Legal Ramifacations

Hi Cam,

I, as well as many others, have cover versions of songs on YouTube. Some of mine have my photo and video slides shows and others, Heaven help us, have a video of me . As long as it is marked as a cover version I do not think there is any problem unless you are doing it to make money and then the songwriter will need his royalties.

However if you mean to put your own montage to a star's existing recording then you are certainly in danger of having it removed. So you will have to get your own recording done and you should be OK.

Roger

Give credit where it's due. 

- Zurf

Zurf,

  I do believe in giving credit where credit is due, your excatly right. I just wouldn't know who to give it to being random pictures, even the more famous pictures, I wouldn't know who to even contact about that, but anyway, It's probaly just do it for myself anyway.

Cam

The question is not if it's legal, the questions are 1) will the artist care to enforce DMCA, and 2) if they do 1, what does it mean to you?

Many artists love having their music on Youtube and don't mind people recording it and posting live shows (Phish comes to mind). Can they file a DMCA claim and ask youtube to remove it? Absolutely. Will they? Maybe.. Depends upon whether the artist's representation is a dick about fans sharing music on Youtube.

The important part of the question is "what does this mean to you?" In all likelihood, nothing. If you've never had a song yanked off Youtube for copyright violations, they'll most likely just warn you and say "move along." (see bud's quote above) You aren't financially damaging the artist (you aren't doing it to make money from it) so they don't really have cause to go after you. Granted they COULD, but that's not very realistic.

Disclaimer: I work in online marketing and spend a lot of time dealing with regulatory compliance and DMCA but I'm not a lawyer.

that is phenomenal!!!!!!!

Thats fantastic - Pat is definitely a guy I'd love to have a beer or 12 with. One of these days I'm gonna head to Sloppy Joes and see him.

Everything that has been recorded or written down since the mid-80s in tangible form has a copyright attached to it, so those pictures belong to someone.  The songs also belong to the people that wrote it.  Copyright provides absolute control to the copy holder the right to control distribution, reproduction, and performance of their work.  That control is then constrained a bit by what is called "fair use" doctrine, but what you're doing isn't going to be part of that.

So, to the letter of the law, yes, you have committed a tort (as opposed to a crime) and could be liable to the copyright owner.  In a practical sense, I doubt you have much to worry about.  If you get a cease and deist letter then simply apologize and then cease and desist.   Damages have to be shown in order to win a monetary award, so unless you are raking in the big bucks and the copyright holder can demonstrate actual damages (I lost X amount of business as a result of these YouTube videos) then I'd guess the most that will come out of a courtroom is an injunction against you to prohibit the use of the work.

YouTube (and any service dealing with user generated content) are particular about copyright infringement.  If they don't take active steps to prevent it, then they are contributors to it and are also liable for your tort.  And they have deep pockets that draw lawsuits like flies to old meat.  I'd bet that if there is a problem with what you're doing, you'll hear from YouTube about it long before you hear from the copyright owner.