YouTube Kills Livestream Of Convention When Audience Starts Singing 'Happy Birthday'
from the more-territorial-pissing-from-warner-music dept
Nothing kills an event hosted by YouTube (and other streaming services) quicker than a spontaneous rendition of the song everyone sings when it's someone's birthday, but yet somehow "belongs" solely to Warner Music. Granted, this didn't actually kill CitizenCon 2013, an event put together by RSI (Roberts Space Industries), the company behind persistent MMO Star Citizen (which is still in development), for its fans.
Wesha sends in a short note pointing out that YouTube killed the stream a little over an hour in because the crowd sang Happy Birthday to one of the team members. ("Infringement" begins at approximately 1:02:00.)
The recording of the event has been uploaded with the offending tune removed, a tune that should be in the public domain by this point. RSI learned via YouTube's content bot patrol that the song clearly isn't public domain, at least as far as Warner Music and YouTube are concerned, even if there are strong legal challenges to the song's copyright status.
The uploaded video contains a short note about the suddenly-disappearing stream and has replaced the familiar birthday tune with something even more forgettable -- a light-jazz guitar piece that sounds like a rejected cut from the latest "Now That's What I Call NPR Bumper Music!" compilation.
So, Warner Music and YouTube safely prevented anyone viewing the stream from hearing an unlicensed version of a song familiar to millions and sung by the "original" artists almost never.
But should Warner Music be happy with this swift response? I assume it is. There's really nothing to be gained from the song at this point but ill-gotten licensing fees. If it lets one unlicensed use slip by, everyone else will be looking for the same treatment. There's no market to expand here and no new fans of the Hill sisters "work" (even though it's pretty clear that it wasn't written by the Hill sisters) to be gained.
On the other hand, overly-zealous bot patrols could very easily damage a future market. Tim K sends in this story of an eight-year-old Kanye West track climbing the charts thanks to a viral video featuring his song "Gone."
Kanye West debuts on the Hot 100 this week with a song that's eight years old. "Gone" (featuring Cam'ron and Consequence), from West's 2005 sophomore album "Late Registration," starts at No. 18 after a YouTube clip featuring the song as a backing track went viral…The video racked up 15 million views and West's track climbed into the top 20 (of the Hot 100 chart), nearly a decade after its release. Had the bots been as aggressively "trained" as Warner's birthday patrol, West's track would have remained where it was -- an eight-year-old track with a very limited market.
The song's revival started when Marina Shifrin, a writer and comedian, quit her job as a video editor by creating a video for her boss in which she dances around her deserted office (at 4:30 a.m.) to the appropriately-themed "Gone."
Sure, this isn't quite as heartwarming as a small indie artist hitting it big thanks to internet virality, but it does go to show that aggressive responses to infringement can damage future sales. If nothing else, it further lines West's pockets, possibly moving him closer to his dream of speedily delivered croissants.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: citizencon, content id, copyright, happy birthday, livestream, youtube
Companies: roberts space industries, warner music, youtube
Reader Comments
The First Word
“First, we have something which is totally unrelated, not only to Warner but to the music industry itself being shut down because a "copyright violation" had taken place. There's all sorts of arguments here, ranging from the fact that Happy Birthday has no right to being under copyright in the first place to the great illustration of just how hard it is to live life in modern society without inadvertently breaking copyright law. But, ultimately, nobody gains anything from it. No sale of the song has been rescued by the shutdown and nobody's royalties paid. Only somebody else's (presumably) copyrightable footage being blocked because some people sang.
On the other extreme, the Kanye example shows how even big name artists can benefit from having their song heard by a different audience. Shutting down non-commercial usage of a song (even if it's a clear case of copyright) can cause the loss of the worst thing the industry can lose - a fan that didn't know they were one. It's worth bearing in mind that the song in question was not released as a single, so if they weren't already Kanye fans and thus listened to the album, the video might be the first time they'd ever heard the song. While exposure is a great help to new and unknown artists, even the biggest stars have undiscovered gems in their catalogues or can gain fans by having the song in a different context to normal.
This is why we need a more nuanced debate, not just people on the pro-industry side (sadly not just limited to internet trolls) accusing anyone who disagrees with the status quo as being pirates. Many of us were talking about the things these examples represent before YouTube even existed.
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Well, maybe not 'sense'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Only 2 sentences?
No Google attack?
No Mike reference?
WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Thanks Mike for your continued coverage of these topics.
I love you techdirters!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Who are you and what have you done to out_of_the_cue?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
"The new Google privacy policy is: You have no privacy."07:39:26[i-522-8]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
I am fraud, look at me!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The new Google privacy policy is: You have no privacy."07:39:46[i-523-9]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
Hilarious!
"Some dumb random off-topic sentence here." 08:32:26[q-785-4]
BTW: I am exercising my free speech rights by posting my very own timestamp complete with my very own random characters and numbers and that is not "fraud" in any way, shape or form. Sorry Bucko, you don't get to make up the rules as you go along.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Return of FAKE out_of_the_blue!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is slowly working as more of my friends and fans sign up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All that being said it's reprehensible that warner still has control over a 100+ year old song.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But yeah, it was laggy as hell. Should of stuck with Twitch.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Happy Birthday to You
You look like a monkey
And smell like one too
Come at me, bro!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I propose mass uploading of people singing happy birthday everywhere (including in fake youtube with bo-hoo-pseudonym names accounts).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
First, we have something which is totally unrelated, not only to Warner but to the music industry itself being shut down because a "copyright violation" had taken place. There's all sorts of arguments here, ranging from the fact that Happy Birthday has no right to being under copyright in the first place to the great illustration of just how hard it is to live life in modern society without inadvertently breaking copyright law. But, ultimately, nobody gains anything from it. No sale of the song has been rescued by the shutdown and nobody's royalties paid. Only somebody else's (presumably) copyrightable footage being blocked because some people sang.
On the other extreme, the Kanye example shows how even big name artists can benefit from having their song heard by a different audience. Shutting down non-commercial usage of a song (even if it's a clear case of copyright) can cause the loss of the worst thing the industry can lose - a fan that didn't know they were one. It's worth bearing in mind that the song in question was not released as a single, so if they weren't already Kanye fans and thus listened to the album, the video might be the first time they'd ever heard the song. While exposure is a great help to new and unknown artists, even the biggest stars have undiscovered gems in their catalogues or can gain fans by having the song in a different context to normal.
This is why we need a more nuanced debate, not just people on the pro-industry side (sadly not just limited to internet trolls) accusing anyone who disagrees with the status quo as being pirates. Many of us were talking about the things these examples represent before YouTube even existed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
No, they make POL POT look nice.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Kanye track is clearly credited twice on that video - once in the title and again in a link to iTunes, so no surprises that people who liked it bought it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I remember because it cut out at the time the fat man and the lady in the red dress where talking about the photo contest.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The stuff that was skipped was actually rather cool.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Same melody, different lyrics
I've been at conferences where they play that song in honor of someone's birthday, and invite the audience to sing whatever lyrics occur to them. Legal for the conference organizers, since it wasn't subject to the Copyright extension Act in 1976; and suborning 450 individual cases of infringement. Go get 'em, boys.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My next birthday
NOT!
They would no doubt claim in court with much ado and retroactively, that I owe them a lot of dimes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
video blocked now
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: video blocked now
[ link to this | view in chronology ]