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

Could you please cite the law(s) by providing links to them you feel i am breaking.


be sure to ask for links... otherwise they could just make shit up.

and if they dont provide you a link to a .gov site, if its not a legal of some kind, ignore it and ask for better links. and if they link you to a site like riaa or something, thats not good enough.
 
i can't believe you guys are just sitting and discussing a topic that is well beyond what you actually know about it.
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This smells like a scam. A legal notice, for one thing, would have used "your" instead of "you're", among other things.

Here's the thing: If the content is legally uploaded on YouTube, YouTube's TOS for uploading the video says that unless you deny them the ability to allow it to be embedded, they can embed it. So if the copyright holder uploads a video to YouTube, and you embed it, the copyright holder can't say "You can't embed that!" because it is on YouTube (as long as you are embedding it from YouTube). I'm sure the other video sites say the same thing.

Now, what if YouTube doesn't have the right to display the video in the first place? Well, that's YouTube's problem, not yours... probably. It is not unreasonable to assume that something uploaded onto YouTube is legally there, due to the ToS of that site. Now, if you have knowledge to the contrary (the guy says its not his) then you might get in trouble as you are aiding in the distribution of something you know to be under copyright without the permission of the copyright holder. Otherwise, you're probably not liable.

Really, telling them to take it up with YouTube and the other sites is probably the correct thing here, because if the video is legally uploaded on YouTube, they explicitly gave YouTube the right to allow people to embed the video on their site, with certain restrictions.

By agreeing to the TOS of YouTube, you have the right to embed any video which is legally uploaded to their website and which is allowed to be embeded. You do not need separate rights to it, because they have already been granted to you by YouTube, and YouTube got those rights from the uploader.

Now, if the original uploader did not have the copyright on the materials in question, then there's an issue. However, it is very unlikely you could be held liable unless you were deliberately embedding videos you knew (most likely, a reasonable person would know) were not owned by the uploader.

So, in other words, these people are running a scam.

They're talking to people who are embedding that material on their websites. Perhaps they already have these deals in place with Youtube, and are asking other sites to follow suit. Even though Youtube's license agreement says that anyone can embed the content on their site, that doesn't necessarily mean that that is legally valid.
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No, actually, it does, in fact, mean it is legally valid. If there was an exception, it would be YouTube's responsibility to prevent it from being embedded, and IIRC there are in fact videos on their site which cannot be embedded elsewhere.

Now, whether or not YouTube has the right to distribute the content is another question. However, the ToS of YouTube are (probably) legally binding if you embed their videos or if you upload a video to YouTube and you own the copyright on it.

If YouTube is allowing people to embed videos on their website which they have agreements not to embed, the people who embedded the videos are probably not liable for damages - that'd likely be YouTube.

Yea, this is exactly the stuff I'm worried about. Now Pirate Bay has the misfortune of being in a market that has a little more negative stigma around it, but all the same, it serves as a good precedence for them to win.
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Here's the thing: if the videos are legally uploaded to YouTube (or other video sites with the same TOS), you're 100% safe. If the idiots uploaded it to YouTube, they gave YouTube certain rights to it, and that's their problem.

If some random other person uploaded it to YouTube, that's another issue, and a far murkier one. However, again, I doubt they'd win the suit unless you made a habit of linking to videos which were illegally uploaded.

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.
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Not true. You CAN upload copyrighted material if you own the rights to it.

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).
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Well, the damages are obviously unrealistic, though I don't think they got all that was asked for. The Pirate Bay, however, was clearly breaking the law as they were distributing files for the purpose of violating copyright, and they knew they were doing so. The fact that they weren't actually hosting the copyright-violating material in question is irrelevant; if something has the primary purpose of distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner in an illegal fashion, then it is breaking the law.

However, something which can be used to violate copyright law, but it isn't its primary purpose, isn't illegal (for example, VHS or DVD recorders). Of course, if you do distribute copyrighted material in an illegal fashion, you can still be held liable.

So he's legit... just not very professional about it I suppose.
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He's not a lawyer. So not really legit.

Also, just because something supposedly comes from an email address doesn't mean that it really does; there are ways of faking another email address on your emails. That is entirely plausible, given the horrible spelling and punctuation.

