One of the big video hits making its way around the interwebs the past week or so is something called “Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona)” and it is a gorgeous few minutes:
The video has garnered more than 2,000,000 views, which is great for the filmmaker and the aquarium but it turned out to be even better for the band, Barcelona:
This effect comes because of its perfect synthesis of music and images, making it a proud showcase for the band Barcelona, whose haunting track Please Don’t Go not only scores the video, but dictates its length. And by allowing its use, Barcelona has found itself flooded with new attention.
According to a post on the band’s Myspace blog, “Thanks to this video, and Jon Rawlinson, the director of the video, our album has been pushed back up the iTunes Rock Album charts and is holding strong thanks to all of you who watched the video and then purchased the album.” And in this response video, the band says that people have already begun showing up at concerts because of this piece. (Score one for Chris Anderson’s theory about the power of free.)
There are a couple of very important take-aways here.
First does not appear that Rawlinson asked permission to use the song, yet the band did not start firing out take-down notices or DMCA complaints. Instead, they have done nothing but support the existence of the video and thank Rawlinson for providing immense amounts of free publicity.
Second, it’s a good thing Barcelona wasn’t signed to Universal Music or their song would have been muted from the video and the band would have gotten absolutely no free publicity.
Yesterday, I was meeting with some fellow “new media” producers. One of them had come up through the very traditional TV route and commented that the biggest difference he feels working in the emerging digital media universe is the overwhelming degree of support and openness where, in the TV world he had experienced almost exclusively distrust and competitive antagonism.
This is a great demonstration of the new way things work. Welcome to the Digital Age.
There is a devestating post in response to comments made by Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the MPAA at the World Copyright Summit, who said:
”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance.” LINK
ZeroPaid’s Drew Wilson asks, “Gee, why would the public view them as antogonistic?” He then answers with a few possibilities:
…destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go, raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place), hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack, hacking The Pirate Bay, having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube, suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs, saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court, saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court, suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships…
And that’s just a taste of the entire post. When people of the future look back at how the massive entertainment industries of the late-20th Century crumbled, this post would be a good starting point.
There is a heartwarming story making it’s way around the webosphere about an adorable elementary school chorus that sings covers of pop songs, including works by Coldplay, Survivor and Fleetwood Mac:
It turns out that this particular video make it all the way to Stevie Nicks herself:
Just got word from Stevie Nicks tour manager that she was completely blown away by the PS22 Chorus rendition of her song “Landslide!” He said she asked him to replay 2 times afterwards, crying each time she watched! Talk about humbling!! And the kicker?? She invited the PS22 Chorus to sing the song at Madison Square Garden for the upcoming June 11th Fleetwood Mac show!! Holy cow!!! Thanks must go to Perez Hilton for getting our video out there and making this incredible opportunity happen for the kids! Unbelievable!! LINK
Wonderful, right?
However, this seems like a video ripe for takedown by the RIAA. These kids did not get the rights to perform this song and they are now spreading their cover for free! This is just the sort of activity the record industry seems to keen on stopping – whether it is a chorus of school-kids or a couple of people doing a karaoke version of the latest Beyonce tune.
Of course, the idea that this video could somehow create a direct negative impact to the sales of Fleetwood Mac songs is simply absurd. That won’t stop groups like the RIAA from spitting out takedown notices and DMCA claims faster than you can say, “hey, that was cute.”
Admittedly, the world of copyright law is beyond complicated but we need to find a way to let people legally play with all the content released into the world. People are going to play with it no matter what so it’s really just a question of whether or not energy is spent prosecuting people or facilitating them. I wonder which choice would make more money in the long run.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is one of the most vocal proponents of digital rights and has fought hard against RIAA and the effects of the DMCA.
Aside from the numerous sound legal arguments to be made against Apple’s attempts, EFF posits the following:
One need only transpose Apple’s arguments to the world of automobiles to recognize their absurdity. Sure, GM might tell us that, for our own safety, all servicing should be done by an authorized GM dealer using only genuine GM parts. Toyota might say that swapping your engine could reduce the reliability of your car. And Mazda could say that those who throw a supercharger on their Miatas frequently exceed the legal speed limit.
But we’d never accept this corporate paternalism as a justification for welding every car hood shut and imposing legal liability on car buffs tinkering in their garages. After all, the culture of tinkering (or hacking, if you prefer) is an important part of our innovation economy.
The question becomes, what are the rights of the buyer? Once you have purchased an item, whether it is a car, a chair or an iPhone, that item should be yours completely. Otherwise, it isn’t a purchase, it’s acquiring a limited license of usership…
There is simply no denying that YouTube is still the most important video-sharing site, at least in the United States. It is not likely to see this position change much, at least not in the next year.
As YouTube has grown it has been forced to decide if they want to side with the users who have made the site what it is or the rights-holders to a lot the material that users have posted. More and more, YouTube is siding with rights-holders, even in cases where fair-use can easily be argued.
YouTube is trying to avoid a never-ending string of lawsuits (justified or otherwise) from RIAA, DMCA, et al. with pre-emptive actions against their users. Unfortunately for both YouTube and its users this means that the site is rapidly becoming a very unfriendly destination for the kinds of “mashup” entertainment that independent video creators and viewers so enjoy.
Here are just a few of the things YouTube will take down and eventually ban users completely for doing:
1) Dancing to a pop song not in the public domain
2) Remixing videos to existing songs not in the public domain
3) Using TV news clips to make a political statement
4) Kids singing Hannah Montana songs at a birthday party
5) Video-collages of Hollywood movies. (like every time they say “fuck” in Pulp Fiction)
The really sad part is that the vast majority of these kinds of videos are completely fair-use but there is no way to argue that with YouTube. It is also incredibly short-sighted of rights-holders not to understand the intrinsic value of being used and exposed via these kinds of videos. It is hard to imagine how Warner Music loses money when a teenager lipsyncs to the latest top-ten single.
The end-result will be that people who want to create these types of videos are going to find a new host. And a smart host could make a good amount of cash providing a legal safe-haven.
“Taking famous movies as a base, faneditors spend huge amounts of time editing with sophisticated software in order to create improved or just plain different versions of existing movies. Most of the time, faneditors try to improve what is wrong or bad with a movie, using advanced techniques to create a new piece of art based on the original. Of course, faneditors love to share their work with others in the community, something the movie industry wants to bring to an end.”
Now comes word that one of the most popular sites for fans to share their edits is being shut down due to DMCA takedown requests.
Not only is it yet another absurd example of the major motion picture studios attacking the core fans they rely on for ticket sales, but, in this case, it exposed one of the horrible pirates they are trying to stop.
“I am boon23, faneditor and administrator of the biggest fanedits website in the world. I’m a preschool teacher from Europe and as faneditor I post under the name CBB (created by boon) and have so far created 29 fanedits, which is quite a lot. It is my hobby, my art, the thing I really love to do and will continue to do.”
Yup. A preschool teacher. Nice work, guys. Go get ‘em!
A couple months into the new acedemic year and one thing is clear – RIAA wants to sue the crap out of college kids for listening to music.
Every day it seems there is some new story about how RIAA is trying to force colleges and universities to share info about what their students are downloading and sharing so that RIAA can then assault their students with criminal charges, court dates and mammouth lawyer fees that can often result in students being forced to drop out of school altogether.
Considering that there is no real proof that music piracy has a direct impact on the profits of labels and that there are real problems facing America perhaps it is time to reign in RIAA and stop them from screwing up the lives of people who have done little more than click on a link.
Please, Presendent-elect Obama, call these people in and tell them to stop the unnecessary abuse.
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July 28, 2009 6:57 am | 
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