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Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBq_krhKbW4

For years we had campaigned against these copyright pirates and his chief complaint is against the monster we had all campaigned about in the 2000's and 1990's as they were destroying software development.  UMG, is the company put to get by ex-whisky gangsters who made a future selling Canadian whisky during prohibition.

It is much about the DMCA

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #1
If he posted his videos on other platforms too he might not face his whole channel being deleted, but like so many he doesn't, and becomes just another part of the mega corporations himself, working for Google and subject to their rules.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #2
I think he enjoys making a few dollars on the content.  You can always contact him voice your opinion.  He does respond to emails.  Changing the platform might resolve some issues, but it doesn't address the fundamental copyright law problem and the way it is enforced in the wake of the DMCA safe harbor problem, which is what allows youtube, and many other services,  to even exist.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #3
This is making the rounds now, although I am not completely happy with what is being reported.  Slashdot has posted it:

https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/25/08/31/045201/rick-beato-vs-umg-fighting-copyright-claims-over-music-clips-on-youtube

It is worth attention.  The problem directly affects software writers and Free Software development.  It goes way back and the source of the problem is often not addressed.  The problem here isn't youtube, per see, but the Bern Convention and the DMCA.  It is the law that is raping these valued contributes to our culture.  Beato is a very technologically minded musician and he strips music to chord progressions and the historical developments of recorded music.  It is enlightening and very valuable.  He has also done numerous interviews.

The problem has been that industry rides in with a high horse declaring their moral superiority and high ground on these issues, when they are really CROOKS and take advantage of our legal system to strip the public of their fair use rights, the right to educate, the right to develop, the right participate in our culture.

They, that is UMG et al, have claimed that fair use is ONLY a legal defense against copy right violation, and not a real right. 

That is wrong.  And for decades now it has needed to be clarified that  copyright violations need to PROVE that are not fair use.  The presumption has to be that use of copyrighted material is Fair Use, until it is proven otherwise.  Laws like the DMCA do it backwards.

To make matters worst, any software that is used to access copyrighted material without the expressed permition of the copyright hold is considered criminal under the law.  That is a complete attack on the entirety of software use and development, and goes to the heart of Free Software licenses and Free Software development.  Beato and company are just waking up to how dangerous this is to the public and their own private interests.  They are very late to the game.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #4
That's all very well in terms of general philosophy, but there are some other aspects in this particular case. If he's in favour of doing away with copyright restrictions, why didn't he put a CC - attribution license on that video? He owns the copyright, and it has no realistic commercial value beyond being a YouTube video - Disney aren't going to phone him up to buy the rights for a general theatrical release! It wouldn't cost him a penny and he might even benefit from the extra publicity, he doesn't need to ask permission or get a change in the law. Then look at the books he has for sale in the description - I bet they are copyrighted, and $100 seems a pretty high price, he isn't giving away much there. And look at how many views his videos get compared to a lot of Olivia Rodrigo's:
https://www.youtube.com/@OliviaRodrigo/videos
He isn't exactly the poor little guy, he even has his own lawyer.  Also a lot of his videos are insulting and criticising the music industry and many of it's stars, so it's not surprising they might target him in particular, and he's on the margins of fair use in that and some other respects:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9783148?hl=en-GB

In the US, when courts decide fair use cases, a judge will consider how the four factors of fair use apply to each unique case. The four factors of fair use are:

    Purpose and character of the use: Nonprofit education uses are more likely to be considered fair use than commercial uses. Adding new expression or meaning to the original material is more likely to be considered fair use than merely copying the original.
    Nature of the copyrighted work: Using material from primarily factual works is more likely to be considered fair use than using purely fictional works.
    Amount and substantiality of the portion used: Borrowing small bits of material from an original work is more likely to be considered fair use than borrowing large portions. But, if what's borrowed is considered the 'heart' of the work, sometimes even a small sampling may not be considered fair use.
    Effect of the use upon the potential market: Uses that harm the copyright holder's ability to profit from their original work are less likely to be fair uses. Courts have sometimes made an exception under this factor in cases involving parodies.


Copyright law might need to evolve but when it comes to it, 99.9% of people won't put an unrestrictive license on any photos, music or videos they post, regardless of whether there is any likelihood of them having any financial value, so that's what they apparently want - and get. (Personally I try to make anything I post around freely available if possible, although I don't usually get many takers even at that price  ;D)

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #5
Under US Law and the Bern Convention, there is no such thing as uncopyrighted works.  Everything is copyrighted, hence the need for copyleft.  Under the strict interpretation of copyright law, every forum is a violation of copyright when I write something and your computer copies it to your computer to view it.  And then there is quoting... which we freely do.

I don't think Beato is making a case that all works need to be copyright free.  In fact, I am sure he is not making that case and he has had multiple discussions about the economics of music and copyright and how to get musicians and creators paid.

What he is saying is that copyrighted works still have fair use uses, and that copyright law is being used to stifle speech and education, especially his speech and his educational works.  On those issues, IMO, he is right, but he is not attacking the core problem which is the Bern Convention and Copyright law.