In any event...

I'd say the proper response is to cite the YouTube (and other video site) agreements regarding uploading and embedding videos and state that via those agreements you have been granted the rights to display those videos. Helpfully tell them how, if these videos have been improperly uploaded to YouTube or the other video sites, how to report them to those video sites, and those sites will promptly remove the videos.

Asking what laws you are breaking is a good idea as well, but don't sound like a jerk or like you're baiting them. But I would definitely point out that you believe that you have been granted these rights from YouTube (and other video sites), and that the uploader of the video granted YouTube and those other video sites the right to embed these videos - if the companies in question were not granted rights to the videos in the first place, then it would be best to talk to them.

If they've been uploaded onto YouTube by the copyright holder, and YouTube allows you to embed the video, then it is 100% legal to do so. If they claim otherwise, then they are in fact running a scam and should be reported to the Department of Consumer Protection.

If you do think it is a scam (they claim that you have to have an independent right to it, even if YouTube or another site grants it) I'd report it to:

The company in question (these guys, but not at that address; they probably have a public one on their site)

According to http://www.fightidentitytheft.com/how-to-report-scams.html you can report scams to spam@uce.gov .

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ also can receive complaints about business practices.

And you may want to ask the organization in question if this is a valid email address regardless.
 
Titanium Dragon said:
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).
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Well, the damages are obviously unrealistic, though I don't think they got all that was asked for. The Pirate Bay, however, was clearly breaking the law as they were distributing files for the purpose of violating copyright, and they knew they were doing so. The fact that they weren't actually hosting the copyright-violating material in question is irrelevant; if something has the primary purpose of distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner in an illegal fashion, then it is breaking the law.
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actually if you paid attention to what they have said before...

in sweedish law it is illegal to host copyrighted material, but it was not illegal to link/point to copyrighted material.

the basis is that if you link to pirating sites, you cant be sued, but if you allow them to dload from you, then its illegal.

so actually TPB was not breaking sweedish law per TPB previous statements

now im not saying TPB was 100% right, but they seem to have won a number of lawsuits previously, and this is the first case where they were found guilty.

if they were innocent before, and no laws changed, how are they guilty now... only thing i can think of is whoever decided ( judge/jury ) did legal/jury nullification. now while jury nullification when aquitting is legal in the US, both jury and legal nullification when convicting will get overturned on appeal.

but that is without knowing legal proceedures/precedent in sweeden.
 
The way I see it, they can't demand any money from you. It's like charging folks that put radio in their window and play music loudly, so anyone can hear it. And why? Because they are "distributing" copy-righted content to the public. Here in Poland, there was an idea to charge restaurant\pub etc. owners that play radio in their establishment, because they let people listen to the music for free. I don't remember how the whole case ended, though.

Just ignore them and don't do anything unless *real* legal action is taken by them.
 
Funny you mention that example Ravager, I just used that to explain the situation to my visitors lol.

To give another example, to me it's like using blockbuster. Blockbuster pays the movie studios to let you rent their movies. You rent from Blockbuster, but you don't have to pay an additional fee to the studios because Blockbuster handles that.

Likewise, when I embed videos from YouTube/Yahoo/etc, they include advertisements from those companies which are basically "my payment" to YouTube to use their videos. I'm trusting YouTube to then pay a portion of that money to ASCAP for the right to let me use the videos.

The problem is, that's exactly how the system works, except ASCAP wants to ALSO charge the person "renting the video" on top of the renters.



I emailed the big four, (Yahoo/YouTube/Imeem/DailyMotion) asking if legally I'm obligated to pay ASCAP for embedding their videos, and hopefully will get a response that can be used in the situation.


Thanks for the input Wes/Titanium/Ravager. It helps to get all the insight I can, and even if it isn't "legal advice" it definitely helps broaden my knowledge of the situation.
 
Can you not simply provide an external link to Youtube without embedding the player? IMO this should solve most of your "legal" problems.

Also, if I were you, I would write a well articulated disclaimer stating that you are not responsible for any copyrighted material not hosted directly on your website.

The guy that emailed you was most likely fishing for cash, as it appears to be his job to look for possible "copyright infringement" and scare them into submission. I would advise you to keep ignoring him unless he has a specific request to take down particular content.

