YouTube Sensation Justin Bieber Blocked From Uploading His Own Music To YouTube By Copyright

from the bieber-fever dept

Justin Bieber became “Justin Bieber” thanks to YouTube. His early YouTube videos of him covering various songs are what turned him into a huge sensation, leading to a recording deal and the somewhat scary unstoppable force that is the fanbase of Justin Bieber. So, it should seem perfectly natural that Bieber would head over to YouTube to upload a video of his latest song. What doesn’t seem perfectly natural is that he was blocked from doing so thanks to Universal Music and YouTube’s ContentID system. Google (correctly) pointed out that this is an issue between Bieber and his label, but like most normal folks, Bieber wasn’t interested in understanding the intricacies of copyright law when all he wanted to do was upload his own damn video to YouTube. So, instead, he went and uploaded it to Facebook.

Now, to be clear, Universal is Bieber’s label, and assuming he signed a recording deal like any standard recording deal, it does hold his copyrights. But this is the kind of screwed up situation you get when the entertainment industry works so hard to block various new and useful tools from sharing content. The people who want to use it for perfectly reasonable and legitimate uses get blocked (and pissed off).

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Companies: google, universal music, vevo, youtube

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Comments on “YouTube Sensation Justin Bieber Blocked From Uploading His Own Music To YouTube By Copyright”

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63 Comments
Mr Big Content says:

A Pirate Is A Pirate

Why should Justin Bieber get special favors not accorded to any other pirate? Stealing content is stealing food out of the content creator?s mouth. It makes no difference that the offender and the victim are the same person; the principle must be upheld for everybody, or not at all. After all, it?s against the law to commit suicide, isn?t it?

Niki Dounias says:

Re: Re: justin bieber

Hey justin bieber you are so handsome kid ever. And I realy lov your new hair cut I looks great. U are my handsome man forever.I have bieber fever going on 4 u my love and hunny booo and hunny bunny lover we both love each other for ever and ever 4 life stick together 4 ever.. Looveeeeeeeee your bigges justin bieb fan ever I go to every singal concert of your and I also sit up front of u

darryl says:

give me a million dollar to build a bridge, then let me sell the bridge as if its mine.

Justin Bieber became “Justin Bieber” thanks to YouTube. His early YouTube videos of him covering various songs are what turned him into a huge sensation

No justin beiber did not become “justin beiber’ thanks to YouTube.

He because huge, because he has some talent, ability, looks or whatever 11 year old girls see in him.

(not being an 11 year old girl, its beyond me).

But many people post songs and show their talent on yourtube, and about 1 in a billion become anything at all.

But you cant credit youtube, for something something has done.

What made him huge was universal, seeing he had talent and investing in him..

They expect to recoup their inventment, and a part of that deal is justin signs over copyrights to his songs..

They are not ‘his’ songs anymore, he has no right to give them away. And the record company has every right to recoup money that they have invensted in the risk of trying to make a star.

you cannot credit a form of media for a success, it was not due to the form of media he showed his talent in, but his talent itself that makes the difference.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: give me a million dollar to build a bridge, then let me sell the bridge as if its mine.

True, his talent is what keeps him going, but without YouTube as a medium, he probably wouldn’t have been discovered, signed, and promoted. Giving credit where credit is due, the YouTube platform did play a big role in his success, even though his talent already existed.

Eugene (profile) says:

Re: give me a million dollar to build a bridge, then let me sell the bridge as if its mine.

Looking around at the other successful youtube artists, I’m pretty sure he would’ve been fine without Universal.

I mean, he wouldn’t be this ridiculous phenomenon, but success is measured in strange ways these days. Some would even say that universal ruined his success, so, yeah.

mike allen (profile) says:

Re: give me a million dollar to build a bridge, then let me sell the bridge as if its mine.

They are not ‘his’ songs anymore, he has no right to give them away. And the record company has every right to recoup money that they have invensted in the risk of trying to make a star.

This is precisely what is wrong with the system the record company should never be able to take the copyright of the artist. When will you people learn it is the artist that gets screwed every time.

chris (user link) says:

Re: protecting performers...

But copyright is all about protecting performers, isn’t it?

Copyright is all about protecting the lawful owner of the content which, in many cases when you sign a deal with a major record label, isn’t the actual performing artist. This says more about the gap between the major label artist and the independent musician pushing his (or her) own tracks through whatever viral media they want than whether YouTube was “right” or “wrong” (legally, they probably were right unless he got permission from his label to post the video).

