I opened my e-mail this evening and found this message waiting for me:
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Dear BradleyF81,
Your video, Flexy Girls Performing on Orchard Road, may have content that is owned or licensed by Sony Music Entertainment.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,
– The YouTube Team© 2010 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066
I’ve heard a lot of stories about the music industry trying to claim that people’s home videos contain their copyrighted content for the most bizarre things, like bits of music played in the background, but I never expected it to happen to one of my videos.
Luckily, the video hasn’t actually been pulled. It has, however, been blocked from playing in Germany, as I found out by following up on the second link, which by the way should direct you to your own YouTube account’s copyright info so you can see if any of your videos have been blocked. Anyhow, when I clicked the link, this is what I saw:
I’ve watched it again just to be sure, but I can’t see that anything here belongs to Sony, other than the fact that it was recorded with a Sony camera, but that doesn’t transfer ownership to them. Does the tinny Chinese music belong to Sony? Maybe someone knows better than I do? And if it does, does this video constitute ‘fair use’ under US Copyright Law? Should I take the time to dispute it, or is their claim legit?
Here’s the video, of two girls doing an acrobatics performance on Orchard Road in Singapore:
Bradley Farless 
Ya, that makes sense. I guess I'll have to look up Cirque du Solei now. I'd actually never heard of it.
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Ya, that makes sense. I guess I'll have to look up Cirque du Solei now. I'd actually never heard of it.
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classical music like classical literature are in the public domain. I noticed an option to dispute the claim. However, since the tune is from Cirque du Solei, and the street performers are using the music while doing acrobatics, it might work against you if you raise the issue. In other words, if the street performers were doing mimes, or something unrelated to cirque, than Sony might be more willing to allow fair use.
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classical music like classical literature are in the public domain. I noticed an option to dispute the claim. However, since the tune is from Cirque du Solei, and the street performers are using the music while doing acrobatics, it might work against you if you raise the issue. In other words, if the street performers were doing mimes, or something unrelated to cirque, than Sony might be more willing to allow fair use.
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Well, that's disappointing. I want to argue though that even though it's a public performance, I wasn't a performer, didn't profit from it, and this is a video, not the performance itself. Regardless, I still think it's bullshit, and like you said, I'll probably have to be like every other schmuck and replace the audio track with something else. Is Classical music composed a few hundred years ago considered public domain? Or is that copyrighted too I wonder?
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Well, that's disappointing. I want to argue though that even though it's a public performance, I wasn't a performer, didn't profit from it, and this is a video, not the performance itself. Regardless, I still think it's bullshit, and like you said, I'll probably have to be like every other schmuck and replace the audio track with something else. Is Classical music composed a few hundred years ago considered public domain? Or is that copyrighted too I wonder?
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Yes, the music is what they're claiming. It's a tune from Cirque du Solei, which Sony Music owns the rights to. Your video, under their interpretation, and the girls' usage of it, constitutes a “public performance”. It's complete and total B.S. IMHO, but they still do it.At least it hasn't been totally pulled. Maybe you could do like every other schmuck on YouTube and replace the audio track with a Disturbed song or something … >.>
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Yes, the music is what they're claiming. It's a tune from Cirque du Solei, which Sony Music owns the rights to. Your video, under their interpretation, and the girls' usage of it, constitutes a “public performance”. It's complete and total B.S. IMHO, but they still do it.At least it hasn't been totally pulled. Maybe you could do like every other schmuck on YouTube and replace the audio track with a Disturbed song or something … >.>
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