ASCAP Wants My Money... Can They Take It?

[DexterMorgan]

Actually, I'm not up to date with the PirateBay case, I just find all the copyright song-and-dance going on highly annoying (you lost billions? yea right, people earning $400 a month were going to buy your $2000 software if there was no p2p, sure).

But whatever floats your boat.

 

[Per]

In Sweden you can submit a matter for law students to look for precedents and applicable laws, maybe some law schools in the US do this?

The TPB verdict was rather odd, but that's beside the subject.

 

[Sander]

Well, with YouTube the issue is pretty clear cut. Let's go over it again:

Can I upload videos to YouTube?

In connection with User Submissions, you further agree that you will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant YouTube all of the license rights granted herein.

Can I post embedded videos from YouTube?

using the Embeddable Player to show YouTube videos on an ad-enabled blog or website, provided the primary purpose of using the Embeddable Player is not to gain advertising revenue or compete with YouTube;

Therefore, YouTube says you CAN'T upload copyrighted material, and that you CAN use their embedded player. Therefore, you can say that if they suspect your site is linking copyrighted material from YouTube they can inform YouTube, because as far as you know, and according to YouTube, this material is yours to use freely.

You have to keep in mind that disclaimers like this aren't automatically legal, binding and may not provide someone other than Youtube with legal outs. These are usually thrown in so that companies can go 'He broke a contract! Not our fault!', but that doesn't always hold up in court.

Local legislation usually supercedes any contractual stipulations - which can be most clearly seen with euthanasia (ie you cannot waiver your right to live and give other people the go-ahead to kill you in most US states).

 

[DexterMorgan]

True, but now we're moving into morality territory: is it right to you fine a user who's possibly oblivious (probably not, but impossible to prove otherwise) and pursue every such user, or do you simply pull the content and block it from a single location and pursue the person who has uploaded the illegal content?

Option 1: Money
Option 2: No money, possible loss of money

What's your motivation?

 

[SimpleMinded]

In Sweden you can submit a matter for law students to look for precedents and applicable laws, maybe some law schools in the US do this?

The TPB verdict was rather odd, but that's beside the subject.

Not a bad idea. I messaged welsh to see if he has any recommendations for sources or if he had any thoughts on the matter, so hopefully he has some ideas.


The good news is I'm definitely in no rush. The last email took a month and a half to get a follow up, so I don't see any reason why I should have to rush to respond back.

 

[DexterMorgan]

You probably already found this, but here's what Google says:

There have been a few questions in the forum regarding ASCAP and we
wanted to provide our perspective on the issue. We have become aware
of yet another misguided effort on the part of ASCAP to double dip--
this time by pressuring third-party websites which embed YouTube
videos to pay royalties to ASCAP. We believe there is no legal basis
for ASCAP's position because YouTube itself is currently licensed by
ASCAP pursuant to its application made under the antitrust consent
decree that governs ASCAP's operations. The license requested by
YouTube covers all US public performances of ASCAP music in YouTube
videos from YouTube's servers all the way through to the end user,
regardless of whether a third-party website is embedding the YouTube
player. We believe that YouTube has already cleared any necessary
public performance rights for US playbacks of ASCAP songs, and ASCAP's
attempt to collect an additional payment from another party for the
very same stream is not credible.

Regards,

YouTube Team

You will probably have to remove sources other than Google/YouTube who are too small to tangle with ASCAP.

http://groups.google.com/group/youtube-api-gdata/browse_thread/thread/51e7114cd6e3759e#

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

My curiosity is... if I ignore them, will they just go away? Or will it eventually escalate to the next level.

did you not read my last post? i gave you the answer to this already. i've watched it happen two different times with two different businesses. no, they will not just go away.

 

[Per]

Are there any musicians who have a moral issue with taking money from double-dipping?

 

[SimpleMinded]

My curiosity is... if I ignore them, will they just go away? Or will it eventually escalate to the next level.

did you not read my last post? i gave you the answer to this already. i've watched it happen two different times with two different businesses. no, they will not just go away.

Aye and I responded to that notion though maybe it wasn't clear because it wasn't to you.

Their first email was sent to me on july 8th, to which i responded that afternoon. They didnt' respond back until a month and a half later on august 27th.

