Forum & Copyright (Guidelines)

Targa · Sep 16, 2016

Pete Thomas said:
Yes I am the publisher, and the site does make a profit. The fact that I choose to give that profit away would not probably be relevant to a court case

If you're making a profit presumably you pay tax, but as you're giving it to charity how much trouble would it be to set it up as one and they would get more?

Jeanette · Sep 16, 2016

Pete Thomas said:
European court says linking to illegal content is copyright infringement

Life doesn't get any easier...

jimmylh · Sep 16, 2016

Jeanette said:
Life doesn't get any easier...

Would a EU court decision count after the Brexit thing?

Jeanette · Sep 16, 2016

jimmylh said:
Would a EU court decision count after the Brexit thing?

I don't know any more, I prefer to forget the whole Brexit issue...

Pete Thomas · Sep 16, 2016

jimmylh said:
Would a EU court decision count after the Brexit thing?

I'm no lawyer, but I imagine that a ruling of a test case could be cited by any prosecutor, whatever territory. If that ruling is admissable as evidence, I'm sure it would help to sway a judge or jury, EU or not.

Bernie · Sep 16, 2016

Jeanette said:
Life doesn't get any easier...

It will eventually though I think: the Internet is going to blow away the copyright system.

The very first time we connected to the internet at home, a peculiar scrolling banner advert appeared, featuring certain items in an erect state. At that time the display of such items in an erect state was subject to state censorship here in the UK, but I thought "that is the end of that, the government aren't going to be able to control it". And they can't.

I've seen all kinds of things on the internet since then, but curiously I've never again seen anything quite like that banner ad.

saxyjt · Sep 16, 2016

kevgermany said:
All, we're getting a lot of posts containing copyright material, especially images. This puts the forum at risk and may result in action being taken against us.

We're deleting any copyright material we find. So please make sure you stick with the rules and don't post it in the first place.

I hope that's not me as I recently included a couple of images from GetaSax in a post, so I just send an email to Brian to clarify if he's ok with it. Although I think it is in his interest, I should have asked! 😱

I'll take the required actions in case he is not ok with it.

jimmylh · Sep 16, 2016

Pete Thomas said:
I'm no lawyer, but I imagine that a ruling of a test case could be cited by any prosecutor, whatever territory. If that ruling is admissbale as evidence, I'm sure it would help to sway a judge or jury, EU or not.

Ok then, so what are the implications of this regarding members of the board? For example, many karaoke tracks are flagged on Soundcloud. So instead, a file sharing service can be used when posting a play along song in the member's sound clip section. Then there is possibility that exact same file might be accepted on YouTube, even if flagged with an ad. I have an odd example of that. I posted a video of myself playing Killer Joe on YouTube. The back track was one of my own making using Biab. It got flagged by YouTube and a pop up ads started showing up. That same song done by me using the same track was posted on sound cloud and was never flagged. I have been under the impression that chord progressions by them selves are ok, and it is the melody that is copy righted. So in my mind it must have been me playing the melody that caused the flag on You tube. Apparently Sound cloud was ok with it. So which one of those would be ok to post here? I going to assume the Cafe's official answer will be, "if in doubt, etc", but there are a lot of grey areas not understood by general members.

Jazzaferri · Sep 16, 2016

In Canada (and likely the USA) have to get a blanket licence every time we play a gig unless the promoter or facility have a blanket licence.

As far as a ruling goes, it is now a legal precedent, and if the facts of a subsequent case are identical then the original ruling is applied. In most legal cases lawyers from both sides will try to impress the judge by their use of legal precedents that support their case.

Pete Thomas · Sep 17, 2016

jimmylh said:
I going to assume the Cafe's official answer will be, "if in doubt, etc", but there are a lot of grey areas not understood by general members.

My answer would be that YouTube version is the one to embed here. If it has ads on there is a clear implication the rights owner is OK with it being published, provided they receive income.

jimmylh said:
I have been under the impression that chord progressions by them selves are ok, and it is the melody that is copy righted.

Correct

kevgermany · Sep 17, 2016

Also youtube have agreements with the rights holders. These differ from country to country, for instance a lot if what's available in the UK is not available in Germany, instead of the video, we get a message saying youtube couldn't get and agreement with the rights holders.

Wade Cornell · Dec 14, 2017

Some of you may have noticed a couple music posts from me recently. These are from a site called wikiloops (wikiloops.com). they have a rigorous policy of no copyright material that they enforce. The result has been a community of creative musicians from all over the world playing every conceivable instrument in creative new ways. There's over 100,000 tracks there that can be posted here (as I have done) with permission from the other people on the track (just a matter of asking). This is a huge resource giving you the opportunity to work with newer music in all genres and correspond with those who are making these tracks. From my perspective this is a very good fit with both staying away from copyright material and challenging yourself to playing new material. I would love to see this taken advantage of as it could revitalize a player's technique by giving players the opportunity to practice in other styles that generally have better commercial prospects for performance than playing mainstream/standards.

Lone Wolf · Dec 15, 2017

Also, for those unaware, if you are wanted to post an image from a google such for example, you can actually filter for usage rights through Tools

Pete Thomas · Oct 14, 2018

I'm re-awakening this thread in the light of new EU laws which have been voted through and very likely to come into force next year.

We will be having to continue to delete any obvious copyright stuff. Sad but true (don't shoot the messenger)

Currently we are still OK with embedded Youtube as we rely on Youtube having either filtered out copyright material or else memorised the videos as directed by the rights holder. This may change when the directive becomes law next year, who knows?

Images are not so easy and it is unclear how this will be enforced but it seems from Article 13 but currently it looks like sites will be held responsible for images uploaded by users.

Currently our policy is to disallow obvious copyright images, e.g. when there is

a © symbol and rights holder name
an artist signature
name of publication
just very obviously is IP of someone else

You might think we fly under the radar of anyone wanting to prosecute, small non-profit organisation. However we know of cases where record labels and stock image companies have gone after and successfully prosecuted private individuals even.

So we will be removing anything that is uploaded that appears you don't have the rights to.

What no memes????

Grey area, however it does appear this law could be the end of memery. There is a lot of outcry (just Google EU copyright Article 13)

Or See here for example: What is Article 13 and Article 11? The EU's "meme ban" copyright plan explained | WIRED UK

Pete Thomas · Oct 14, 2018

I would like to add that we are working towards a less heavy style of moderation, but what this means is we will expect the members of the Cafe to work with us on this. This does sadly mean everyone being aware of the rules that we have.

I know there's lots of them, but that is actually a good thing because it leaves less open to interpretation and theoretically helps everyone know what the boundaries are as opposed to pushing the boundaries to find out. Anyone who has gone through bringing up a small child will know what I mean...

Having said that, back on topic, this particular issue could really but us in the bum (yes we are allowed to say bum). So please, no obvious copyright material.

Jazzaferri · Oct 15, 2018

For me its easy, if it aint mine or youtube I dont post it

Pete Thomas · Jun 13, 2020

And as before, videos from Youtube are fine. They allow embeds and we assume that if they allow them then they have cleared with the rights owners. The image/proxy thing does not apply to video embeds.