Some dedicated readers of this blog will know I published a potentially amusing YouTube video the other day. It would seem that YouTube have kowtowed to the increasingly bewildered music industry and included some sort of audio fingerprinting technology into their upload process. In particular their cutting-edge technology accused me of using Michael Jackson’s “Ain’t no sunshine” in the video. Now, I didn’t even know that Mick had recorded a version of this song. But even with that knowledge I would never consider playing it let alone using it in a video. Nonetheless my dispute was rejected and YouTube told me they had banned the video from the entire civilised world as a result. Firstly, I have indeed used copyright material for the audio of this film, but for the purposes of stupid comedy for the easily amused. Also, I used less than 30 seconds of each song. That is fair use. And I don’t care whether some lawyer or other agrees with me, because it clearly fucking is. Watch it! It’s not damaging anyone’s intellectual rights. If you want to have a conference-call/seance with Marvin Gaye, Shabba Ranks and Barry White then I’d be only to happy to be included.
Secondly, the ban seems not to be working from the US at least, yet the thieving fucktards have placed links under the video offering to sell punters copies of the Michael Jackson song that isn’t even in the video!
I sent a complaint to them, together with a suggestion of where they could licence a better audio fingerprinting system 🙂 but they haven’t responded as yet. The fact that the video is still live makes me wonder if they understand the ridiculousness of the situation and are just letting it lie…if so, thanks guys.