DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 (edited) I have just published my new album on YouTube. It includes pastiches that I did of some classic progressive rock songs. One song I uploaded yesterday, Ride It Like You Stole It, got hit with a copyright violation for Mr. Blue Sky. I'll admit it's derivative, but I took care to change the melodies. I have contested the charge and I will report back what they say. They probably won't give in. In the end, it probably doesn't matter. I'm trying to sell the album, but I tried to sell the last one and I got zip. This will probably turn out the same. Furthermore, if some famous artist wanted to put their name in my credits I'd be delighted to share any royalties, but they probably would have no interest in a small fish like me. They probably will just stop me if I ever got big enough to monetize my channel. I'm nowhere near that point. Furthermore, I could try to change the melody (again) without much pain, but their algorithm would probably still object. I think it's a computer program that is hearing the similar chord patterns and says "Gotcha". I've read in books about songwriting that chord progressions can't be copyrighted, but after the 'Blurred Lines' case everything is up for grabs in copyright law. Has anyone had similar experiences? I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other songs get ticketed, too. YouTube: A Pastiche Play Edited March 31, 2022 by DallasSteve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack c. Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 cool.what do ya have on your voice.nice job.jack c. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 26 minutes ago, jack c. said: cool.what do ya have on your voice.nice job.jack c. Jack That's Waves OVox. I basically use it as pitch correction, because my voice needs a lot of help, but I also blend in a little of the OVox synth to enrichen the melodic quality. I used Melodyne on my first album, but I like OVox much better. I create a MIDI track with notes as a guide vocal and then I use that to guide the pitch of my vocals. It works great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack c. Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 10 minutes ago, DallasSteve said: Waves OVox. thanks mate.jack c. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antler Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 That's sad to hear. While the beat is reminiscent of Mr. Blue Sky, the tune overall is quite different. Who's behind the copyright infringement claim? Is it a big publisher? Great song by the way. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 10 minutes ago, antler said: That's sad to hear. While the beat is reminiscent of Mr. Blue Sky, the tune overall is quite different. Who's behind the copyright infringement claim? Is it a big publisher? Great song by the way. It appears that it was filed by SOLAR Music Rights Management. At least they are listed as Copyright owners in the claim. They have up to 30 days to respond to a dispute I filed with YouTube. I will update this thread when I get a response. I'm shocked that they have a way to pick out the similarity. I doubt they have people listening to every new song uploaded to YouTube. I suspect it's a computer program that reviews it and noticed some similarity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyB01 Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 I published a private video on YouTube of Bach's Prelude in C and got slapped with a copyright notice for Ave Maria. I successfully contested this on the basis that (a) it's long out of copyright with Bach having been quite dead for well over two hundred years and (b) - critically - my version was based on the original sheet music whereas Ave Maria includes the Schwencke measure which my version did not. I was really pissed off about this (as you can probably tell) but - to my utter amazement - they withdrew the copyright claim. I mean it was a tutorial video for my sister and wasn't even a public listing. 🙄 Sometimes the little guy can win, so good luck with your challenge. Now, as to the track in question: I wouldn't have picked up in that similarity had it not been pointed out - very subtle. Some clever lyrical craft in there and very tight - perhaps a touch overly so - did you quantize it? I can detect occasional bits of vocal processing (I sometimes get that when I overcook Melodyne) but it's a fine line to tread when refining vocals and if you're happy with it - you should be the final judge. I'd have liked a touch more variety in the drum track, but overall you did a nice job on this. All the best with your dispute. Andy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve@baselines.com Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Usually the copyright claims I have heard about are ridiculous. But in this case, it is really really close. You cannot listen to this without thinking of Mr. Blue Sky for long sections. I like your song, but I agree, it is way too close for comfort. There are some changes you could make that I think would lessen the impact. The rise of a half tone at 27 seconds (Gas) is too much. At that point, even I was thinking that you just decided to use Mr. Blue Sky on purpose. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 5 minutes ago, steve@baselines.com said: Usually the copyright claims I have heard about are ridiculous. But in this case, it is really really close. You cannot listen to this without thinking of Mr. Blue Sky for long sections. I like your song, but I agree, it is way too close for comfort. There are some changes you could make that I think would lessen the impact. The rise of a half tone at 27 seconds (Gas) is too much. At that point, even I was thinking that you just decided to use Mr. Blue Sky on purpose. steve I agree that I could re-write some of it to put more separation between the two. I love that song and so that was the direction I wanted to go. There are other songs on the album that also sound similar to their "inspirations". They would probably need to be re-worked, too, so for now I'm going to leave things alone and see where it goes. If I'm not going to sell much or any, it's probably nothing that would generate bigger problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 26 minutes ago, AndyB01 said: Now, as to the track in question: I wouldn't have picked up in that similarity had it not been pointed out - very subtle. Some clever lyrical craft in there and very tight - perhaps a touch overly so - did you quantize it? I can detect occasional bits of vocal processing (I sometimes get that when I overcook Melodyne) but it's a fine line to tread when refining vocals and if you're happy with it - you should be the final judge. I'd have liked a touch more variety in the drum track, but overall you did a nice job on this Andy All your points are valid. I tried to clean up the vocals as best I could and I got to a point where it was "good enough", but yes, I can still hear some electronic hiccups. I may go back and try to clean it up more as I have time. The "tightness" is probably because I hand coded the music as opposed to playing it live. Again, that's a trade off that works for me, and someday I may advance to recording new work live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhonoBrainer Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 Sell the album just minus that one song, drop that from YouTube? I think your tempo is faster, if memory serves? I would think that would throw the AI off. Or just sell the Google song to . . . Google. There's your money. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 (edited) 43 minutes ago, PhonoBrainer said: Sell the album just minus that one song, drop that from YouTube? I think your tempo is faster, if memory serves? I would think that would throw the AI off. Or just sell the Google song to . . . Google. There's your money. That's an idea. I have other songs I could swap out or I could just leave the album at 11 songs. Yes, I'm hoping to sell that other song to Google and retire. Actually, I'm already retired. LOL For the moment, it looks like YouTube doesn't care about the claim because I don't qualify to monetize my channel. They say you need 7,000 subscribers. So everybody please do me a favor and click Subscribe. 😀 It looks like I can leave it up for now. Edited March 31, 2022 by DallasSteve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hidden Symmetry Posted April 1, 2022 Share Posted April 1, 2022 6 hours ago, DallasSteve said: I have just published my new album on YouTube. It includes pastiches that I did of some classic progressive rock songs. One song I uploaded yesterday, Ride It Like You Stole It, got hit with a copyright violation for Mr. Blue Sky. I'll admit it's derivative, but I took care to change the melodies. I have contested the charge and I will report back what they say. They probably won't give in. In the end, it probably doesn't matter. I'm trying to sell the album, but I tried to sell the last one and I got zip. This will probably turn out the same. Furthermore, if some famous artist wanted to put their name in my credits I'd be delighted to share any royalties, but they probably would have no interest in a small fish like me. They probably will just stop me if I ever got big enough to monetize my channel. I'm nowhere near that point. Furthermore, I could try to change the melody (again) without much pain, but their algorithm would probably still object. I think it's a computer program that is hearing the similar chord patterns and says "Gotcha". I've read in books about songwriting that chord progressions can't be copyrighted, but after the 'Blurred Lines' case everything is up for grabs in copyright law. Has anyone had similar experiences? I wouldn't be surprised if some of the other songs get ticketed, too. YouTube: A Pastiche Play I've had several cpyrt. claims in the past made by YouTube & SounCloud on my own music. With YT it's usually when I upload a music video using a tune that's been released earlier. So essentially the CR claims against using my music were from comparing the algorithms of my music! To have them removed I needed to provide the copyright info/ numbers. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeringAmps Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 Not familiar with Mr Blue Sky so I cannot comment as to infringement. I know there are issues over at YT. Beato complains about it pretty often. And he's in effect promoting the artists that he highlights. I'll stay tuned... t 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 I have put a few cover tunes on You Tube and I always give the original artist credit in the video splash screen. I get a note saying the Publisher has agreed to let me post the video but that they will get any monetizing. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted April 2, 2022 Author Share Posted April 2, 2022 2 hours ago, John Vere said: I have put a few cover tunes on You Tube and I always give the original artist credit in the video splash screen. I get a note saying the Publisher has agreed to let me post the video but that they will get any monetizing. John Are those covers where you played the music? I've posted a few covers I played on the piano, but I've never had a copyright notice on those. I'm not eligible to monetize, so I guess they don't care. Do you have 7,000 subscribers? I think that's the minimum to be able to monetize plus a certain amount of views in a certain period of time. I'm just beginning and I don't have even 100 subscribers. But in this case, I didn't post a cover, it's an original song I wrote that they allege infringes the melody. It is derivative of Mr Blue Sky, but I made sure to change all of the melodies. We'll see what happens next. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark skinner Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 I thought you did a Very Good job with this song. The vocals were very impressive in this nice mix. I recently watched a video (from somewhere) and it showed some major record labels and publishing company's that actually had a team of "listeners" seeking out copywrite violations on different platforms along with their AI. Enjoyed the song .. mark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Vere Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 (edited) I think it depends on lyrics more than the music. Probably a different arrangement of a cover song won't get noticed. A few that come to mind is was busted for All My Lovin ( Beatles) and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer ( Elmo and Patsy) . Which were both me playing live. Then I posted a version of Blue Rodeo's Tossin and Turning I had recorded when I was in a band. The videos are still posted but if I ever do get monetized those publishes get the ad revenue, not me. Fine. I'll probably never get monetized anyway. As of today I'm at 18,000 views and almost 300 Subscribers. I think it's 100,000 views and 1,000 subscribers. The info is not clear. But Cakewalk is not as popular as " Sleeping Cat" 100K views. Some of my Tutorials have Midi tracks of cover songs being used but very briefly and those have not been busted. I helped a friend make a slide show video for their Moms Memorial and she gave me about 30 songs to use. You Tube sent me a busted list of all 30 songs including 3 that were real obscure Italian folk songs. Some of them did not grant permission ( probably dead) and we couldn't post the video on You Tube. I just shared it in aa Cloud server. You see lots of live band videos playing cover songs too. Your situation sucks because this could happen to anyone who creates original music. Everything we compose has probably been already used before. There are only so many combinations of chords. We can't help it if we borrow from somewhere. I hope a human takes the time to review your song. Not a robot. I think the thing that started all this was the birth of Non Musicians producing content using loops lifted from cover songs. Edited April 2, 2022 by John Vere 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DallasSteve Posted April 2, 2022 Author Share Posted April 2, 2022 John I agree that YouTube's monetization rules are not clear. I'm not sure where I got the 7,000 number, but I looked again and I see the 1,000 number in their Help pages shown below. They don't mention the number of views here, only subscribers. There is a second category called 'Ad Revenue' that does not list a required number of subscribers. I thought they were the same thing. Does that mean I can get ad revenue on my channel even before I qualify for monetization? As I say I thought they were the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hidden Symmetry Posted April 2, 2022 Share Posted April 2, 2022 Minimum eligibility requirements to join Follow all the YouTube channel monetization policies. The YouTube channel monetization policies are a collection of policies that allow you to monetize on YouTube. As a YouTube partner, your agreements, including the YouTube channel monetization policies require compliance with these monetization policies to potentially earn money on YouTube. Live in a country/region where the YouTube Partner Program is available. Have no active Community Guidelines strikes on your channel. Have more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months. Have more than 1,000 subscribers. Have a linked AdSense account. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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