Copyright Infringement: The NEW LAW and how it affects YOU
In this post I’m going to cover a few important things about the new copyright law. At the end I’ll post some ways you can help fight it.
The government is going to be shutting down some of our favorite youtube musicians and content-creators if this law passes.
My basic understanding of the law is this:
Let’s say you post a youtube video of you singing a copyrighted song. Every time someone streams that video, you get a strike to your name. 10 strikes in one 180-day period, you’re screwed. You become a jail-able felon. Supposedly only if you’re making money off of it. That or if a license to perform that work exceeds $5,000.
As an internet musician front and foremost and a live musician second (and an internet music community lover before even that), I’ve received the most amount of fans by posting covers on youtube. My youtube covers direct people to my music on internet stores such as Bandcamp and iTunes. People who find they enjoy my music will buy my album. Most of my youtube videos are either covers or have other music playing in the background, and I’ve even released a cover album that is one of the most popular ways of people finding my music judging on downloads. Therefore indirectly (but surely) I make my money through posting youtube covers.
Also, I’m sure that many songs I’ve performed could easily cost over 5,000 dollars for a license to perform it. Therefore, I’d be able to be sent right to jail for a maximum of 5 years. (Heck, I’ve covered The Killers and Coldplay… of course it exceeds 5,000 dollars).
And I know I’m far from alone when it comes to that. Most internet musicians obtain their fanbase and money the EXACT SAME WAY. Julia Nunes, Allison Weiss, and thousands others fit into this category. (Even Yogscast and other video-game streaming content-creators)
This means that if you stream a cover of mine a few times, Allison Weiss’ covers a few times, and Julia Nunes’ a few times, everything is perfectly fine. Now when a few other youtubers go and do that too, we can all be put in jail. (Though I wouldn’t mind going to a copyright-infringer’s-jail with Julia and Allison… I’d love to meet them. On second thought, go ahead and stream all our videos!)
You can’t even keep that video of you and your friends lip-syncing and dancing stupidly to your most beloved pop song (I’m pretty sure someone has a video of me dancing to Katy Perry’s California Girls. I’d hate to go to jail over that). Unless of course, you could manage to keep it under 10 views in a half-year.
There are people who are youtube partners that make their living off of recording videos of them playing games like Minecraft. Now Notch, the creator of Minecraft, enjoys the promotion he receives from these videos. He would never sue these content-creators EVEN THOUGH they’re making money off of his copyrighted game. Our law enforcement however would be able to bypass anything he says and go after the content-creators for infringing copyright. Notch has no word in who gets jailed over his game.
We internet musicians NEED YOUTUBE COVERS so people can find us and become fans, otherwise we might as well not even exist as internet musicians.
From my understanding, even if you have a blog that’s making a considerable amount of money and you embed a video, you can be charged.
Now, the bill says this affects those who make 2,500 dollars in revenue or more. The bill reads that if you can keep your revenue under $2,500 on a work which has a license of under $5,000, you’re in the clear. And if you can keep under 10 views, you can make millions of dollars and be fine! (Good luck with that… I’d commend you greatly if you could accomplish such a feat)
But, here’s my big question:
How would THE GOVERNMENT EVEN KNOW how much revenue your making? I’m fairly certain they can’t know UNTIL THEY TAKE ACTION.
Even if I’m not making over 2,500 dollars over a 180 day period, I know plenty of musicians on youtube who do. We’ll be losing their art because they’ll either be jailed or take their art down in an effort to remain free people. If I make 2,500 dollars off of my album which is found because of youtube videos, am I a felon? Where are the boundaries drawn? How are the people who will be charging us know our revenue without already intruding?
Let’s make sure this bill doesn’t pass so we won’t even need to ask those questions.
DO NOT lose your entertainment, whether it be youtube cover songs, watching people play video games, or whatever it may be!
Some other information:
UltraDavid’s post. <— For a well-informed man explaining the law.
Explanation and LINK SO YOU CAN HELP.
