It is rare that I post a blog, even more rare that I post a video on YouTube, and EXTREMELY RARE that I post a video project. Actually, I never have. Probably the reason is because I use songs on my projects. I see them all the time on YouTube: photo slideshows set to music. Otherwise, what's the point? But mine are more elaborate. My projects are usually set in sections, with each song denoting a change in sections, and I try to include video.
Such was the case today. I've been working on a project for my wife for a couple of months, and finally got everything set just right. I wanted to share it with my friends, and rather than sending everybody the link to a 132 MB raw video file, I figured I'd upload it to YouTube. And then I was going to embed it to a bulletin on MySpace. I got a phone call so I was unable to do so. I went to do so later, and got a nice little notice that though my video would play, my audio was muted because I used a song without permission.
OK, as far as I interpret the Fair Use laws of copyright, if you're not providing an entire song, then it should be OK. I made sure of this when I chopped two songs up in sections and overlaid audio from video clips I'd created over the third. I even went so far as to claim in both the credits of my video and on my video's description that I was claiming Fair Use. I wanted to make sure I had my ass covered. And yet, my audio was STILL removed.
The dispute process is a joke. It gives reasons why one CAN'T claim Fair Use, and one of those is something along the lines of 'using parts of a song'. So, lemme get this straight: suppose I upload a video one of these days and, in the background, my wife or somebody else is watching a music video or listening to music on Music Choice, and all of a sudden a song is on in the background from a company that gets very angry when their artist's music is used in a video. Does my audio get muted because somebody else is watching TV or a song comes on the radio while I'm talking? And if you have an invalid argument, YouTube threatens some mystery action against you. So for that reason I pulled my video.
All I did was do a project that I thought was very sweet for my wife, and wanted to share it with my friends, since God knows nobody else watches any of my videos. LOL So, if anybody out there wants to see any of my videos... send me a DVD and I'll burn it for you. And one other thing: I support the music by buying it off iTunes, or getting the CD. 99.9% of the music I have on my computer is because of this method. Could be why I'm so poor now. LOL I don't believe in what some term 'stealing' even though most artists don't care one way or another.
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