# Sony says they own Bach compositions?



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Sorry if this was discussed recently here. It's in my newsfeed today:

https://boingboing.net/2018/09/05/mozart-bach-sorta-mach.html

Quote:

James Rhodes, a pianist, performed a Bach composition for his Youtube channel, but it didn't stay up -- Youtube's Content ID system pulled it down and accused him of copyright infringement because Sony Music Global had claimed that they owned 47 seconds' worth of his personal performance of a song whose composer has been dead for 300 years.

This is a glimpse of the near future. In one week, the European Parliament will vote on a proposal to force all online services to implement Content ID-style censorship, but not just for videos -- for audio, text, stills, code, everything.

Just last week, German music professor Ulrich Kaiser posted his research on automated censorship of classical music, in which he found that it was nearly impossible to post anything by composers like Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner, because companies large and small have fraudulently laid claim to their whole catalogs.

end quote


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

AFAIK they can't own the composition. The copyright is 70 years after the death of the author. After that it is public domain. It was probably done by some AI, an automated pattern recognition filter. Even if this law passes in the EU, youtube and other servers will work in other parts of the world and you can always use a proxy server to change your IP (although it is hassle)


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

They can only own copyright of certain performances of Bach pieces, not the pieces itself obviously. If the tempo of one of these is very similar to the one by Rhodes, the software that checks these things can easily give a false positive.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I am afraid that any piece of classical music posted on youtube - including me bashing away at K1 by W A Mozart - will be flagged up and claimed by BMG or other such corporate blood suckers. 

I recently killed my entire youtube channel of old classical LP recordings as I kept getting claims on titles out of copyright. I got fed up fighting them.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Has anyone here ever challenged this sort of thing? A few years ago I posted a snippet from something on you tube and got slapped with a copyright claim, but I am completely certain they don't own it. The so-called company claiming it showed up nowhere on the internet despite claiming to be a 'media company'. So I defied them. They had the nerve to say they would 'allow' it with advertising. So I just deleted the content and reuploaded it under a new name. 

It's full of chancers and fraudsters.


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## Guest (Sep 6, 2018)

eugeneonagain said:


> Has anyone here ever challenged this sort of thing? A few years ago I posted a snippet from something on you tube and got slapped with a copyright claim, but I am completely certain they don't own it. The so-called company claiming it showed up nowhere on the internet despite claiming to be a 'media company'. So I defied them. They had the nerve to say they would 'allow' it with advertising. So I just deleted the content and reuploaded it under a new name.
> 
> It's full of chancers and fraudsters.


The next time something like this happens to anyone who has posted on YouTube your response to the "Copyright Takedown Notice" that you receive should be to file a counter notification response form asking for reinstatement of said material based upon the "Fair Use Doctrine".

Once you file the counter notification response form the copyright owner or an agent authorized to act on the owner's behalf then needs to submit evidence that they've filed a court action against the user seeking to restrain the allegedly infringing activity. If YouTube doesn't receive that notice from the copyright owner or an agent authorized to act on the owner's behalf within 10 days, the material may be reinstated by YouTube.

Here's the form to submit a "Copyright Takedown Request" -

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807622?hl=en

There is no way to access the "counter notification response form" - the only way to access the response form is to be served with a "Copyright Takedown Request".

Here's the FAQ for YouTube and "Frequently Asked Copyright Questions" -

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797449?hl=en

Scroll down to "Questions about copyright takedown requests" and click on the question which asks "I notified YouTube of a video that infringed my copyright and it was removed. Why did I receive an email saying it may be reinstated to the site?"

Answer - "*We have likely received a counter notification regarding your removal request.* *The video will be reinstated unless you submit evidence that you've filed a court action against the user seeking to restrain the allegedly infringing activity. If we don't receive that notice from you within 10 days, we may reinstate the material to YouTube.
*

Long story short - they need to show proof that they've filed a valid court action in a court (which has jurisdiction) for copyright infringement within 10 days of submitting the takedown request or else YouTube will just put it right back up.

Court actions require filing in the proper jurisdiction by litigators licensed to practice within that jurisdiction and then serving the unknown individual in the undetermined location with proper notice of said infringement.

Good luck with that one...

This is not intended as legal advice but merely as the expression of an opinion.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

_"it was nearly impossible to post anything by composers like Bartok, Schubert, Puccini and Wagner"_

If one does a search of "Puccini complete operas", see what happens. As of now, there's little to indicate that it's not possible to post anything by him. I believe the companies are testing the copyright laws in an effort to divide up the future spoils, and some of these false copyright claims will be denied in court. If Sony owned all of Bach, they could lay claim to Bach performances owned by other labels. But as the smaller independent labels disappear or are bought up by the larger ones, it's possible they might claim the entire catalog of that composer's recorded works, except that's not possible yet. In the meantime, record companies are losing revenue because there are still a lot of copywritten recordings that have been illegally uploaded on YouTube and other places, because those recordings are still in their catalog and being sold online, and I believe the companies will eventually enforce those copyrights. I'd like to see more residuals go to the performers than just the companies.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

regenmusic said:


> Sorry if this was discussed recently here. It's in my newsfeed today:
> 
> https://boingboing.net/2018/09/05/mozart-bach-sorta-mach.html
> 
> ...


Something similar happened on IMSLP re: Prokofiev's oeuvre


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