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    Dr Mrs The MonarchJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:22pm

    My main issue with this is that this is not about paying artists what they’re worth (for which I am very much in favor). This is about changing the nature and purpose of rights laws to better support large corporations in the changing landscape of the internet.

    People tend to bring up “musicians getting paid,” but were musicians ever routinely paid for non-professional covers of their songs (the kinds that twelve year olds sing alone in their bedrooms)? Music has become easier to steal, it’s true, but the definition of “stealing” has changed as well ... or at least broadened to include usage that no one would have given a second thought to twenty years ago.

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      torchbearer2Dr Mrs The Monarch
      6/21/16 5:28pm

      A lot of the issues have been the ease of being able to steal/make unauthorized copies of digital content. Thirty years ago, if you wanted to make a copy of an album and give it to a friend, it would be a recording that would take as long to record as it did to play the album and there would be quality deficits (in terms of audio and just packaging itself as you would not get labels and such). Now, you can send the album files to all your friends, and anyone else in seconds and it is the exact same experience as someone who paid. What probably got the industries in trouble is that they never really viewed bootlegging and such as a real widespread threat. Now, it is far too late and their tactics are all wrong.

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      MacOirctorchbearer2
      6/21/16 5:45pm

      I was too young to really understand, but cousins used to talk about how movie and music labels tried to fight VHS tapes and cassettes being sold to the public as they made it too easy to steal their works. Said they wanted a special tax on tapes and cassettes to make up for their lost profits. They lost their case back in the late 80s/early 90s and have been continually fighting since for profits they believe exist.

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    Flying SquidJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:12pm

    Color me shocked that Taylor Swift™ would be party to such corporate whoredom.

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      WheresCarlsJRFlying Squid
      6/21/16 5:14pm

      All we need is for Metallica to cosign.

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      BritFlying Squid
      6/21/16 5:17pm

      Yeah, it’s totally “corporate whoredom” to expect to be fairly compensated for your work.

      Musician here, and while (as a consumer) I love the plethora of free media platforms we have in the digital age, I (as a musician) hate the way it takes away from profits artists have rightfully earned.

      Regardless of whether you like an artist’s music or not, they deserve to be compensated for it fairly. Also, it doesn’t matter if they have 12 cents to their name or if they are a multi-billion-dollar artist. The logic that someone doesn’t deserve fair compensation simply because they already have a lot of money is the same logic employers use to justify paying women less because they have wealthier spouses.

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    EldritchJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:16pm

    The DMCA needs to be updated and changed, no doubt about it, but this is the wrong way to go about it. This would have a chilling effect on smaller artists and content creators on YouTube. Hank Green, half of the Vlogbrothers and musician, has been talking about this on his channel and his Twitter for awhile.

    The problem is the labels. Trying to stop a teen on YouTube from covering a Taylor Swift song or creating shit like Tidal won’t help the issue. Labels have everyone by the balls and labels like to pretend the internet is just a fad. Look at what that Sony rep wrote to the bluegrass educators. They want to change the law in their favor. Artists won’t get a penny more.

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      MSNBCmoleEldritch
      6/21/16 5:24pm

      I almost feel like they are standing at the top of the mountain and want that chilling effect on the one’s below them. Fuck it, I am 100% sure.

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      beantown01MSNBCmole
      6/21/16 5:51pm

      It’s how the rich stay rich. Do as I say not as I do.

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    The Real UnsharerJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:29pm

    Considering that YouTube already has Content ID and other systems in place to take down videos that use copyrighted music without permission, this is a bad idea that will hurt creative freedom and fair use.

    I’m a content creator (photography) and have had my work stolen before and profited off of without me seeing a dime. I absolutely believe that artists should be fairly compensated for their work. That said, our copyright system is outdated (how in the hell was “Happy Birthday” still copyrighted?!). The thing that hurts big artists the most isn’t YouTube — it’s the music industry. The music industry screws artists over left and right and, for the longest time, refused to see digital music as the future, resulting in bad business models that resulted in people pirating music and less money in musicians’ pockets.

    We need to strike a very careful balance between protecting the rights of content creators and allowing creative freedom and fair use. Making companies like YouTube legally responsible if somebody uploads copyrighted material to them won’t strike that balance. Content ID is already regularly abused (including news stations ordering takedowns of the original footage of an event, even though they don’t own the footage). This will only make things worse for everyone, including the artists.

