Something I noticed when I started posting podcasts to YouTube, is that copyright strikes come up automatically. Put in just a few seconds of any song, no matter how obscure, and YouTube will say the copyright owner made a claim. This is nonsense, of course, as no one could be policing this stuff and filing claims. The software scans the uploads for patterns matching something in their database. If the pattern is close enough to anything, then YouTube issues a copyright strike and puts the onus on you to dispute it.
I tested this by using some music I found on an old CD. It was from a cover band a million years ago. I took some clips and uploaded them with some talking by me. Sure enough, the clip got flagged for a copyright claim. The ridiculous part was the alleged claimant was another cover band. I tried a few more clips and no hits, but then a few more were flagged, with different claimants. The last batch of hits were completely wrong. It appears close enough is enough for them to make you go through the hassle of disputing it.
The game that YouTube is playing is both defensive and underhanded. By defaulting some copyright claim on everything, even vaguely similar to what they have in their database, they avoid being sued by legitimate copyright holders. That makes sense, given the nature of copyright laws. Of course, they are also using this as an excuse to avoid paying creators for their work. YouTube loses money, so anything they can do to avoid paying creators drops right to their bottom line. They know most people will not dispute the claims.
That came to mind when I saw this on Drudge the other day.
Ed Sheeran is on the receiving end of a monster $100 million lawsuit by a company claiming the singer ripped off a Marvin Gaye classic.
A company called Structured Asset Sales filed the lawsuit, claiming Ed’s song, “Thinking Out Loud,” is a carbon copy of Gaye’s “Let’s Get it On.”
According to the lawsuit, Sheeran’s song has the same melody, rhythms, harmonies, drums, bassline, backing chorus, tempo, syncopation and looping as “Let’s Get it On.”
Gaye’s song was written by a guy named Edward Townsend and Gaye in 1973. Townsend died in 2003, and Structured Asset Sales bought one third of the copyright. So, take that in … the claim is that just 1/3 of the song is worth $100 MIL!.
Sheeran’s song was a huge hit … nominated for a Grammy for Best Record, Best Performance and Song of the Year in 2016.
And, according to the docs, Ed’s single and the album it’s on — “X” — sold more than 15 million copies and the song has been played on YouTube more than a billion times.
Sheeran has already been sued by Townsend’s heirs. He called BS on that suit. No word if the Gaye family might also sue.
Now, I clicked on the story, because I was puzzled by why the estate of a long dead singer would be suing some goofy looking white kid. It turns out that the goofy looking white kid is a pop star of some note, and he is accused of ripping off Marvin Gaye. It is another reminder that I am now completely disconnected from modern pop culture. Not in a million years would I have guessed that guy was a pop star. He looks like a dork you would see working in a cubicle. I did not find his music enjoyable, but what do I know?
Of course, the idea of making a copyright claim on something you give away, by posting on the internet, is a mockery of the law. It is perfectly reasonable for a performer to complain about people ripping off their music and posting it on-line, but when the performer gives the content away, they should have no complaint. Not only that, a quick search of YouTube finds every Marvin Gaye song ever recorded, is posted multiple times. There’s even live stuff from the old days. Exactly no one is paying for Marvin Gaye music.
Listen to the songs in question and it is hard to see the similarities, at least not enough to support the claim. That is not going to be an issue, because if it goes to court, both sides will have digital experts claiming the songs are digitally the same or different, according to each side. There are only so many possible song ditties, so by now every conceivable riff has been used in a song. Using software to compare songs, it is possible to claim everything is derivative, if not a straight copy, of something else.
None of that matters. A battle of experts in front of a jury means a coin toss, so the case will be settled. It does not cost a lot to file the initial claim, but it does cost money to litigate these claims. Plus, the goofy white guy has his reputation being tarnished, so both sides have an incentive to settle. The estate of Marvin Gaye just wants money, so they will be happy to take a quiet payoff off, without the goofy white guy admitting to anything. That is the whole point of these lawsuits. The whole thing is a form of greenmail.
Copyright abuse is becoming a racket. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was intended to protect owners of digital content, but grifters have figured out how to game the system for all sorts of reasons. Video game companies will file DCMA notices against YouTubers, who post bad reviews. Hosting platforms slip language into their terms of service, to claim ownership of your content. Restaurants are suing reviewers for bad reviews. Of course, everyone can claim ownership of just about any digital content.
It is a good example of another negative outcome from the technological revolution. The ability to copy and distribute content digitally means it is easy to steal. That means people steal it. The normal way an owner protects his property is by locking it up, but in the case of digital content, which is not possible, so the state has tried to create a magical solution, which just encourages grifters and racketeers. My guess is the legal fees for copyright issues are one of the biggest cost of producing pop songs now.
