Post Script On Edwyn Collins: Power Of The Press Gets His Music On MySpace For Free

from the no-thanks-to-warner-music dept

Thu, Oct 15th 2009 1:15pm — Mike Masnick

A few weeks back, we were one of the first publications to highlight how singer Edwyn Collins was unable to put his own hit song on MySpace for free download (as he wanted to do) because Warner Music claimed copyright over it -- even though it had no such copyright. Despite quite an effort by Collins' manager/wife, Grace Maxwell, nothing was changing. However, the story started to spread, including making it into some major media properties, such as the BBC and The Guardian... and whaddaya know, suddenly everything gets fixed. Mesanna writes in to let us know of an update post from Maxwell, where she points out that the power of the press seemed to finally accomplish what simple reasoning with both MySpace and Warner Music could not:

However, whaddaya know? After 30 odd fruitless emails, A Girl Like You is now available in full on the myspace player! So, todays lesson is simple:

THE MOST POWERFUL DEPARTMENT IN ANY ORGANISATION IS THE PRESS OFFICE.
The whole sad world runs scared of bad publicity, especially from a righteous source like Edwyn Collins.

While Maxwell says it's not worth the ridiculous effort it would take to sue Warner Music or any other major label claiming copyright over Collins' songs, she's more than willing to help out in other cases against them:

Warner Music Group has no connection with Edwyn whatsoever and yet they are still corporately arrogant enough to steal Edwyn's copyright and God knows what else from others. A guy from myspace advised me to treat their copyright department with kid gloves if I wanted a result. It didn't work. If the shoe was on the other foot they'd have been down on us like a ton of bricks. The next time a major tries to take ANYONE to court for copyright infringment, I'm volunteering my services as a witness for the defense.

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Filed Under: edwyn collins, music
Companies: myspace, warner music group

20 Comments

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Richard Corsale, 15 Oct 2009 @ 1:39pm

you know.. I'll bet you he could sue the **** out of them, and they would settle in a quantum leap.
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Mechwarrior, 15 Oct 2009 @ 1:44pm

Re:
Not before they trademark his name.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 1:52pm

What does this have to do with the balloon boy?
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Designerfx (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 1:55pm

this is extremely newsworthy
and yet I bet it will get absolutely 0 MSM coverage, since Murdoch owns a ton of it anyway right?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 2:29pm

Well well well, this has to be the first article ever where Mike praises the corporate news.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 2:30pm

Re:
Only because they helped win an argument against record labels, hah!
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 2:41pm

Research is an amazing thing, and it changes the whole story. Mike, you should learn about that Google thing, it is really helpful to understand things.

There is a song called "With A Girl Like You", which was a number 1 single for a couple of weeks in the UK in 1966, released on Fontana Records. Fontana Records went dormant, and the assets (including rights) were purchased by PolyGram. PolyGram in turn was sold to Seagrams, merged with MCA records, and became (tada) Universal Entertainment.

It's like the 6 degrees of why something happens.

The rest of the story writes itself.

Google is your friend.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:08pm

What research won't tell you (apparently) is that it's a completely different song, with a different title, by a different performer. For that you have to be like psychic.
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Anonymous, 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:14pm

Good on you
Good on you, Grace. I fully support your efforts to stick it to them.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:14pm

Re:
The rest of the story writes itself.

Only if you have a vivid imagination and like to make crap up.
Or you work for a record company. Yeah, then I guess it "writes itself".
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Mr Big Content, 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:18pm

Unfair To Warner
To be fair, Warner spends tons of money on its legal department, PR staff and so on. The idea that one little tin-pot so-called “artist” that no one has heard of should be able to prevail against a major institution based on so-called “evidence” and “facts”—well, where’s the fairness in that? It’s like admitting that all that legal and PR investment by Warner doesn’t amount to a hill’o’beans. Keep that up, and where is the incentive for major corporations to continue investing in their legal and PR resources?
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Mike Masnick (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:53pm

Re:

The rest of the story writes itself.

Google is your friend.

Heh, as others pointed out, that's a different song by a different artist, so not quite sure what point you think you've proved, other than that Google is your friend only if you know how to use it properly.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 3:57pm

Re: Re:
You can lead a horse to water, but until you can get it to do the backstroke, you don't have anything.

Since you guys can't seem to connect the dots, let's try this: Is there potential that Universal thought that this guys song was in fact the song they had the rights to (with a strikingly similar name)?

Look, just past your nose... you will see it.
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Steven (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 4:19pm

Re: Re: Re:
So your position is:

It's OK that Universal falsely claimed copyright on a song, prevented the true copyright owner from exercising his rights, and then persisted to maintain it's wrong position because the title of the song was close to one that it has in it's back catalog.

Did I get that about right? And in addition to this it appears (although I haven't confirmed it myself) that Universal continues to illegally distribute, and profit from, the CD.

Of course this is all OK because big recording industry companies should have complete ownership of all music (and all uses of music) regardless of where it came from, and the rest of us should just shut the hell up and fork over the cash.
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DocMenach (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 4:53pm

Re: Re: Re:
Since you guys can't seem to connect the dots, let's try this: Is there potential that Universal thought that this guys song was in fact the song they had the rights to (with a strikingly similar name)?

So you are saying that it's okay that they then continued to push their case that they had the rights(when they didn't) and refused to even have a dialog with Edwyn. In what way is that oaky?

Your continued and obvious shilling constantly astounds me.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 5:18pm

Re: Re: Re:

Since you guys can't seem to connect the dots, let's try this: Is there potential that Universal thought that this guys song was in fact the song they had the rights to (with a strikingly similar name)?

Except it wasn't Universal Music making the claim. It was Warner. Totally different company. Totally different song.

I admire your tenacity, but at some point, you might as well just admit you were wrong.
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..., 15 Oct 2009 @ 6:01pm

I heard that they were selling this song, have they stopped?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Oct 2009 @ 6:12pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
I will admit the error, I thought this one was also Universal, your favorite whipping boys.

Ignore.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 15 Oct 2009 @ 6:19pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I will admit the error, I thought this one was also Universal, your favorite whipping boys.

Thanks. Though, to clarify, I actually think Universal is the least bad of the four major record labels. They have some really sharp people working in their eLabs. I very rarely talk about Universal Music, so not sure why you believe they're one of my "favorite whipping boys."

You may be confusing them with NBC Universal -- which, again, is a totally different company.
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Halo3 Freak, 16 Oct 2009 @ 5:56am

Halo3
Not to change the subject, but does anyone know what game variant is used for double xp weekend?
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