Sony is chasing an author whose video she used in her video

    In 2012, a video about the landing of Curiousity on the surface of Mars on the NASA channel on Youtube was blocked by a private news agency . Recordings of Martin Luther King’s speeches on YouTube cannot be found thanks to the EMI lawyers who have been pissed off.

    This time, video artist Mitch Martinez issued a license to use his work, and Sony Music Entertainment announced the video as her own and blocked the monetization of the original video in the author’s Youtube.


    Transviolet “Bloodstream”

    In recent years, music industry players have been increasingly blocking videos on Youtube for copyright infringement, even if we are talking about playing music in the background for a minute on a family video. Sometimes the visual row becomes an object of blocking. Videos are not monitored manually, but using algorithms that determine the copies.

    Your content may be blocked even when you yourself are its creator and copyright holder.

    Mitch Martinezcreates incredibly beautiful videos, publishes them and provides those who wish to take this opportunity. He licensed one of his videos for use by Epic Records, and it turned into Transviolet's "Bloodstream" video. Two months later, Sony Music Intertainment blocked the possibility of monetizing the video to its author, as its original video “violated” the rights of the copyright holder.

    Original movie published by Mitch Martinez in 2013


    Epic Records used the video for this video.


    Mitch received a message about blocking monetization and at first did not even understand who had contacted him. What does SME have to do with his video? It later turned out that Epic Records was owned by Sony Music Entertainment.

    For Martinez, this is not the first case of blocking monetization, since special bots work on Youtube, but usually the problem could be fixed by writing or calling the company to which he gave the license for the video. But more often, Mitch himself demanded to stop monetizing the video when someone gave his videos as their own.



    In the articleon Petapixel.com Mitch Martinez described a standard procedure for dealing with such situations. You need to tell Youtube the whole situation in detail, set a deadline of forty-eight hours to revoke claims of copyright infringement, and explain that if this deadline is not respected, you (the author) will withdraw the license due to a violation of the terms of use, and send a letter to the person with whom worked when licensing the video.

    This time the circuit did not work. Mitch received a message that the claiming company Sony Music had reviewed its claim and found no problems. That is, a living person from the company watched the original video, published two years before the clip, and decided: “No. This is exactly our background and we own the rights to it. ”

    image

    Mitch again sent a letter to the person with whom he worked on the topic of licensing, and demanded to immediately remove the block on the monetization of content. In the letter, Martinez mentioned a clause in the contract under which the author reserved all rights that were not expressly transferred under license.

    Two days there was no answer. Mitch sent a third letter to Epic Records. This time, with the requirement to immediately remove the backing that they downloaded from the MitchMartinez.com website, since they do not have the right to prevent the author from using their rights.

    image

    The letters remained unanswered, and the feedback form on the Epic Records website was broken. I had to use the same form on the Sony Music website. Only one day later, Epic Records informed Mitch that he knew nothing about Sony's requirements. In large corporations, this is possible. The person from Epic Records to whom Mitch sent letters did not work for the company, although no one set up an automatic response from his address.

    In a telephone conversation that Martinez recorded, the interlocutor of Epic Records confirmed the author’s rights and the absence of claims from the label. The man promised to find out all the details and withdraw the statement.

    On the next call, Epic lawyers said the claim was withdrawn. When asked by Mitch whether they removed his backing from their clip, they answered negatively and asked if it was possible to continue using it.

    image

    What to do in such situations? Martinez advises to be polite - at least at first. Sometimes this situation can occur without malicious intent, and friendly communication will speed up the process of solving the problem. Be sure to keep documents in order to find them when necessary. Save and organize all your contacts, save e-mail correspondence, dates of phone calls and other notes. And try to legally protect yourself from the claims of the companies to which you gave a license.

    Also popular now: