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Sony Finally Admits It Doesn’t Own Bach
- mirimir 8y agoAs EFF notes, this is great for him, but horrible generally, in that chances of success against jerks will likely be low. Also, I wonder about speculation that Sony might have owned copyright for the score that he played.
- zeta0134 8y agoI don't think I want to live with a legal system that claims that my performance (as a human player) of someone else's sheet music is somehow bound by copyright. I draw that line at recorded performances, wherein, say, the orchestra might have reproduction rights to their recording of a public domain work. I think if the law is any more strict, things like covers wouldn't be able to exist legally, and looooots of genuinely entertaining small-time youtube entertainers that develop their talents by singing or playing covers would suddenly be under legal fire. Even a complete novice can sing along to something on the radio, so trying to claim that they shouldn't be allowed to do so fails my smell test.
- jacquesm 8y ago> I don't think I want to live with a legal system that claims that my performance (as a human player) of someone else's sheet music is somehow bound by copyright. It's going to be hard to find a place where you'd want to live then. I agree that this is a thing that should not exist but it does and the practice is very wide-spread. For an encore: There was a case (I really wished I could find a reference) iirc where a band had sold the rights to a piece and they were then required to pay royalties on a performance of their own creation.
- mirimir 8y agoThat's distinguishable, I think. In your example, I gather that the band sold rights to a piece, and not just to a particular score or arrangement of the piece.
- wool_gather 8y agoCovers exist because of intra-music-industry rules: so-called "mechanical licensing". Arrangements and original compositions are very much subject to copyright...so this is the world you're living in, I'm afraid.
- mirimir 8y agoOK, but does the copyright for a score or an arrangement apply to just the thing itself (as in a file or printout) or also to music performed using that score or arrangement?
- aidenn0 8y agoThat's complicated, but here's my layman's understanding. If you write down an original song in a score, then you have copyright for that song, including performances of that song. This is actually true for any time an original song is first placed in a fixed medium, so if you record a song but don't write it down, then the rules are the same. If you make a novel arrangement for a public domain song, then you have copyright for that specific arrangement, including performances of that song. If you transcribe a public domain song, then you may have copyright for that transcription (so if someone were to photocopy it, it may infringe), but you do not get any copyright to songs performed from that transcription. Radio play of a song pays a fee to the owner of the writer's copyright, but not the performer of a song, so David Paich & Jeff Porcaro (or whomever paid them for ownership of the rights) are getting money every time Wheezer's cover of "Africa" plays on the radio, while Wheezer does not get money.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoThe performance using it is a derivative work for which you'd need a license to create (in UK) or perform, or publish.
- deanmen 8y agoHow would you distinguish a performance based on the public-domain Bach-Gesselshaft Ausgabe from one from a different score? Also I don't think Sony prints editions of classical texts.
- mirimir 8y agoThat came up in a recent thread about this issue. As I recall, someone claimed that expert listeners can tell what score was used.
- zentiggr 8y agoExperts supposedly could tell expensive wines from table wines... this doesn't pass muster for me anymore either. <rant>I'm getting to the crotchety old man stance of - drop copyrights, drop patents, everyone gets paid for [a live performance|first sale of a physical object] and screw all this secondary income bullshit. None of it makes sense and it leaves too many openings for pirates/scumbags/greed to suck money out of the public. </rant>
- mirimir 8y agoThere's certainly a strong argument for rolling back all the extensions and expansions for patents, copyrights and trademarks, which have been rammed through over the past few decades, by exploitative rights holders. The alternative is just to ignore it all, and use adequate OPSEC to avoid prosecution. If the system is so totally dominated by monied interests that there's no hope for relief, what else can we do? Just declare independence, and let them pound sand. China and Russia have at times done that, more or less. And we can create our own overlay Internet that can't be coerced or taken down. Or at least, can't be taken down without unacceptable consequences for the commercial Internet. If it comes down to it, overlay routers can spread as malware, and use covert channels, hidden in HD video etc.
- dang 8y agoEarlier thread on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17923138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17923138
- gesman 8y ago"...And if a takedown notice is wrong, a counter-notice can be sent by someone explaining that they own the work or that it’s not infringement..." I think "if a takedown notice is wrong" - counternotice need to be sent back with a mandatory bill to pay to compensate for effort of receiving party to prove that takedown notice is invalid. This will curb down this BS practice of frivolous opportunistic notices.
- clhodapp 8y agoThat's true of the American legal system as a whole. It generally seems to ignore the cost to the victim of dealing with the legal system...
- sieabahlpark 8y agoCheaper than the company hosting dealing with tons of lawsuits unfortunately.
- bluGill 8y agoThere is no good solution to that problem. Loser pays is even worse as you have to risk the loss if you incorrectly lose in court.
- clhodapp 8y agoLoser or taxpayer pays, based on the judgement of the court?
- bluGill 8y agoThat means I as a taxpayer lose when someone screws up.
- clhodapp 8y agoSome of the time, yeah. It seems a lot better for all of us to front theses costs of government operation rather than foisting all of that cost onto people who were unlucky enough to be wronged or wrongly sued, by no fault of their own.
- Lazeb 8y agoIsn't it kind of crazy how such a huge company can be so outlandish that it requires the general public and a musician with enough following to question such absurdity to force a human response?
- mirimir 8y agoThat's reminiscent of issues re Google nuking accounts.
- Lio 8y agoWhat gets me about when giant corporations such as Sony or others absurdly overreach like this is that they never publicly say sorry. Just saying “sorry the process got confused, of course we don’t own the works of Bach” would go a long way.
- maze-le 8y agoNo, its not even a single bit outlandish, it is the normal procedure how cooperations operate that are too big to be affected by markets or laws. Google, and Facebook are big enough to have a virtual monopoly in their respective domains, so the logic of markets doesn't apply to them anymore. They are also big enough to brazenly ignore certain laws, soley based on the size of their legal departments -- they might be successfully sued in some instances, but it doesn't really matter in the big picture, as long as the average joe is deterred from taking action ("they have so much money for lawyers, you don't have a chance"). These conditions make actions like this not only "not outlandish" but outright reasonable (as seen from the logic of the cooperation). If the system that encourages this behavior doesn't change, the cooperations certainly won't act any different.
- fcbrooklyn 8y agoIs there any reason this can't be done in reverse? (IANAL) Perhaps a small orchestra can put a bunch of stuff online, with copyright of their performance, and then issue takedown notices on all of Sony's versions.
- mirimir 8y agoInteresting. So what does happen with dueling takedown requests? Do first movers always have the advantage?
- fcbrooklyn 8y agoI'm not sure (not a lawyer). In theory, both request should be squashed, and I think there's a serious penalty for knowingly issuing a bullshit request, but i've never heard of the big guys being sanctioned, perhaps they lean on the excuse that their automated tools generate false positives. So you need to put up the content, and then point crappy automated tools at the big boys, maybe. I'm not gonna do it, but if someone who knew what they were doing managed to generate a ton of takedowns at the large providers, in a legally safe manner, it might at least prove a point and generate some press.
- rocqua 8y agoGetting access to the automated process on a platform requires that you are a large player. If you use the smaller system to issue notices, there is no plausible way you aren't acting in bad faith. That plausible deniability offered by the automated system probably gives the large players sufficient cover.
- johnhenry 8y agoThe key take away that I get from this article: "How many more ways do we need to say that copyright bots and filters don’t work? That mandating them, as the European Union is poised to do, is dangerous and shortsighted?"
- Asooka 8y agoThat is assuming that false positives for small artists are something that the big EU publishers worry about. They don't. Destroying the public domain and indie works is acceptable collateral damage for the politicians and a desired secondary effect for the publishers. The copyright filters will work exactly as designed.
- johnhenry 8y agoI'm not assuming that the publishers worry about this -- I'm saying we should.
- trumped 8y agoHopefully the fine will teach them a lesson?
- makecheck 8y agoTechnical solutions to this seem to be hindered by issues that affect other secure systems, such as: how do you know who first published something (trusted/reliable time stamping servers?), and how do you know it’s the same content? As such, I suspect the best system is “hire a bunch of humans to check”. And that’s expensive, which is fine because it should be. These companies try to completely decimate online publications just because it might infringe on their precious properties, and that needs to be a massive cost to deter frivolous takedown notices. It’s kind of amazing that sites so rapidly reached the point of just insta-killing potentially infringing content with no evidence. That has surely crushed some up-and-coming artists who probably said “screw it” after having their platform taken out from under them by mistake.
- adrr 8y agoI don't understand why companies aren't being charged with perjury for putting false information on a takedown form. Prosecute a few of them, and the problem will fix itself.
- mirimir 8y agoMaybe not perjury, because DCMA takedown requests aren't sworn testimony. But this case isn't even about DCMA. It's just Facebooks takedown service to avoid DCMA invocation. I'm not even sure who the victim would sue here. Facebook or Sony? Both, I guess, and let them sort it out ;) And yes, maybe in small claims court.
- tinus_hn 8y agoThe law states you have to include a statement like this in the letter: Under penalty of perjury I certify that the information contained in the notification is both true and accurate, and I have the authority to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright(s) involved. If you don’t it should be dismissed outright.
- mirimir 8y agoThanks. Didn't know that. But then, how does this apply to takedowns handled by Facebook etc? From what I've read, they aren't actually DMCA takedowns.
- shmerl 8y agoThis just demonstrates how absurd automatic filtering is. It simply equals blind censorship. Usage or presumption of guilt is a common pattern in copyright abuse, from such takedown methods to DRM and other copyright inspired censorship garbage.