I doubt they consider you important enough to justify legal procedures.
 
Aye Sovz, I'm going to be changing my videos section to be purely links (except for embedding sites that tell me to refer ASCAP to them). It just takes time :). I have 2000 videos and never put the links in the database, just the embed code.

But aye, given their slow response times with me, I don't think I'm one of their bigger fish to fry.
 
Sovz said:
Can you not simply provide an external link to Youtube without embedding the player? IMO this should solve most of your "legal" problems.
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It's the same thing, changing it from embedded videos to links changes nothing legally speaking. Don't hassle yourself with it unless you get an adequate response and I would suggest following Titanium Dragon's recommendations on contacting ASCAP, YouTube, and the Department of Consumer Services.

Sovz said:
The guy that emailed you was most likely fishing for cash, as it appears to be his job to look for possible "copyright infringement" and scare them into submission.
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I'm doubtful that it was his job given the errors in his email, legal departments don't make those kind of errors and tend to have standard statements which they issue. Also he lists his position as Account Executive/Business Analyst, which would not be involved in this sort of work, and as Repertory Representative (which they have an opening for and the job description does not include this kind of work) on his seemingly inactive myspace account.
 
In other words, someone wanted to fuck you over. Stop bothering with it and leave the site as it is.
 
UncannyGarlic said:
Sovz said:
Can you not simply provide an external link to Youtube without embedding the player? IMO this should solve most of your "legal" problems.
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It's the same thing, changing it from embedded videos to links changes nothing legally speaking. Don't hassle yourself with it unless you get an adequate response and I would suggest following Titanium Dragon's recommendations on contacting ASCAP, YouTube, and the Department of Consumer Services.
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That's what bothers me about this whole situation. Embedding = Linking. Yet it seems fairly retarded to get charged for linking to YouTube (even moreso than embedding from YouTube).

UncannyGarlic said:
Sovz said:
The guy that emailed you was most likely fishing for cash, as it appears to be his job to look for possible "copyright infringement" and scare them into submission.
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I'm doubtful that it was his job given the errors in his email, legal departments don't make those kind of errors and tend to have standard statements which they issue. Also he lists his position as Account Executive/Business Analyst, which would not be involved in this sort of work, and as Repertory Representative (which they have an opening for and the job description does not include this kind of work) on his seemingly inactive myspace account.
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Very valid points, I hadn't thought of all that. I think I'm going to try contacting the various organizations and see if I can get a response.
 
SimpleMinded said:
Aye Sovz, I'm going to be changing my videos section to be purely links (except for embedding sites that tell me to refer ASCAP to them). It just takes time :). I have 2000 videos and never put the links in the database, just the embed code.

But aye, given their slow response times with me, I don't think I'm one of their bigger fish to fry.
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i guess someone with some SQL skills could write you a fairly easy update statement that'd do it all in one go.
 
aye, looking at the videos, I should just be able to rip out the src tag from each video and insert it in the new field. It probably won't take too long in all, it's just a nuisance given as Uncanny said... Embedded == Link
 
Not to double post but this is related and I figured it was better fitting here than in a new topic.

According to CNET, http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10355448-93.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20, ASCAP and BMI also want money from services like iTunes and Amazon for allowing users to have a 30 second sample of the tracks before they buy them.

From the article:

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are making preparations to one day collect performance fees from Apple and other e-tailers for not just traditional music downloads but for downloads of films and TV shows as well. Those downloads contain music after all.

These groups even want compensation for iTunes' 30-second song samples.
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i was under the impression that those 30 second clips were either part of the contract to sell the dvd/cd s, or else were judged to be "fair use"


and of course, amazon could get pissy and just refuse to sell stuff ASCAP/BMI hold.

im pretty sure they would drop it asap if amazon did that.
 
Sovz said:
Also, if I were you, I would write a well articulated disclaimer stating that you are not responsible for any copyrighted material not hosted directly on your website.
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One flaw in this statement, there is no material HOSTED on the site. All is hosted on youtube, so I would have sued them for legal harassment(because it is).

