Rick Beato is right to rant about music copyright strikes

It gets even crazier when compared to other IP law:

Engineer makes an invention: Write 30-Page patent application. Multi-year patenting process with USPTO, pay 1000s of $ if DIY, 10x that if using an IP law firm. Multiply by 4x if going international. With luck, patent gets issued 3 years later. It protects you for 25 years, but only if you have deep pockets for an IP lawsuit in case someone does copy you -- and with uncertain outcome.

Artist releases a song: automatically enjoys 100+ years of protection, even for minor samples, hooks, melodic elements. Lawsuits are easily won as long as you can prove you are the copyright holder.

I have my theories about how we ended up in this state of affairs but no jurist with a sliver of common sense can seriously claim that this is fine.

I watched Beato's video. I couldn't help thinking that making hundreds of false claims was harassment? Any lawyers around?

The most ridiculous part of music copyrights is that the DMCA explicitly encodes statutory damages of at least 750$ up to 30,000$, and up to 150,000$ for willful infringement per work [1].

Yet musical compositions are subject to compulsory mechanical copyright licenses at a fixed rate of 12.4 cents or 2.38 cents per minute, whichever is higher [2] for music covers [3] (i.e. same song, different singer/band or even same singer different time). Meaning you can make a cover without permission as long as you pay the copyright holder at the rates specified in the law.

So we already have cheap compulsory licensing for musical compositions which caps damages at a 1/6,000 to 1/240,000 of the DMCA rates. We should just have compulsory mechanical licensing for recordings as well.

If we really want to get crazy, we could even let copyright holders declare a compulsory licensing rate per work then multiply that by some number to get their intellectual property value and then charge them property tax on that intellectual property. So you can set a high compulsory licensing rate, but then you have to pay more property tax on your income generating property or vice versa. This allows valuable works to be protected to support the artists making them, while allowing less valuable works to be easily usable by whoever wants to.

[1] https://uwf.edu/go/legal-and-consumer-info/digital-millenium...

[2] https://copyright.gov/licensing/m200a.pdf

[3] https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ73.pdf

One answer to this madness is to starve the beast: never buy any music or any content from an established company. Torrent everything. It may not work at all, but at least you can tell yourself you're not helping the bastards.

It’s all brinkmanship: if you can’t unilaterally control it, the instinct is to destroy it.

I work in tech, but thanks to some stubborn drive for creation my parents instilled in me, I also make music. And honestly, compared to music, even the advertising industry feels cutting-edge. Music is still operating with one foot stuck decades in the past.

I read a review by an IPR lawyer long ago who said since music performing rights encouraged artists to record more tunes, in 75 years we'd be drowning in free, and should pay now for the future benefit of growing the size of the free pool in perpetuity.

Not surprisingly the same review recommended extending copyright lifetimes not reducing them. Strange.

Pirate the music and if you want to support the artist to concerts/gigs and buy merch. These labels are inserted themselves between the fans and the artists w/o any benefit but for themselves.

This is so true, the system is broken beyond belief. I want to write a rant here but let’s just say the article is right on all counts.

It’s obvious tech companies as always bowed to one party and listened to them, and didn’t incorporate the user in this. (And to the few that do : thank you)

Starsky Carr did a filter sweep while reviewing a synthesizer, and with that got his account shutdown because it was auto-copyright strike. He appealed and luckily it was reversed, but I'm sure others with smaller audiences wouldn't be so lucky.

Music compaines don't care if it hurts the artist. The have masses of licensed music and can afford the income damage caused by copyright strikes.

I kinda feel like the solution is to stop promoting artist that sign with labels? Like the label doesn’t want you to use the music. the artist chose the label to protect their right's

also, it does seem a little whiny on Beato’s part. He’s not wrong that allowing the music on his channel is probably a net positive for the artist and the label but at the same time he’s benefiting from the music. if he wasn’t then he would be fine with removing it