- lysp 8y agoThe major issue in this is not the bot/automated process that initially flagged the video (although I don't agree with that either). The primary issue is that the appeal process was rejected. This shows that either all appeals are rejected outright or the person who was physically responsible for checking it didn't read the appeal or view the video. I'm not sure how anyone could reasonably assume "this is me personally performing a 300yo song" - either by reading the appeal notes or viewing the video could assume that it breached copyright. This is why there needs to be damages / fines for all incorrect appeal rejections. Because if there's no penalty for getting it wrong, there is no motivation for a company to actually do anything about it. If it costs them $1000 - $10,000 for getting it wrong, it will be more cost effective for them to pay someone $20/h to double check before rejecting an appeal.
- eitland 8y agoSomebody presented the idea here on HN the other day about $1 fines - both for individuals and for the music copyright abusers. The nice thing about this IMO is 1$ is a small amount for me and you, but for a big corporation like sony this will cost them thousands every time it gets invoked (because legal will probably get involved). Of course it needs to be slightly more advanced I guess but it would be a good start.
- true_religion 8y agoAt most one guy from finance will be involved to rubber stamp the budget for the quarter.
- eitland 8y agoI don't think so. The idea that they should pay anything back will probably be very hard for them to wrap their head around. ;-)
- pmiller2 8y agoNo, it won’t. Corporations understand the phrase “cost of doing business.” If you want fines to deter corporate wrongdoers, they have to be substantial relative to the company’s profits or revenue.
- crazygringo 8y agoI've actually been really curious, does anyone know what kind of algorithm they use to detect similarities? From what I've read of the tech behind Shazam/SoundHound, I was under the impression that the kind of audio fingerprints produced and indexed relied on the waveform/FFT and rhythmic input being identical, and that a band doing a really accurate cover would never trigger a match because it would be totally different in a million tiny details, the details used for the actual fingerprinting. But clearly that's not the case here. No two pianists play perfectly alike, so what kind of algorithm is robust enough to match the underlying composition as opposed to the execution of it?
- Footkerchief 8y agoThere's got to be some fudge factor in algorithms used by e.g. Shazam -- an FFT of a microphone recording is never going to be strictly identical to the FFT of the source material.
- yomly 8y agoShazam predates the recent big Deep learning movement iirc. I can conjecture but I feel tech for "understanding" the music has come a long way since Shazam first started. Esp when you see YouTube labelling music in personal recordings. EDIT: also see [0] for a semi high profile case of a busker getting banned from FB for doing a cover [0]http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39338488/busker-thanks-ed-sheeran-for-apologising-for-facebook-ban http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/39338488/busker-thanks...
- cormullion 8y agoLast year I received a YouTube copyright claim against my use of an extract from the Open Goldberg Variations: https://www.opengoldbergvariations.org https://www.opengoldbergvariations.org which I presume was generated by an automated process that couldn't accurately distinguish between performances.
- Jian-Yang 8y agoBut will they give Bach all the lost revenue due to takedowns?
- giancarlostoro 8y agoNot sure why the link to Sony disagreeing that they don't own copyright to Bach links to a tweet by Jeff Bezos.
- liftbigweights 8y agoSo we went from small copyright violators being able to steal without repercussion to large copyright violators being able to steal without repercussions. Social media went from one extreme to another. Now the big corporations can exploit social media to rob and steal. This is exactly what it is. Theft by sony and other large companies. Since social media doesn't punish sony and large corporations for abusing the copyright claim system, they will abuse it. Small copyright violators get suspended if they continue to abuse the system. Each social media platform has a threshold after which your account is banned. Why are corporations not held to the same standard? If sony knowingly and willingly makes false claims X number of times, then their account should be banned and they should be prevented from making claims. Otherwise, they will claim everything since there are no consequences. It's sad how social media went from user/people centric to corporate centric in such a short time. Youtube is no longer "you"tube, it's "CNN/HBO/SNL/Late Night Show"tube now.
- kevin_b_er 8y agoEverything will devolve to control by rich and powerful unless the public acts to check it.
- gnu8 8y agoSony must be brought sternly to account for this fiasco. The penalty for this type of mistake should be costly enough that it will never happen again. If the United States will not update the DMCA to sharply penalize false copyright claims, perhaps North Korea should step in and address the situation.
- CWuestefeld 8y agoThis seems perverse in the context of the copyright legislation being discussed in the EU today. On one hand, rights holders can indiscriminately send out takedown notices to any they suspect of infringing, and the burden is then placed on the poster to prove that it's OK. On the other hand, sites will be required to police all posts, just in case something infringing is posted. So #1 - it's OK for the rights holders' bots to be inaccurate, but sites will be punished if theirs are. and #2 - all responsibilities accrue away from the rightsholders. They get all the rights, but have none of the responsibility or burden for (accurately) watching over those rights.