The unexpected result of the technological revolution is that large swaths of intellectual property have been inadvertently swept into the public domain. In an effort to return the profits to the private owners of the content, laws have been passed, but the result is all of the costs have been swept into the public domain. The definition of the technological revolution is the socializing of costs, with the privatization of profit. Technology makes it possible to shift costs a million small ways, onto an unsuspecting public.
Everything over 14 years old should be in the public domain whether or not the author/inventor is still alive.
Creativity is being squashed. Part of why all forms of entertainment are going into the shitter.
It’s not just the arts where this is the case either. The number of medically useful chemical compounds that can be mass produced for pennies by anyone with an undergraduate chemistry knowledge base, that Americans get charged hundreds or thousands of dollars for due to abuse of the IP laws, is incredibly high. I have no doubt that we will see similarly large abuses with IP abuses on the production of naturally occurring biological molecules as well now that they are such a hot area of medicine. On the subject of entertainment, I found the documentary Everything is a Remix… Read more »
A lot of what is happening right now is that the government allows licensing of generics based on approval of the manufacturing methods involved, which raises the bar beyond the capability of what would be a thriving small pharmaceutical industry. Instead, the regs are fashioned in such a way to direct any and all opportunities toward single players creating monopolies in the manufacturing of drugs that have been around for decades. Then, what inevitably happens is that a problem arises in the manufacturing process and shortages come about, and excuses for raising prices as well. I suspect that many of… Read more »
That’s my view. Alternatively, the rights holder has it for his life, but once he dies his work falls into the public domain. The counter argument is that your creation is your property and you should have the right to pass it onto your heirs. I’m sympathetic, but balanced against the thicket of copyright laws and the cost of policing this stuff outweighs it.
The Founding Father specifically request a limited copyright because this is the most beneficial arrangement for society. The normal custom was 28 years, two terms of 14 years and this suits just fine
As with most things with the caveat of slavery, they were right
This is another side-effect of long term societal affluence. In times of great abundance, parasitism of this sort is rewarded and will grow exponentially until the abundance is gone, the host is dead, or an entropic equilibrium is reached. When the number of grifters in society significantly exceeds the number of producers, civilization becomes unstable.
I think we’re there.
I owned and managed a resort for over 20 years that included a restaurant /saloon with live music venue. We hired many local “bar bands” and enjoyed the excitement and prosperity for several years until we drew the attention of those parasites of “property rights” known as BMI and ASCAP. These guys are shake-down artists with brutal methods that would make Tony Soprano blush. A dozen phone calls a day was not uncommon. A drumbeat of registered and regular mailings that went on for months. I did my best to ignore the threats until it was disclosed in our local… Read more »
Greedy c*cksuckers. How much did they spend on staff to send traveling around bothering people versus money collected for their ‘property rights’ shakedowns? Disgusting behavior.
Now THAT made me mad.
There is a place for doxxing with violent intent in this world. Those pricks in the offices need to feel it personally.
Purely criminal behavior understands only one language- real risk.
There is no such thing as ‘intellectual property’. The essence of property is that two people can’t use it at the same time, so the law gives one of those users the right to exclude the other. As you pointed out, that can’t be done with ‘intellectual property’. This is actually a form of government-sponsored monopoly, such as those granted by English monarchs for things like who gets to trade with the East Indies. As with any other government-sponsored monopoly, it creates its own ecosystem of sharps and cheats who feed on gaming the system, and the more complex the… Read more »
Shouldn’t a person with a great idea, whether a technical innovation or a fresh melody, to be able to profit from it, without being immediately ripped off?
You guys always say that incentives matter. Why innovate if your intellectual property is going to be immediately copied? Why invent the better mouse trap if your competitors, who may be far better funded, immediately steal it? Do I misunderstand you?
Oh lord – modern music is puss dribblings from an infected wound… it’s the most awful mind-numbing putrefaction humanity could produce. Excerpts from an internet article: *** Everybody hates pop music because it is truly terrible. If the Beatles were indeed the product of a pernicious Tavistockian demoralization campaign, created to mete out the death blow to Western civilization, then what on Earth would that make Justin Bieber? Today’s pop music has become a pathetic symptom of our clickbaity, dopamine- driven, digital culture. The pop music we have today is what happens when art is gamed-out by a very small… Read more »
Brilliant observation. While listening to Radio Derb last weekend, he mentioned being on a jury selection pool some time ago. He opined to the shysters questioning him that he was ambivalent about lawyers. Of course the one greasy shyster replied that of course no one likes lawyers. Until you need one. I wondered what I would say to a shyster in such a situation. This whole story posted above comes to mind as a perfect example of why, yes indeed, the first thing we should do is kill all of the lawyers. (I note that a very high proportion of… Read more »
My reply to the line, “Everyone hates lawyers until they need one” is “Don’t kid yourself. No one likes you.”
