education in high school?
I'd point out that it is one corporation giving another corporation policing powers. A natural result of extending the rights and power of corporations in our society is that they replace our other existing social institutions.
> Why have we, as a society, become OK with handing over policing power to corporations unrestrained by due process?
These companies do not care about due process, they care about the bottom line of making a dollar at the end of the day. Soundcloud determined it is much less expensive for them to go this route than be sued by Universal. Every company follows this practice as for they are serving their best interest.
As a consumer your hope is that their best interest and your best interest share the inside of a Venn diagram.
> Soundcloud determined it is much less expensive for them to go this route than be sued by Universal.
Which is sad, because Soundcloud would win in court, as they'd have no problem proving that the site doesn't exist primarily to help its users infringe copyrights owned by Universal.
First, that is a low blow linking to others doing it. They know, or haven't got to them yet. Websites like Etsy do the same on license content. Two, they choose you be set an example. Three, I always thought of Soundcloud the Vimeo of music. If it is an artisans music website, upload your own creations.
Unfortunately for soundcloud, aren't they killing their main userbase? DJ's mixing mainstream songs.
> First, that is a low blow linking to others doing it.
I thought the same thing at first, but the users that are linked to are all big, big names that get millions of plays on Soundcloud that will never get takedowns, whether they have clearances or not. It's more like saying "why are you hassling me for my $10 unpaid fine when you don't care about these corporations' $100,000 unpaid fines" than it is about narcing on the competition.
No, it's not a low blow. It's exactly what happens all over the world: the little kid has to play by the rules while the big guys do whatever they please, get special deals and sometimes even a get-out-of-jail card for free.
I learned that the hard way in 2001 when the IFPI went after my links (yes, only links) to then popular sites like mp3board.com and others - while the biggest news portal in the country had exactly the same links and weren't prosecuted at all.
The one looming question is, does Universal have access to spectrum analysis products of tracks, or the actual sounds themselves? If they have access to the actual sounds, they'll be able to harvest song ideas from private tracks. No bueno.
Also their interface for tracking plays has gotten significantly worse. And you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for free from youtube.
>And you have to pay extra to get most of the same information you get for free from youtube.
Well Youtube has advertisements, and soundcloud doesn't. Someone is still paying for you to get that information, it's just not you, on youtube. I do agree that their interface has gotten worse, though. Especially for tracking.
Those are actually really permissive terms, and will likely keep Mixcloud in the clear. They do need to cover the cost of the licenses, but they're not operating illegally like Soundcloud was.
Citing the Terms of Soundcloud: "SoundCloud may assign its rights and (where permissible by law) its obligations under this Agreement, in whole or in part, to any third party at any time without notice, including without limitation, to any person or entity acquiring all or substantially all of the assets or business of SoundCloud."
This is embarassing. I use a number of payed accounts, with original content only, but sometimes you should rethink whom you give your money, and if you still can trust them. I don't want any major label - and nobody - to shoot me in the back out of nowhere.
I'm German, the SC offices are two streets from where I sit now. I have some doubt if their Terms apply to German law in all the details. Unfortunately, I'm no lawyer.
I'm actually working on a service which sits on top of SoundCloud. It's still in its infancy, but I'd love to hear what people think of the concept; the service aims to help musicians and photographers expose their content to a wider audience, and on the flip side, allows you to sit back and listen to a playlist of music whilst enjoying a beautiful photo slide show. The playlists are tailored to a user's mood, and you're able to filter the music based on genre. The website's voliyo.com, and if anyone's interested in signing up to the beta as a photographer or musician, feel free to message me for an invite code!
Because you or I don't have a way to flag Universal's account? It seems odd that a third party has direct control over your Soundcloud account (which you may have paid for) without any recourse.
That's the inherent risk of using a third party to host "your account" on a proprietary system. I have sympathy for all these artists, I truly do, but what were they expecting?
Somewhat offtopic, but why is there an obsession with music discovery services? Soundcloud has its own niche in terms of sharing and usage, but other services like 8tracks and Slacker seem rather unnecessary. Is it that hard to discover new music on one's own?
Depends on how you want to find music. As a DJ, I actively dig for new music a lot. It is nice to be able to throw on some service that gives me a "radio" to passively find new tracks as well. I also suspect for most people "fresh direct" consumption of music fits into their view of how new music is found.
Because the user-created playlists seem rather low-quality. Half the "indie" playlists appear to have bland mainstream radio music. Maybe I'm not the target audience for these apps, but friends, 4chan, Pitchfork and Spotify seem to be the right combination for me.
Well if soundcloud was not around it just wouldn't be possible to keep up with the 600+ people I follow and even then a solid 50% of what is on their page is just stuff they like as well which introduces me to more people.
