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Couldn't agree more on anything wonshu posted. I was at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, when the parliament voted for the article 13/17. I stood out there with many French artists. You won't believe how many of them broke out in tears, when they learnt that we finally have a means to strenghten our position towards big tech companies.

I guess the reason why wonshu and me are so passionate about this is topic, is that we are fighting for it more than over 10 years.
Another thing you maybe won't believe: but in all these years we heard things like:

- you artists should be marked with a yellow star
- you should all be gased

These for sure were the worst phrases we had to hear/read.
All that, only because the net activists think that we are taking away something from them. Because we all know: everything on the internet is for free, right?
 
Couldn't agree more on anything wonshu posted. I was at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, when the parliament voted for the article 13/17. I stood out there with many French artists. You won't believe how many of them broke out in tears, when they learnt that we finally have a means to strenghten our position towards big tech companies.

I guess the reason why wonshu and me are so passionate about this is topic, is that we are fighting for it more than over 10 years.
Another thing you maybe won't believe: but in all these years we heard things like:

- you artists should be marked with a yellow star
- you should all be gased

These for sure were the worst phrases we had to hear/read.
All that, only because the net activists think that we are taking away something from them. Because we all know: everything on the internet is for free, right?
Hey Stevie, finally you are telling me/us why you guys were so passionated about this topic and i really understand and respect your points.
Even tho i am glad that the EU Parliament finally wants to help us artists, i dont agree with every point of the implementation.
But thanks for sharing your thoughts :)
 
OK maybe someone can help me out for better understanding:

I understand why Netflix, maxdome etc. are paying royalties to GEMA. But they have movies whose rights (mechanical rights, master use, Performance ...) have been negotiated before upload and public online access.
What I do not really understand: Why is youtube / Vimeo now responsible to buy or get a licence from GEMA for videos etc whose music rights have not have not been negotiated (unlicensed music use).
Shouldn't this be the responsibility of the video maker to pay for any license for using the music in his / her video before uploading it to youtube ?
Cheers, lokotus
 
AFAIK, Vimeo was never a problem. It was only Youtube.

Youtube tried to ride on the "we are only a service provider" wave and not a broadcaster.
Basically like a web hoster, who is only providing web space.
But since Youtube is currating the content and also providing ads to the content, this is not at all true. Youtube IS a broadcaster and they have to be treated as such.

And I can only repeat what we have said in the last 2 years:
the current situation gives the user "certainty of the law", the user is not liable for using music he hasn't licensed, because Youtube has to take care of the licensing.

This is pretty much on par with the situation in German TV. Broadcast stations are paying a fee in order to use the whole GEMA catalogue of music (which also includes foreign music, because the GEMA has bilateral contracts with other PROs).

Of course, if some Nazi is uploading a hate video with your music underneath, you can take that video down. But that's a complete different case/law. In Germany it's called Persönlichkeitsrecht.
 
And I can only repeat what we have said in the last 2 years:
the current situation gives the user "certainty of the law", the user is not liable for using music he hasn't licensed, because Youtube has to take care of the licensing.
I never had the feeling this was actually a problem as there are services like ADREV which claim the videos for you.
So you are pretty much providing new possibilitys to earn money by removing others.
 
Wait, so you would prefer to claim a video and get the whole monetisation instead of getting your proper share and the uploader keeps his share he earns thru ads?

That's exactly the damage this new system avoids. The uploader is not punished anymore for using music he didn't clear the rights for, because YouTube does it for him. I can't see why this would be a bad thing.
 
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Wait, so you would prefer to claim a video and get the whole monetisation instead of getting your proper share and the uploader keeps his share he earns thru ads?

That's exactly the damage this new system avoids. The uploader is not pusnished anymore for using music he didn't clear the rights for, because YouTube does it for him. I can't see why this would be a bad thing.
The old system is really flawed. Afaik there is a deadlock state where when there are 2 claims on 1 video, youtube just keeps all the money and no one else gets paid.

If they manage to put something in place that just works™, and pays out reasonable splits to all parties involved, I'll be very impressed, but also very surprised.

I'm all for cracking down on those ridiculous tech monopolies (starting with the crazy tax evasion schemes they're all allowed to pull off), but I trust neither the lawmakers to make sensible laws for this, nor the tech monopolies to implement them in a good enough way. I hope I'm wrong, but I genuinely think it's more likely youtube will just say "Fuck it, we'll just block all European IPs and they can buy VPN accounts if they want to keep watching", than them actually coming up with a sensible and effective solution to this problem. I really do hope I'm wrong, because this would most likely be hugely disruptive for a lot of European youtubers that focus on non-english-speaking audiences.


Like for example this recent data privacy stuff where now every website throws up a cookie permission nag-screen, that in practice only makes surfing the web more cumbersome and most people just click "accept all" anyway, because it's the fastest way to get rid of the popup. The original intention was right, but I'm not happy with the implementation.




A related question: let's assume in the past you've sold anything to a client with "worldwide exclusive rights of use". Now the new law comes to pass, you don't opt out from anything, someone else uses the thing you made in their youtube video, the appropriate license is paid by youtube to the entity that manages this stuff, and they keep the money because you never actively registered that thing you made with them. Isn't this still a breach of contract with your old client who paid for "woldwide exclusive rights of use"? And if so, who assumes the liability for that breach of contract? Is the creator forced to opt out of the new system if they want to be sure that no such situation arises where they legally are in breach of past contracts in this roundabout way?
In the past I seriously considered joining the VG-Bild, but their contract seemed to me like it creates similar issues, so I didn't go through with it. In practice, it's probably the "Wo kein Kläger, da kein Richter" principle for 99.9+% of cases, but I'd still be very uncomfortable with taking on any legal liability here, even if it's very very unlikely to ever matter.
 
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