‘Star Wars’ an A Cappella Tribute vs. Warner Music Group – the Saga Continues
Today, February 25th, the viral video Star Wars an a cappella tribute to John Williams was reinstated to its place on YouTube after the turmoil created over the YouTube/Warner Music Group (WMG) licensing discussions. Reading the CNET article by Greg Sandoval can fill you in on the earlier events leading up to this point. You can also see where Corey Vidal is coming from by watching this interview.
Corey posted the video after contacting Moosebutter and creatively meshed together four shots played simultaneously to get an instant viral reaction. The success was spurred as the video was featured on YouTube Canada and then quickly moved to a worldwide feature. The attention didn’t stop there either as the clip was voted second in the User Generated Content category for the CBS Peoples Choice Awards.
Warner Music Group had the video pulled by submitting a Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim when the video was approaching 4 070 000 views and had received over 15 000 comments.
This isn’t the first time WMG has pulled one of Corey’s videos either. 4 Minutes is a demonstration of Corey’s dance skills and it bares a strict warning to WMG to stay away from an already disputed case. The video remains one of the few “4 minutes” related clips as the licensing squabbles have even resulted in Madonna’s channel being reduced to dust.
Of course contacting Warner Music Group is futile. They have an army of secretaries equally skilled at putting you on hold until you hang up or they tell you they will call you back. This is too familiar of a situation for Corey as he waits for his “call back”. That being the case WMG has yet to offer an explanation of the grounds for its copyright infringement claim.
There is sheer hate radiating from the YouTube community towards WMG. Just type into the YouTube search engine “F@$% you Warner Music Group” and see how many results come up. If Warner applies the brakes to Corey one of his fans clever enough to have used keepvid.com before the video was pulled can simply upload it again in defiance.
In the earlier AV post Mash Ups Help Test the Line Between Media Giants, Prosumers and Innovation Viacom’s head lawyer on copyright discussed his intentions on when they would look to take action. As mash ups continue to hit the Internet if Warner Music Group doesn’t find a solution to cope with the times they will be given (if not already) the black spot by the online “pirate” community.
Most users commenting on the CNET article have strong words against WMG however, Len Bullard offers a fresh look from a different perspective. He comes from the music producer side and is well versed in digital media landscape. He points to the many issues that need to be addressed to sort of the gray area of mash ups and the use of copywrite material. He fails to realize one fundamental about how the music ecosystem has and is being shaken up. This is because his formula for the interplay of business, culture and technology is out of order in this case.
Business changes when technology changes and the culture changes because the business changes – Len Bullard
YouTube (new technology) provides new means to bring music (a pillar for cultural development) to an audience that is now reshaping business models due to the ease of production and sharing. The old style of music production and distribution was difficult and therefore created the opportunity for huge centralized music companies to exist. Now the business isn’t driving this change of music consumption, the consumers are, and that is a powerful cultural shift as a result of technology.
In the mean time there will be no stopping Corey. He’s already released his next video Flight of the Concords “Friends” and plans to continue using his creative flare and the gift of music to make waves online.
Cheers
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Comments
If technology drove the legal adoption because it can, mortars would be legal in Chicago. Production of music has been easy for thirty years. It is distribution that is changing.
You don’t get it. This isn’t about what is possible becoming real because it is possible, but the legal framework being legal because it is right. I’m the first to say the business minds have played this development badly but I also think that when a guy like Corey gets taken down and the mob fights back, they hasten the day when a similar mob will show up to take their silverware.
It isn’t complex. It is simply wrong.
To answer your question, Richard (“Was there actually copyrighted material on the video?”), yes there was copyrighted material in the video.
John Williams’ copyrights were infringed upon as were Warner Music Group’s copyrights to name but two copyright owners as copyright pertains to the video in question.
While Corey may have meant this as a tribute to John Williams, this does not absolve him of the duty to secure copyright clearance in order to legally distribute — or cause to be distributed on his behalf either directly or indirectly — the video in question.
My own teen creates a number of videos and those that are uploaded to YouTube are done so once he has written permission from ALL copyright owners (be it music, photographs, artwork, film, et al) to distribute his videos online and in real life in any medium that may be appropriate for his videos.
This is about respecting other people’s intellectual property and their rights.
Based on my own son’s success when asking for permission, I am willing to bet that had Corey requested permission from the various copyright owners, permission would have been granted.
That seems like a lot of negative publicity towards WMG. Not the best business plan if you ask me.