Least of all their wives 😉.
“Of course the one greasy shyster replied that of course no one likes lawyers. Until you need one.”
You reply, “I don’t think I’ll ever be that hungry.”
My reply: Well that doesn’t explain why you spend so much time chasing ambulances or waiting to pounce on every two-bit scumbag coming out of the Magistrates Court bailed to appear later next month.
Ed Sheeran is a guy the womyns like.
I wonder if the DCMA is another “law of unintended consequences” action or a law written by lawyers for lawyers. Hmm…
My guess is smart people have figured out the combination of sounds that elicit of a positive response in women. That’s why every pop song is now computer generated. The plinking sound and staccato vocals turn up in too many pop songs to be an accident.
No, it’s just there’s no talent in the industry, same as with movies.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&t=430&v=oVME_l4IwII
Computer algorithms have used for the better part of two decades in an attempt to analyze and reproduce “hit songs”. It’s a mature industry. And most voices on modern songs – highly computer altered.
I recall reading soemthing about this years ago. I recall thinking that it explains why songs are just as dull as new cars. Eventually, everything converges to some optimum.
Hope it’s possible somewhere to get a PhD in “The End of Civilization” with the topic “The End of Modern Music” …. Bought my first top-flight Strat in ’76 (American before they called them American). Followed the industry for couple of decades. Once Upon A Time – there was music. Once, there were artists like Stevie Nicks (and countless others) that were gifted, talented and wrote and sang songs that filled football stadiums with people who were there to absorb the artistry – not mindlessly embrace the robotic horror that is modern “whoop”. I’ve enjoyed music from all times in… Read more »
I’m not sure what they’re selling, but it’s not music.
Tween girls. My thirteen-year-old neighbor and her friends luuurrve Ed Sheeran (also someone called Bruno Mars.)
He’s a young Christopher Cross. Now that MTV is pretty well dead, guys like that can come back.
He looks like a Lord of the Rings character & his music is gay & boring.
I do not understand Current Year music.
Have you ever seen Marshmallow (sp-Marshmello??) Or heard “mumble rap?”
It’s the culmination of decades of drinking Promethazine w/codeine cough syrup, AKA, Sizzurp, AKA, Purple Drank, AKA, Texas Tea, etc., in a foam cup with Sprite & Jolly Ranchers, while also smoking unlimited blunts.
You literally have to strain to pick out 3-4 “words” in an entire “song.”
I gets millions and millions of hits on YT &
SoundCloud.
I…just…no.
I think there might be more than technology behind the rise in the grifter economy. Our modern haruspices tell a story that goes by the name of economic surplus. The idea is that the interaction of supply and demand in the marketplace will end with the creation of a particular price for a particular good in the market. A lot of people however that really desire the product would in actuality be willing to pay more than the market price to purchase it. The extra amount they would be willing to pay over market price is called their economic surplus.… Read more »
I’ve wanted to propose this philosophical question for a while and this may be an appropriate thread. Why has the level of creative talent decayed on so many cultural fronts in American life? In the music industry of course there was the Napster file theft thing that destroyed the economic incentive, but it’s broader than that. Look how bad movies have gotten. In what cultural arenas are the top flight creative minds working these days? TV is in a sort of ascendancy, game of thrones sopranos, but still it doesn’t compensate for the rest. Poetry hasn’t been written for years.… Read more »
My opinion is there are multiple reasons. First, great art requires boundaries. When you can’t show or say different things, you have to find ways to convey what you want to say without dropping F-bombs, or showing gore and nudity. Second, art requires a worldview. The nihilism of today is shown by the resulting art. Third, diversity kills creativity. It’s harder to be creative in a diverse society because offending some group is always a possibility and that leads to lowest common denominator art. Finally, insularity of the artistic class. They all go to the same schools and work in… Read more »
Public, (and most private), school remove all individuality and creative thinking from children from day 1. It’s a factory to stamp out non-thinkers- the goal is just to churn out more mediocre, conformist, rule following proles who will consume goods and hopefully pay some taxes.
Universities are full of bodies of young ppl, wasting their time, going into debt, in a place that 90% of them don’t belong.