The first part of this post is rather lame. In his complaining about putative tracking, he quotes their new policy. This policy says that they're collecting non-identifying info that can be opted out of, and if you sign in with Facebook or Google, they'll take note of your gender.
None of these things they're declaring gives them the ability to track who you are, or correlate it to what you're doing.
How are mixes subject to take-downs? Shouldn't they be protected since they are pre-recorded and thus protected by exceptions to public performance rights?
Sounds to me like Universal has blanket permission to harass anyone, regardless how "underground" they are. Universal doesn't like your brand of competition? They'll just flag you for infringement.
"SoundCloud seems to have given Universal the keys to the car within the last month, and is allowing the media giant full access to flag accounts’ records without any communication whatsoever with SoundCloud. "
You can do that now by posting a comment to the thread. I realize that's not exactly what you mean, but (a) it's close, (b) we're biased in favor of reusing existing features wherever possible, and (c) I'm not convinced that the submitter's comment should be privileged over other users', other than by being first to appear. What chippy wrote was fine, but that would not always be the case.
I don't think the submitter's comment needs to be privileged. But it would be nice if both text and url are entered then the system just magically turns that text into a comment from the submitter. It would just save the submitter a step. I'll refrain from the typical dev comment about how it should be easy to do in the code. It probably isn't that easy. But probably not that hard either. :)
I don't understand the problem, I guess. You can't profit from other people's copyrighted material without their permission. That's just how copyright works. And they can grant or deny that parmission.
Get a license or use something else. And don't complain that they're being "unfair" by taking your stuff down and not telling you what infringed. If you didn't upload/sample/perform other people's stuff, you wouldn't need to worry about what songs were infringing.
Get your samples cleared. After having to get written permission from Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and other services to use screenshots of their web pages in my books, this doesn't surprise me in the least. Fair use is a defense, not a right.
> You can't profit from other people's copyrighted material without their permission. That's just how copyright works.
Sure you can. "Fair use" is the most common example of that, but you don't need to make a fair use defense in order to find examples of people profiting off of others' copyrighted works legitimately.
In fact, it should be noted that a lot of famous songs you probably know are themselves based on copyrighted works. Coolio's "Gansta's Paradise"[0] and Kanye West's "Stronger"[1] are very famous examples. Not all samples are licensed - it's very common to use unlicensed samples, even in music released by major studios.
I don't know which artists are with which labels off the top of my head, but I'd bet anything Universal is profiting off of unlicensed samples for some of their artists. Many (most?) Soundcloud users, on the other hand, aren't making a single cent off of the music they post.
[0] samples large parts of "Pastime Paradise" by Stevie Wonder
[1] samples Daft Punk, but this was actually itself sampled Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby"
I've been making music with my computer since 1999, and when I was young and dumb I made some remixes using some James Brown samples. I used a sample from "The Payback" which you'll hear in TONS of songs.
Didn't get it cleared.
Got a C&D and my website got taken down.
I'm not saying it's right. I'm saying that if you don't clear your samples, and you're a little guy, this will happen. Don't be surprised when it does.
Building upon the cultural contributions of our past is how all of human civilization was built. Until the late twentieth century. Disney (for instance) strips our culture like a jackal, yet buys senators (such as Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings) to subvert the law so they can keep it a one-way flow. To allow a few to subvert all of human existence for their personal gain is obscene.
Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Culture is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.
-- Alex Kozinski
I understand that's how culture works. But I'm talking about the fact that because of Disney, this is now how it works, and it should not be surprising that this is happening.
There's a big difference between "how it should be" and "how it actually is."
I agree completely, there is a big difference between how it should be and how it actually is. But its obvious that Disney's vision of reality isn't how it works. Culture works by sharing, still. How it will work going forward is up in the air yet; we can still control the outcome by not giving in.
Nobody on SoundCloud is profiting from other people's copyright works as well, at least not through that service. To date there's no royalty or revenue sharing model for artists there. Should every DJ who's ever performed be subject to takedown requests because they play other people's music publicly?
So many downvotes, and yet, I never said I was in favor of the practice. It's just the way the laws work. You can work to get them changed or you can ignore them, but if you ignore them, don't cry on the Internet that you got your stuff taken down.
"The problem I'm having is the ambiguity of the feedback. For example, on the first strike you just said "Universal Music" said I used one of their tunes. The set started with an Ellie Golding song which I thought was the problem. So I removed that and re-uploaded. It was then taken down again. You're not even telling me which songs are infringing."
That is infuriating. He is trying to oblige to the request to remove a copyrighted song, but Universal isn't even telling him how he is in violation.