 

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #6
He wants to use copyrighted material for commercial purposes and not pay for it, while he doesn't make his own work available under those terms.
 The free software community exists because people decided to make software available under free licenses. Searching on Flickr it turns out there are quite a lot of photos published as public domain or with CC licenses. Looking for CC music on Youtube, there is less choice, but still some well known names I recognised and have heard on the radio, Teddy Swims, Neffex, and Behemoth. If you click on more in the description it tells you it is CC attribution only at the bottom, which is how you know. The Teddy Swims one is on the Warner Bros NZ official channel, so even the labels can do this if they want on selected tracks! I had to scroll down through a hundred or so videos after searching for music then filtering by creative commons, uploaded last year and view count to find them though. Probably that's the main thing needed to be improved - if you go to a Linux distro you know how it's licensed, and people check it is all OK. You can reside in a wholly  'free' world. Searching for CC music and videos is quite difficult and I've found in the past that the results are often 'spammed' by wise guys re-uploading copyrighted stuff under a CC license. There isn't much in the way of dedicated hosting services for copyright free content, or a community to promote it.
If people want this they have to do it themselves collectively, it's no good him complaining then not doing his part.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #7
He wants to use copyrighted material for commercial purposes and not pay for it, while he doesn't make his own work available under those terms.

No he wants to use copyrighted sources to discuss and critique the their qualities and to show how they are played and produced.  That falls smack dab in the middle of fair use.  There is no rule or moral code that says he is not allowed to make a profit from his discussion and educational materials.   In fact, everyone does just that. 

Furthermore, one can use his material to do likewise.   If you want to write a book or make a video about  Rick Beato's methods of music analysis, you are perfectly free to use is material to discuss his methods of education.

It is a right, and if you can make money doing that, more so the better.  The rest of what you wrote is irrelevant, and also wrong in many facts, but I am not going to derail this thread to splinter off into 20 other different directions.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #8
His definition of fair use doesn't coincide with the current legal one and it's amazing he gets away with what he does, here's a more detailed overview, although as it points out these are decided on a case by case basis:
https://copyrightalliance.org/education/copyright-law-explained/limitations-on-a-copyright-owners-rights/fair-use-exceptions-copyright/
1 - commercial or non profit educational? 
2 - was the original work factual or fictional? 
3 - how much was used - well that varies but he uses some pretty big segments
4 - the effect of the use on the market - one example here, where he plays long clips of songs, in fact almost throughout, like in other similar videos of his I looked at, and isn't always complimentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD_DoKo5Dg8

Of course a decade ago a lot of music was only available online through either paid for download sites, or illegal pirate hosts - now you can listen to almost anything for free, and the music companies themselves are posting it there, so things might change.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #9
After having to battle 4k complaints you'd think there would be a law he could counter with to shut down the complaints permanently.  A cease and desist order at a minimum.  I mean falsely bearing witness against someone is certainly a crime as well as a sin.  UMG clearly knows they have no case against his fair use or they would have won one of the 4k complaints against the man.  Time to move on UMG.  Trying to break someone by filling frivolous complaints surely must be a crime at some point.
Cat Herders of Linux

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #10
His definition of fair use doesn't coincide with the current legal one

Yes it does and if you want the number of my copyright lawyer, I can pass it to you.   There is no such thing as needing to be a non-profit use for fair use.
212-461-1901 [email protected]

Surely you aren't trying to troll me by posting fake information put out by an industrial organization run by UMG? 

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #11
That's the legal advice on US law I am seeing online, and posting you the links - the first one was the guidelines from Google themselves relating to posting material on YouTube. Perhaps in the US you are literally being shown something different, Great Wall of China style?  There is something you are entirely missing though. Any video that gets millions of views on YouTube only does so because YouTube and Google want it to. This guy has been constantly popping up on YT for me long before you posted this, and I never watch music lessons. They are pushing this deliberately. Now think about why they are. We know Rick gets paid peanuts, so who gets the big bucks - yes, the richest most powerful company in the world. Maybe not for his videos alone, adverts aren't that lucrative, but collectively over all those copyright infringing videos that's a lot at stake. So you're just  dancing to Google's tune repeating the message they wanted you to see, because all that's really happening here is Universal Music's profits are being taken away by Google, while you and I get zilch. You and Rick are just googlepawns, whether you know it or not.  ;D
 As for the copyright laws themselves, these are man's laws not God's, and can be written to whatever people agree upon. I've seen numerous videos, mostly non-English language admittedly, which happily use well known music for the soundtracks, so perhaps those laws are becoming obsolete and are no longer observed or enforced and will eventually be relaxed. But here in the UK where things are enforced, you certainly can't expect to be treated favorably if you get out of line too much, so I'd be worried about getting into trouble or encouraging others to do so which would be irresponsible to them.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #12
My tuppence worth.

He's playing way too much of the original songs not to get copyright struck.
I'm sure it's the same elsewhere but in the UK people who don't want to be filmed, for whatever reason, by the myriad of 'content creators', just play copyrighted songs on their phones and that is the the most effective way to make them go away as they know the video will be taken down if they include the song.

Re: Copyright Laws on youtube with Rick Beato

Reply #13
Any video that gets millions of views on YouTube only does so because YouTube and Google want it to. This guy has been constantly popping up on YT for me long before you posted this, and I never watch music lessons.



That is an excellent point but I don't think it has any legal bearing.  It is simple fair use.  But under the DMCA fair use has been and freedom of speech and technological development have all been thrown under the bus.  It would be unconstitutional if not for the Bern convention.

Still, it is an interesting fact.  These cases bring out a lot of interesting facts.. and at the end of the day that just brings more noise and diverts attention from the root problem.  It wasn't long ago Jack Valentie was suing Philips and Sony over the VCR technology.

Then there is DRM where they take private ownership of your computers and some people still think that is a lovely idea... just suspend private ownership of digital devices.

What Beato doesn't get is that he is just ONE use case of the problem that Fair Use has been effectively suspended under the DMCA and current copyright law.