Regarding the disappearance of poetry, there is no audience for it and thus no incentive to create it. Bruce Charlton attributes the lack of great contemporary poetry to the decline of genius and general intelligence and the rise of free verse.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2015/07/readers-question-why-is-poetry-no.html
Yet when I was in high school back in the late 70’s poetry was still taught in English classes. Kipling, Tennyson, the Bard, etc. It wasn’t looked down upon by students either. And look at the older school text books from the 1870’s through the 1940’s, they were full of poetry. However you could not teach it today in a “diverse” classroom full of low IQ brown skins raised on Ipods and rap. Furthermore they see it as “white mans English”. That makes it impossible. This also applies to white kids raised in on Ipods and the like. Their attention… Read more »
Any creative endeavor that seeks a large audience must be promoted and thus the promoters have great power. Perhaps those gatekeepers are part the reason for the dearth of creativity.
“Why has the level of creative talent decayed on so many cultural fronts in American life?” It hasn’t. This is the best time to be alive. Pop music has always mostly sucked, and as a product will always specialize in imitation. “Everything sounds the same.” But even pop / hip-hop is more varied and changing than you realize. In the 70’s there were a handful of pop/rock genres. Now there’s scores, with hundreds of sub and sub-sub genres. And except for the distracting Lefty elements; movies, shows and music videos are better than ever. Even many on the Right acknowledge… Read more »
No no movies are unwatchable. The dialogue is atrocious. The plots threadbare. Watch all the top movies from some 70s or 80s list and then compare to today’s. Even the 86 transformers cartoon movie is far better than the current. Why are they only rebooting 80s franchises? And doing it poorly. What was that stupid thing with the fish man? Compare that to something like out of Africa or chariots of fire.
Even movies that were considered popcorn flicks had better plots and ideas behind them.
If you’re talking about mainstream Hollywood movies, I’d agree. There’s definitely been a dumbing down. (Though the craft has improved). I was thinking of the indie (independent film), art-house, film festival circuit, small studio, low budget, film “industry”. Same with music. You’ve always had to go just a bit below the mainstream surface to get to the good stuff. And the good stuff is out there like never before.
Much of the ‘indie’ stuff has been politicized and is off-putting that way. It’s too bad that some artists with real talent waste it on politicized messaging rather than just focusing on their art and their project’s expression aside from social issues du jour.
These are all good thoughts. I particularly like Lutz’s. My own theory is that education level has been degraded to try to equalize low IQ minorities. I don’t think people realize how deep and pervasive this trend is. The following is a lengthy aside to elucidate this point: Beginning with disparate impact in that 1971 Supreme Court case, probably before that, the matter of equalizing these people has had profound impact on our civilization and credentialing system. Sailor and various vdare writers have discussed this. The point of the case was that they used to give these little general knowledge… Read more »
There was a copyright infringement case a few years ago. Two performers each placed a short blank track between two songs. The one sued the other claiming that his silence was more evocative and the other copied his silence.
One curious takeaway from the main post and comments is how bothered people here are at a guy for being too white and not cute enough.
Very strange. I suspect it has to do with many whites being highly visual. I used to see it at classical music concerts. They had to stare at the orchestra to enjoy it. They couldn’t close their eyes and just immerse themselves into it into the experience.
I think your concert experience has more to do with normal people simply not wanting to look weird in public.
Just pointing out to Sheeran’s detractors that a ruddy, blue eyed ginger is pretty much as white as you can get. People around here are generally pro-white, so I don’t understand why they think a prototypical white man is ugly.
Get under the hood and I’ll bet Structured Asset Sales is simply another patent troll fund that has diversified into the music business (and probably other IP realms). Ended up with a couple software troll letters on my desk years ago. The threatened suit was not against our firm, but our software vendors. The trolls were making a Nigerian 419 type bet that a few would cough up some money rather than go through the process of asserting their indemnification right against the software firm (or the bet that the indemnity was limited or non-existent). General Counsel invariably told them… Read more »
I spent my morning with my buddy ripping apart my clutch on my Harley and putting it back together. We listened to Mötley Crüe in the garage. We’re too young for Marvin Gaye and too old for Ed Sheeran.
You’re never too old, heh.
https://youtu.be/Q0XcptkS60Q
Crude has like two good songs: girls girls girls and dr feel good
I refuse to believe this. I know who Ed Sheeran is — he’s such a whiny white dork that he makes the dreadlocked white guy from Counting Crows look like Jake LaMotta. Ed Sheeran would burst into flames if he even got within radar range of a Marvin Gaye tune, let alone tried to sing one. I call BS.
It is quite possible that Ed Sheeran is the most unattractive pop star ever to grace the swipe screen. His face gives me the impression of being mere moments away from catching fire.