Derek Bredensteiner (profile) says:

On Google's role

I wouldn’t be so quick to rush to their defense. As far as I understand it, isn’t YouTube’s ContentID system a concession above and beyond what the law requires, in order to appease the labels?

Shouldn’t some backlash be rightfully targeted at Google for capitulating and playing the label’s game instead of staying open (and law abiding) as some others have done? (like Facebook, for example).

John Duncan Yoyo says:

Was Bieber old enough to sign a contract?

My question is whether the Bieber Creature was of legal age when he entered into a contract with Universal? Could it be voided because of his age?

Hey Google why don’t you just buy Universal and rename it You-niversal. I realize you may need to buy Comcrap to do this but hey that should be just pocket change.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Was Bieber old enough to sign a contract?

They are waiting for the price to fall a bit it is still a bit pricier, but they could buy EMI LoL

Heck Microsoft could buy EMI.

This reminds me for all open video producer lovers one more PRO tool has been opensourced.

http://lightworksbeta.com/

Lightworks is an Academy and Emmy award winning professional-grade editor with over 20 years of history in the film and broadcast industry.

Anybody needs a free pro tool to make some videos?

Karl (profile) says:

Re: Re: Was Bieber old enough to sign a contract?

Anybody needs a free pro tool to make some videos?

Whoa, thanks for this. I hadn’t heard about it before. One of the main gaps in open source programs is a lack of professional-level video programs (mostly due to codec licensing). This will certainly help close that gap.

I’m on the Ubuntu Studio forums, I’ll see if it’s possible to put it in the next LTS version.

Joshy says:

This is like saying water is wet….He doesn’t own the songs the rights to the songs the use of the songs etc…In fact if he looks at his contract Universal owns him, his name the rights to his name etc…etc…and he is just a puppet.

Suprised no one mentioned that even the Youtube computers recognize that we are tired of Beiber are trying to put a stop with the madness.

charliebrown (profile) says:

I think a lot of the comment-posters here are missing the point. Yes, Universal owns the music and videos Justin has recorded for Universal whislt under contract to them. Yes, Justin has lost the right to put the videos he has performed on/in up on YouTube. But the point of the article is not whether or not he has the rights to put videos of his newest songs on YouTube – we know he doesn’t – but whether or not he should be allowed to.

As much as I don’t care for Justin I-Can’t-Even-Pronounce-His-Last-Name-Let-Alone-SPELL-It, I do agree that a performing artist should be allowed, if not have the right, to promote themselves to their fans via whatever means they choose. Also, in Justin’s case, it’s not as if Universal will lose (m)any* sales over the video being on YouTube. (*they may lose some but it would be very few compared to how many they will make).

If I was Justin I’d be making a video addressing my fans explaining why my new video isn’t on YouTube.

Dyrmyk (user link) says:

Ha! that proves it!

That proves that the copyright laws today are out of date and flawed! (Thank you Justin Beiber for proving my point.)
Which goes to show that people should be allowed to share copyrighted material for free without making any money or profit from it. It’s called free promotion, people are not claiming it as their own they are promoting it because they really like it. The copyright laws must be changed to that effect. I and many other people are fed up with this crap.

brains says:

Copyright law in present form help most the ones that need least help, helps rich corporations and famous artists to become even more rich. Corporations are washing our brains that copyright is a natural property right. Not so! Copyright is a granted monopoly right given by the government on temporary basis with the purpose of promoting creations. This is the purpose expressely written in the US Constitution, and that’s why is prohibited that copyrights monopoly hold forever.

The right starting point would be to think what policy promotes more creations and what not. Nobody thinks this way anymore by virtue of brainwashing! The rights of corporations to recoup investments is not the aim of the law. People should make the law for the best of society as a whole, and corporations are welcome to help if they help within such laws. Maximizing corporation profits are not a goal of society!

Point in case, how society was benefited when the US congress extended retroactively the copyrights of Walt Disney or others when they were about to expire, so that they are valid long after the author died? Does such retroactive extension encouraged dear Walt to create more? Such law was equivalent to a cash gift from the tax payer to the corporations. Tthis was only possible thru lavish cash contributions from Walt Disney to the Democrat and Republican party. I am willing to donate 1 million $ to the parties in exchange that they make a law that I’m entitled to copyrigths on the mood. Congress can pass any law they want, so what’s not legal about that?

Rhonda says:

I’ve seen other Universal artists go through the same thing. Tokio Hotel had huge problems with that when they had their backstage webisodes, Tokio Hotel TV. Universal wouldn’t let them upload them because they featured their music, so they ended up putting them on their own website to host them.

I’ve seen the videos go up on Facebook more recently though for other artists.

Interesting.

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