Author Archives: Jason Alley

Copyright School

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After watching the youtube videos in class on tuesday, I became curious about YouTube’s copyright policies. I have seen videos taken down before because of copyright infringement, but never really thought about what happened to the YouTube user who put the content up. According to an article on Politico, If a Youtube recieves a copyright notification about a user’s video then not only will the the video be blocks but the user will have to complete “YouTube Copyright School”.

What is “YouTube Copyright School”? This video:

Not surprisingly this video has over 3 million views. It has a lot of down ratings and comments have been disabled. After you watch the video you have to pass a quiz to prove that you understand copyright law. If you pass the quiz then you can remove the strike from your account.

What do you think of YouTube Copyright School? Is it the right approach?

 

Girl On Fire Case

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Alicia Keys has recently been targeted in a copyright lawsuit involving her new song, “Girl On Fire.” It is claimed to have included a mere “two seconds” of material from the Eddie Holman’s song entitled, “Hey There Lonely Girl.” To me, this is absurd as the two songs sound nothing alike. If so many artists can get away with using the same chord sequence (mentioned in my previous blog post), how is Alicia Keys at fault?

This case seems to go along with what Vaidhyanathan was arguing for in the epilogue we read for class today. He claims, “Isn’t copyright supposed to encourage art?…Instead, copyright protection seems to be squelching beauty, impeding exposure, stifling creativity” (Vaidhyanathan 185). Even though the song that Keys has produced is completely different from Holman’s song, it seems to be on the chopping block due to copyright laws. Having listened to these two songs, being aware of this copyright case, I have tried to find evidence for Holman’s case. However, I couldn’t make any connections. I would never have guessed that these two songs were related had I not become aware of this through reading the above article. Thus, in this case, copyright seems to be overstepping its bounds.

4 Chords

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This blog post was sparked by a quote from Brian’s blog post: “I have thought about this before. What if in 3000 years, every single possible combination of musical notes has been put together, so there would not be any more original music. What would copyright laws do then?”

At my high school, once a year, we put on a Coffeehouse Show-where people would perform short skits, or songs of whatever kind. One year, some students got up and began singing individual songs, but what was interesting about them was that they all had had the same basic 4 chords to them, much like in this video. In the music world, this does not seem to violate copyright laws. For example in the video, Journey is not given credit for the songs made after it that include the same 4 chords as it uses. However, in the writing world, one can not just take others’ words and get away with it. Each of the songs, although they incorporate the same four chords, are all given credit to be original works. I wonder why this works the way it does?

Sampling

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In this work, Vaidhyanathan is arguing for “thin” copyright protection (as opposed to “thick”) or copyright doctrine that is just strong enough to encourage the creative industries in art and business but also “porous” enough to allow for free flows of information and rich democratic speech. I think that this is the best way to view copyright law.

When it comes to sampling, like any other music sampling, it can be done incredibly well or used blatantly poorly. MC Hammer’s “U Cant’s Touch This” borrowed lengthy hooks and choruses from Rick James “Superfreak”, downgrading his song from a sample to a copy of the original. Sample- based music is not to be confused with piggy- backing on old music to create mega- hit, but the art of utilizing technology to remix and share music in new and innovative ways. Recording artists such as De La Soul, Public Enemy, and Beastie Boys used multiple brief samples that were often left completely unrecognizable to construct songs.

Music in Restaurants

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I recently came across this article which talks about copyright infringement.  BMI, Broadcast Music Inc., files copyright infringement lawsuits against restaurants and bars who fail to get licenses for playing music without paying royalties. I was surprised to learn that many of these lawsuits are not initiated by the artists themselves but rather, are initiated by BMI.  I was also surprised by how high and costly penalties can be.  It seems smart to splurge on the cost of subscribing with BMI or another organization like it because you may end up saving thousands later on.  I was left with the impression that companies like BMI don’t actually care about protecting an original artist’s rights or copyright but rather are taking advantage of restaurants that fail to get licenses solely for monetary gain.

Arabian Nights

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I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s performance at the Williams Art Center. I knew nothing about the play beforehand and was not sure what to expect. It was a great play about the power of storytelling. The cast brought the stories to life while adding personal comical bits to their roles. Each cast member had to play multiple characters, as the storytelling narratives call for, and they did a great job moving in between these different roles.

When I went to pick up the tickets for the performance the teller made a joke about our VaST class title. “So I guess you didn’t have to buy any books for the class”. The play demonstrated the power that stories and knowledge can have. We have viewed many different kinds of narratives from scrolls to book arts in this course. It seemed very logical that a performance as a form of storytelling, on the very subject of storytelling, would come next.

 

The Limit That May or May Not Exist

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When it comes to parodies or covers, is there a certain point where the cover is considered to be an original piece? I have thought about this before. What if in 3000 years, every single possible combination of musical notes has been put together, so there would not be any more original music. What would copyright laws do then?

Music Videos From Tuesday’s Class

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I was pretty intrigued by Kelsy’s comment in class about the reasoning behind the creation of Gotye’s video- Somebodies: A Youtube Orchestra. There definitely is a difference between creating the video for the sake of just sharing creative covers and creating the video in spite of the artists who made the covers- kind of giving them a taste of their own medicine.

I was pleasantly surprised when I revisited the youtube video on my own computer and noticed this: “Reluctant as I am to add to the mountain of interpretations of Somebody That I Used To Know seemingly taking over their own area of the internet, I couldn’t resist the massive remixability that such a large, varied yet connected bundle of source material offered.” This is a quote from the description of the video signed from Wally (Gotye) himself. Although at first he comes off a bit negative, towards the end of the quote his tone changes to be more lighthearted. He goes from sounding annoyed and offended to sounding happy to spread cool music around. Thus, I’m not exactly sure what his official motives were behind making this video. However, at least they do not come off as all bad.