YouTube rights fight

A vast number of YouTube users are having their videos deleted for posting themselves playing and singing covers of well known songs in breach of copyright regulations. 

“Thousands of videos disappeared,” Fred von Lohmann, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the New York Times. “Either they turned off the audio, or they pulled the video.”

Videos that have been pulled include a 15-year-old girl singing the classic Christmas song “Winter Wonderland” while playing the piano. Her video was removed and

replaced with a message from YouTube citing copyright issues with Warner Music.

A Warner Music spokesperson has told the New York Times that YouTube does not distinguish material between professionally made music videos and amateur performances.

“We and our artists share the user community’s frustration when content is unavailable. YouTube generates revenues from content posted by fans, which typically requires licenses from rights holders. Under the current process, we make YouTube aware of WMG content. Their content ID tool then takes down all unlicensed tracks, regardless of how they are used.”

The move is another sign that tension is growing between the online blogging community and copyright holders.  YouTube music videos are among the most popularly watched content on its site, but in countries such as Britain music videos have been blocked due to issues with major music labels. 

Chris Dale, a spokesman for YouTube, told the New York Times: “While we work with music labels to keep music on the site, sometimes our negotiations don’t pan out, and we understand that this can be a big disappointment to our community.”