Forum & Copyright (Guidelines)

ghostler · Jul 5, 2025

skeller047 said:
There are some artists/copyright owners (not necessarily the same people) who don’t allow covers of their songs at all, and those are not allowed by YouTube.

It was perhaps maybe 15 years ago.

There was a young woman who posted on Y**T*** or social media Prince's song with her Toddler dancing to it. The song was playing on an inexpensive compact portable playback unit. She used an inexpensive digital camera to take the video. It was of very poor sound quality, video was short duration.

One would think that her posting would constitute "fair use".

The recording company took her to court on it.

I was never a fan of Prince's music and as a result don't bother to listen to any. I gather that as a result of this law suit and the overly strict protectionism, Prince's music popularity IMO severely declined.

My eyes were opened on this AI issue when I posted on Y**T*** a Hillsong Hossana tune that I sung and played on my keyboard. Backing beat was a different style, but it still picked it up. I got the no monetisation strike.

Since then, I have deleted all my content on Y**T*** except 2. I deleted all my sax playing content.

For litigative reasons when we recorded our Salvation Army church services for Covid viewing, I played all songs in the U.S. public domain. Any recording of services to be later posted publicly or distributed publicly follow the same reasoning.

Pete Thomas · Jul 5, 2025

ghostler said:
One would think that her posting would constitute "fair use".

No, that isn't what fair use means though.

There is another side to this coin which is that copyright laws (along with patent and trademark protection) do protect the creative people.

I am definitely on the fence because I have made a decent living thanks to copyright laws and having my music licensed and paid for, which means I earn an honest crust. Or maybe a small stipend.

I have also seen my work stolen and used without permission, and it is quite frustrating so I think we should look at the pros and cons of copyright.

And yes there have been cases of very small time infringers being litigated against by big corporations.

Pete Thomas · Jul 5, 2025

Pete Thomas said:
No, that isn't what fair use means though.

Fair Use is usually something like a news item where there may be some background music going on totally incidental. Alternatively educational use can be a type of fair use, e.g. in an exam question when a small extract is used.