Which shows they're clearly not just sitting here chasing after me. Unless they were so thrown off by my not hosting it that their legal department spent the last month and a half researching the issue.




I looked it up and almost every service has a similar statement to the one found on YouTube by DexterMorgan. However, if they're choosing to ignore these statements, I don't know if it matters.

 

[Deleted member 53669]

Are there any musicians who have a moral issue with taking money from double-dipping?

Trent Reznor

KMFDM

Neurosis

Tool

Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor

Trent Reznor - The only musician who is thinking in the twenty first century.

 

[Maphusio]

Hey guys,
As you may or may not know based on my signature, I run a relatively big R&B web site, R&B Haven. Recently, I've had to stand against ASCAP for some interesting legality questions and since this is probably one of the more intelligent communities I know on the web, I figured it would be worth asking you guys for opinions.

Background: My site R&B Haven has a music videos section which offers embedded videos from other sites (youtube, webratsmusic, dailymotion, etc) that users can view on my site. Note: I don't actually host ANY music videos on R&B Haven.

In July, I received an email from ASCAP (the artist equivalent of the RIAA) which stated that I need to sign an agreement with them in order to provide musical performances on my site by any of their artists.

I responded back explaining that I don't host any of the content and that they should speak with the hosts if they have any issues with what I'm doing.


Today, a month and a half later, I received this email back:

Even though you are embedding material that is not hosted by you, it is still you're responsibility to obtain permission to stream music performances from you URL. You need either permission from the copyright holder's of the songs, or a license from a representing society such as ASCAP. We strongly recommend that you enter into an ASCAP license agreement, as this will authorize you to stream any and all of ASCAP's music over your website.

Here's where my question to you guys comes in. Legally, is there any validity to what he's telling me? Are you liable for videos you embed on your site? IF so, does EVERY site that has embedded a video from YouTube fall into this position where they are now liable to ASCAP? Isn't it the responsibility of the sites allowing embedding to pay fees since they're the ones offering the service?


I appreciate your input.

Oh no... You've been attacked by our great Internet guardians of music as well.

A few years back I worked on a small non-profit Internet radio station run by an old American war vet. We maybe had a few hundred listeners when he received a lovely letter in the mail essentially stating the same thing, "Pay us for every song you've played or join ASCAP". You could almost hear Darth Vader's respirator.

This was backed up with a legal threat as well. The owners sent a letter pleading that they were a non-profit radio station that had very few listeners and no money. They received a very warm reply stating that they now had final notice before legal proceedings were filed against them...

They caved in. Roughly a year later, it just was not viable to keep paying for their hobby and they shut down the radio station and website. In the future when I ran my own Internet radio station, I knew of the risks and decided to have the website and stream hosted and operating on IP space outside of the good ol' USA.

ASCAP's only recourse would be to ask the host to shut down my site but seeming they would have little consequence behind their demands I assumed nothing would happen. I had a pretty bitchen radio station with a great gaming talk show that was popular enough to get game developers on air for interview. I miss those days...

EDIT: I would seriously pay for a lawyer to review your situation. I'd hate to see you get hauled away and to never see more of your articulate and thoughtful posts on NMA. I know your a student and all but, you need professional legal advice.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Even though you are embedding material that is not hosted by you, it is still you're responsibility to obtain permission to stream music performances from you URL. You need either permission from the copyright holder's of the songs, or a license from a representing society such as ASCAP. We strongly recommend that you enter into an ASCAP license agreement, as this will authorize you to stream any and all of ASCAP's music over your website.

I'm sorry, but is the above text quoted verbatim from ASCAP's correspondence with you?

 

[Maphusio]

Even though you are embedding material that is not hosted by you, it is still you're responsibility to obtain permission to stream music performances from you URL. You need either permission from the copyright holder's of the songs, or a license from a representing society such as ASCAP. We strongly recommend that you enter into an ASCAP license agreement, as this will authorize you to stream any and all of ASCAP's music over your website.

I'm sorry, but is the above text quoted verbatim from ASCAP's correspondence with you?

