GEMA Takes Kim Dotcom's Mega Launch Party Video Down, Despite All Songs Being Cleared

from the gema-again dept

GEMA and MEGA may have the same letters arranged differently, but you have to imagine that the hardline copyright maximalists at GEMA aren’t at all pleased by Kim Dotcom’s new Mega outfit, even if it’s really not all that different than tons of other online cloud storage platforms. Still, it is a bit odd to see that GEMA had Mega’s launch video removed from YouTube. There was music in the video, but as Dotcom notes, it was either his own music, or music by musicians who all gave permission to use it. My guess is that it may have more to do with the ongoing dispute between GEMA and YouTube, which means that any video with GEMA content is blocked in Germany. However, Dotcom filed a dispute, and notes that he plans to have his lawyers discuss the matter with GEMA.

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Companies: gema, mega

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Comments on “GEMA Takes Kim Dotcom's Mega Launch Party Video Down, Despite All Songs Being Cleared”

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25 Comments
weneedhelp (profile) says:

Man this came right to mind

The night is black, without a moon.
The air is thick and still.
The vigilantes gather on
The lonely torchlit hill.

Features distorted in the flickering light,
Faces are twisted and grotesque.
Silent and stern in the sweltering night,
The mob moves like demons possessed.
Quiet in conscience, calm in their right,
Confident their ways are best.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will.
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill.

They say there are strangers who threaten us,
Our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness to danger us
In our theaters and bookstore shelves,
That those who know what’s best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.

Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand.

anonymouse says:

Re: Re:

I would hope that Kim would take them to court, no backing down, this is something that needs to happen sooner or later and why not Kim doing it for us all. I do understand why he wants to quieten things down on the media front, I think anyone in his situation would want the same, and I am sure his lawyers are advising him to maybe tone it down a bit, but they seem to give him opportunities to sue them almost every other day what with this and the King fiasco.

Maybe it is him that needs to sue , but then again maybe he should leave some of the limelight for someone else for a while until MEga has been convincingly challenged and the challenges refuted.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:

Legally, Youtube can’t do that. Because of some of Germany’s more out-there laws regarding Perceptional Property, if Youtube simply ignores GEMA, they can lose their license to trade in Germany.

Strike another one up for moneyed interests stealing culture through buying people. And they say slavery is dead!

That One Guy (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: Re:

I believe you’re talking the comment to mean the opposite of what it was intended to, where the ‘lets it pass’ bit was implying GEMA has pretty much a free-pass when it comes to shutting things down like that, and so whoever was dealing with the claim for youtube wouldn’t even bother looking at the merits before acting.

The Old Man in The Sea says:

GEMA website and ISP

Has anyone looked at the GEMA website and determined if they have infringed on somebodies copyright? If they have, is it worth to get their site taken down for copyright infringement or even for just using something is copyrighted by someone else?

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander!

Iori Fujita says:

Ishizawa's Goldberg Variations on WikiPedia

I don’t want Ishizawa’s performance to be heard for free on the WikiPedia Pages. This “free” is based on the business which is making external profit.

MagicPiano says;
On that note, I’m now watching this youtube video in Germany without any GEMA disclaimers and all videos on the OpenGoldberg channel are freely available here. GEMA is known for being very quick with copyright claims even when the artists involved have not signed any agreements with GEMA for the collection of royalties. So in this case the GEMA dispute with Youtube seems to have been solved or GEMA simply didn’t ever care about it in the first place. De728631 (talk) 17:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

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