Titanium Dragon said:
The Pirate Bay, however, was clearly breaking the law as they were distributing files for the purpose of violating copyright, and they knew they were doing so. The fact that they weren't actually hosting the copyright-violating material in question is irrelevant; if something has the primary purpose of distributing copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner in an illegal fashion, then it is breaking the law.
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Enjoyable, I disagree.
First of, they are not violating any laws. And all court cases before this one they was found to be not guilty.
The next part is that the judge in the case was found corrupt, this was spotted earlier in the case. So why was he not changed out when any doubt was found?
 
del_diablo said:
Enjoyable, I disagree.
First of, they are not violating any laws. And all court cases before this one they was found to be not guilty.
The next part is that the judge in the case was found corrupt, this was spotted earlier in the case. So why was he not changed out when any doubt was found?
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This is a gross oversimplification.
First of all, the judge wasn't found to be corrupt, the Pirate Bay team felt his participation in a different committee conflicted with his duties as a judge in this case. It was examined, and the conclusion was that there was no conflict of interest. This is a very, very far cry from 'He's corrupt!'

Second, the Pirate Bay case is not as cut and dry as you make it sound. The reason it isn't so clear is that the relatively new medium of The Interwebs presents situations that aren't clearly covered by the law and hence require interpretation of the law. Your interpretation of 'hosted' material isn't actually a legal term and is hence largely irrelevant. Which is why this got to court in the first place: if this were a clear case, there would be no clear case. No matter how much the internet people want to make you believe that the Pirate Bay did nothing wrong and they were totally in the clear, fact is that it is a fuzzy area with a lot of room for interpretation - which is what judges are for.

Moreover, yes, they did break the law, as is clearly shown by the fact that they were found to be guilty, and not innocent. Until they either win on appeals or the verdict gets overturned at some point, they are guilty and Sweden now has a judicial precedent making what they did unambiguously illegal.
 
Sander, the problem is that finding TPB guilty of distributing copyrighted material requires an interpretation of sweedish law outside the literal meaning.

i do not know what powers or how much leeway sweedish judges have when interpretating sweedish law, but in the US if its not a supreme court of a state or federal, if you extend your interpretation outside the bounds of written law, it will get thrown out on appeal.

TPB may get their appeal to overturn the judges discision, and they may not. if not, then it does in effect expand the sweedish law. again, this is per my limited understanding and what people have stated in the past. although, even in the US the supreme court has in effect "created" laws without ones being written, such as seperation of church and state. in the US there is no actual law requiring seperation of church and state, but the US Supreme Court has judged it as legal based on written letters of the founding fathers.

that would be in essence what this judge did. it all depends on what their powers are in sweeden. in the US, the only ones with the power to do that is the us supreme court. and even they can be over-ruled by congress passing a law.
 
TheWesDude said:
Sander, the problem is that finding TPB guilty of distributing copyrighted material requires an interpretation of sweedish law outside the literal meaning.

i do not know what powers or how much leeway sweedish judges have when interpretating sweedish law, but in the US if its not a supreme court of a state or federal, if you extend your interpretation outside the bounds of written law, it will get thrown out on appeal.

TPB may get their appeal to overturn the judges discision, and they may not. if not, then it does in effect expand the sweedish law. again, this is per my limited understanding and what people have stated in the past. although, even in the US the supreme court has in effect "created" laws without ones being written, such as seperation of church and state. in the US there is no actual law requiring seperation of church and state, but the US Supreme Court has judged it as legal based on written letters of the founding fathers.

that would be in essence what this judge did. it all depends on what their powers are in sweeden. in the US, the only ones with the power to do that is the us supreme court. and even they can be over-ruled by congress passing a law.
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In cases like this interpretation is always needed, because the terms used in the law seem to apply to the Internet, but only apply partially, making
There is no provision for a difference between allowing people to access content through your website, and actually hosting the content yourself, and these sorts of things mean that these cases are effectively establishing new laws on how to deal with the internet, and it means that judges *must* interpret as they cannot reach a verdict otherwise. This may mean that it goes to a supreme court later on, and I have no doubt that if they have any appeal options, they will use them. That's actually what the people sueing TPB want as well - clear laws.
 
This is, of course, just a layperson talking, but... that court decision ASCAP linked you to wouldn't appear to have any relevance to your issue.
 
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