I think you intended to ask me the above question. As I mentioned in my previous post I was not the recipient of the legal threat so I can not say for certain what the letter said. I recall it being read on air but thats pretty tough to recall word for word as that was close 5 or 6 years ago.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm sorry, but no, I intended to ask the OP this question. That your name got tacked on at the front is a mistake of mine. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[TheWesDude]

if you provide a link to their website with the content, there is no recourse for them.

if you embed the content off someone elses site, ask them what legal right they have to issue that request to you. if they cannot cite a law ( not a contract, those are irrelevant ) that they are requesting this of you.

its simple, if they cannot cite a law they are seeking protection under to prevent your use of the material, then its legal harassment.

its really simple. untill they can cite the law you are breaking, you can ignore them.

 

[SimpleMinded]

I'm sorry, but no, I intended to ask the OP this question. That your name got tacked on at the front is a mistake of mine. Sorry about the confusion.

Yea, that was copy and pasted from the email I received.

if you provide a link to their website with the content, there is no recourse for them.

if you embed the content off someone elses site, ask them what legal right they have to issue that request to you. if they cannot cite a law ( not a contract, those are irrelevant ) that they are requesting this of you.

its simple, if they cannot cite a law they are seeking protection under to prevent your use of the material, then its legal harassment.

its really simple. untill they can cite the law you are breaking, you can ignore them.

Yea, I just emailed him this morning asking for a list of artists that are members of ASCAP to see who on my site is affected. Next email I receive, I will follow up with your question for the law and let you know what they say.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Yea, that was copy and pasted from the email I received.

Then my suggestion is that until you can absolutely verify that the e-mail comes from ASCAP, consider it a phishing attempt.

Even though you are embedding material that is not hosted by you, it is still you're responsibility to obtain permission to stream music performances from you URL. You need either permission from the copyright holder's of the songs, or a license from a representing society such as ASCAP. We strongly recommend that you enter into an ASCAP license agreement, as this will authorize you to stream any and all of ASCAP's music over your website.

That many grammar errors in a single paragraph should set off several alarm bells, especially when it's supposed to come from an official "society".

 

[SimpleMinded]

I'm pretty sure he works for them, as much as I wish it wasn't the case.

His email address: bkrebs@ascap.com

His email signature:
Bryan Krebs
Account Executive/Business Analyst
ASCAP New Media & Technology
One Lincoln Plaza
New York, NY 10023
ph: (212) 621-6271
fax: (678) 239-3595
Email: bkrebs@ascap.com


His MySpace which includes his work experience:
http://www.myspace.com/bryankrebs727

MTV Intern
New York, NY US
MTV/VH1 Radio Network Summer of 2006


ASCAP Repertory Representative
New York City, New York US September 2006 - present



So he's legit... just not very professional about it I suppose.

 

[TheWesDude]

Yea, I just emailed him this morning asking for a list of artists that are members of ASCAP to see who on my site is affected. Next email I receive, I will follow up with your question for the law and let you know what they say.

its the only question that matters...

oh, hey, i got an idea. ill hire a laywer to issue C&D requests to youtube demanding royalties for all videos/views of home-made videos that people post.

who cares if they are actually breaking any laws, im sure they will just pay me because i have an actual lawyer.


untill they can prove by citing the law that is being broken, nothing matters.

once you can verify what law they cite as you breaking, its up to you to determine if they are right, or you are right.

if you are not breaking any laws, nothing they say matters. and with them taking over a month to reply to you, my guess is that you are not breaking any laws and they are just phishing.

it does not matter one whit what artists you have on your site. if you are breaking laws, then you need to stop. all of it. if you are not breaking any laws, then you need to be asking them why they are trying to get you to pay them when they have no legal right to request payment, and why you should not sue them for legal harassment.

 

[SimpleMinded]

Thanks for the help Wes, I will email him that later this week.

My main curiousity on the artists was that if only a few artists on my site are part of the organization, then I might as well just take down the content (it was also an attempt to see how long they take to respond). But I understand your point, if it actually IS a law that I am violating, then it doesn't matter if artists are represented by them or not as I am still in violation of their rights.

So to make sure I understand everything correctly, the proper phrasing I'm looking for here is basically just:

"Can you please cite the law for me which I am breaking by embedding these videos on my site?"

Just don't want to slip up on it haha