Warner and Youtube are hounding my pianist child
mainMario Ajero, professor of piano at Stephen F. Austin state university in Texas, has a problem.
His 10 year-old son, Antonio, also a pianist made a recording of himself with public-domain orchestra accompaniment. Sweet. Then he posted it on Youtube. That’s where the trouble began.
Warner, claiming copyright, has ordered Youtube to take it down.
Mario is now trapped in a musico-legal internet jungle where nothing is quite what it claims to be.
Read his story here.
Article indicates the situation is now resolved, however I was interested to read his account of the process from beginning to satisfactory ending.
In answer to the question posed at the end of the article, I think there is a better way. It would be to allow people other than the copyright-owner to flag and review suspicious content. I often come across blatant infringement when browsing Youtube, but have no means of reporting it to Youtube (although I suppose I could try to ascertain and contact the copyright-owner, but I do not have the time to do this), since it is not my copyright that is being infringed, and Youtube requires that the person reporting the infringement must be the copyright-holder.
SVM: I think if you open up the copyright flagging to anyone, then you run the risk of people flagging videos of competing businesses just to mess with them. I’m actually okay with the process as it is, but only if companies like Warner Music Group are held responsible for making false copyright claims. From the correspondence that I received, there appeared to be no repercussions for someone at their company consciously rejecting my content ID dispute.
As of now, it is a satisfactory ending, Robert. I still feel like I have to check the Copyright Notices every now and then so that YouTube and the record companies don’t try to pull a fast one. I’m glad Slipped Disc picked up on our story, and hopefully other classical musicians can benefit from our experience.