He looks ultra white, in his coloration at least.
Please don’t tell me soyboys are gonna be the next big thing.
But then I look at Flava Flav…
Great melody is the pinnacle of art, and the most most elusive one to be achieved as well. Demand does not increase supply. If anything, demand is squashing supply. As to copyright, Bernstein’s “Maria” from West Side Story was kicked off note for note from a Beethoven concerto he often performed, and nobody noticed. One of the five great melodies ever written was by Paganini, but no one knew this until Rachmaninoff played it upside down one day and wrote Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. I don’t think Paganini would have recognized it, much less filed a claim.
There was a time when the greatest compliment paid to a great artist was being copied by another great artist.
Not only that, a quick search of YouTube finds every Marvin Gaye song ever recorded, is posted multiple times. There’s even live stuff from the old days. Exactly no one is paying for Marvin Gaye music. Youtube pays. That’s what the whole monetization thing is about. They insert ads, receiving money from advertisers. They then pay out to the copyright owners, based on the number of views. I don’t know all the technicalities of how they run their monetization operation, but I think the insertion of short bits of songs into other videos falls outside of that scheme. So, they… Read more »
Haven’t read all the replys bar Z’s Teletubby costume for Neo Con’s. Probably going on a tangent but what we sorely need is an honour culture. Similar to Roman Republic, Aristocratic English, Scots, Eido Japan’s, or Southern States ante bellum. A shot of pure Archaeofuturism. For one, and missing the point it’s efficient and cheap, the legal systems point is it’s own expansion and largesse, for disputes to be settled through confrontation or the judgement and potential loss of status amongst one’s peers had a tendency to encourage good character. Granted it’s easier said than done.
This particular case isn’t a good example of copyright violation. Yes, if you strip out the vocals, the underlying melodies and rhythms are similar, but it isn’t a slam dunk. There are actually at least two other cases against Sheeran that are much more clear cut, and are almost certainly cases where he did indeed rip someone off. You can Google those to see what a true case of infringement is in this field.
I like your stuff, Z. It was instantly obvious to me that the songs are almost exactly the same. Are you tone-deaf, perchance? Do you know what a melody is?
I’m white.
Whaaa?
“I only know two songs. One is Yankee Doodle and the other isn’t” -US Grant
I don’t have any particularly strong opinion about Ed Sheeran, but I do rather like “Nancy Mulligan”. Coming from a modern pop musician, it’s a remarkably traditional song. (In more ways than one actually).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFlZXlfda6Y
How can you not like this?
https://youtu.be/GcZqClYTcwo
This one chokes me up every time.
https://youtu.be/nSDgHBxUbVQ
After the revolution, neocons will be forced to dress as teletubbies when in public.
In a court of the future 2 robot litigants will duke it out before a robot judge arguing which robotribe owns the music which best pacifies their human slaves. JG Wentworth 877CASHNOW runs the court.
If you’re dead – I’m stealing your shit and going to avoid paying a cent to anyone. Nothing could make me sicker than than a 19 year old trust fund pleb travelling the world on dead daddy’s royalties.
Z man..this is the first time that I have posed a comment, so I would like to say that you are third on my morning list to go to. First is Breitbart for the breaking news, then to American Thinker for an expansion on the news, and then to your page for a realistic non PC view. You’re always ahead of everyone else because you think and write about what is inevitable. You’re thoughts are always based on common sense, in as but as Rush is, nut you don’t have the fear that keeps the real truth about what we… Read more »
Sorry about the spelling…enjoying a Jim Beam and Coke
I repost many of your columns to my friends pages. I like th way it scares some, but inspires more.
I’m pretty sure that it was Hank Jr. who showed up in court with a flat-top, played a half dozen songs with the same chord change, and said ” Yer Honor, there ain’t but 12 notes”. “Case dismissed” (bang of gavel)
copyright is a type of intellectual property rights…
property rights….property rights….property rights….
PROPERTY…
property rights are a major concern not of socialism, but of capitalism…capitalism…capitalism…not socialism…
if one is to discuss politics, it might be a good thing to understand the difference between socialism and capitalism…just the funny way my mind works…
your title says techno-socialism…please change it to techno-capitalism…
It’s the government making this situation, not the market. Intellectual “property” is such only because government calls it that. It is not real property in any sense. I know a company that has a machine that does a specific task that is kept in a special room with special security. There has never been a patent applied for this machine. The company is afraid that if it applies for a patent that others will simply reverse engineer it and their exclusive ability to do this one task will be lost. The machine itself is the actual property. The idea, they… Read more »