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      KorraThe Real Unsharer
      6/21/16 5:31pm

      This.

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      Dr Mrs The MonarchThe Real Unsharer
      6/21/16 5:52pm

      Very well said. In a world where advertising is the primary (and often only) way to make money with content, companies are desperate to limit sources of content. This is at direct odds with increasing ease of creation spurned by technological advance.

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    DaisyLadyJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:35pm

    Me and YouTube. A Story.

    Fall into the YouTube wormhole one dreary afternoon. Keep clicking on suggested video after suggested video. Suddenly some random video comes up with a great song in the background. I’m alert! “What is that wonderful song?” I say to myself. “Let’s ask SoundHound?” I pull out my phone, hit the SoundHound, get the name of the song. SoundHound asks me if I want to buy it from iTunes. “Why yes, I do!” I buy it. Everybody gets paid and I’m happy I just discovered a new song.

    Way to try to kill free advertising for your music. Dummies.

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      Space MothDaisyLady
      6/21/16 7:49pm

      When someone else is profiting from the illegal use of your copyrighted material, the “advertising” isn’t “free”.

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      NotMarthaStewartDaisyLady
      6/22/16 12:04am

      No kidding. I can think of at least four songs I ended up buying while looking at something else on YouTube.

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    JujyMonkey: Clever tagline goes hereJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 5:15pm

    This is the first and last time that Yoko Ono’s name is featured in a sentence that includes “all of your favorite major label musicians”.

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      JujyMonkey: Clever tagline goes hereJujyMonkey: Clever tagline goes here
      6/21/16 5:18pm

      Related to this; Julianne, do you follow David Lowery’s (Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker singer/guitarist) blog the Trichordist? He’s a very interesting and articulate voice for musician’s digital rights, intellectual property, etc.

      I'd be interested in your thought on it.

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    ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ : Riot GRRR is RUNNING WILDJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
    6/21/16 6:43pm

    This sounds like it’s raising the same DMCA issue as the incredibly controversial SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

    In other words, it’s a terrible fucking idea conceived by rich greedy assholes who are way more concerned with holding onto their increasingly obsolete position of power in the music industry than helping nobodies on Youtube. Because their entire business model is based around the fact that everyone is a nobody until they said otherwise. And Youtube and supporting sites like Patreon have changed that in a big way; in a world that no longer has a gate, there’s really not much use for gatekeepers.

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      YouWishIWentAwayJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
      6/21/16 5:11pm

      I’d feel worse for these people if the music industry hadn’t turned into a consolidated shitshow of only a handful of artists netting the vast majority of the profits - like from 10% to 2%. Also, if any of these people collaborated with Pitbull then I feel we, the public, are owed for having to endure it.

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        adultosaur married anna on the astral planeYouWishIWentAway
        6/22/16 12:33am

        DALE

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        Grenadier84adultosaur married anna on the astral plane
        6/22/16 1:46pm

        MISTA WORLWHYYYYYYYYYYYYD.

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      MSNBCmoleJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
      6/21/16 5:22pm

      Aspiring my ass. It’s ironic that an actual aspiring artist would kill for a video of them singing to go viral, and yet these asshats, who’ve already made it, are scared they may be losing a few dollars. Trust me, you’re not and for the one’s who haven’t become famous, locking down the internet is the worst thing you could do. Good luck with that.

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        KK4BamaMSNBCmole
        6/21/16 5:26pm

        But it’s not just “a few dollars.” You’re talking millions once it’s all said and done. Those few dollars add up.

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      recidiviciousJulianne Escobedo Shepherd
      6/21/16 5:59pm

      I wonder how this will affect videos from live performances. I know those can also be monetized under ContentID, and there’s some great stuff on YouTube I’d hate to see disappear if they tighten up the regulations - videos from shows I was actually at, live performances of bands I’d like to go see, performances of bands I can’t go see because people in them are dead, and so on.

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        rentaduckierecidivicious
        6/22/16 5:42pm

        Honestly, I would buy the fuck out of concert and Broadway DVDs. Artists often do different arrangements of songs live and I love them. I want to buy them and listen to them a million times. Not all shows come to my location, and I can’t afford to go to that many anyways. There’s a market here- just wait until the run is over and release the DVD. You could probably get people to quit recording live events if you promise it’ll be available later to re-watch.

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