Musician angry after BPI forces YouTube to pull his video

[DaBees-Knees]

http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/07/musician-has-strong-words-after-youtube-video-takedown.ars

YouTube takedown drama is back this week, thanks to British musician Calvin Harris and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The organization, which represents the recording industry in the UK, apparently had one of Harris' music videos removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim. The problem, however, was that the video was created and posted by Harris himself.

After his discovery that the video was missing, Harris had many colorful words for BPI in his Twitter stream (hat tip to The Music Magazine). "The BPI are the worst organisation to ever walk the earth and their setup is shambolic," Harris wrote in one tweet. "There are videos up there that other people have uploaded of the same song, and they haven't been removed!? But mine does!"

Harris later admitted to getting "a bit caught up in the heat of the moment," adding that he would still like his video to be put back on YouTube. He also apparently went to the House of Lords to file a formal complaint about BPI, but got "fully rejected." BPI did not respond to our requests for comment by publication time.

This isn't the first time the music labels and their associated industry groups have futzed with artists' YouTube offerings. When Warner Music's negotiations with YouTube failed in December of 2008, the label decided to pull every single video it could possibly find that used any of its music. This included videos that constituted fair use by third parties and, in some cases, those that were posted by the bands themselves.

Aside from being mildly chuckle-worthy, these incidents only continue to highlight the absurdity of Big Content's takedown binge. Record labels have learned that they can just send a takedown notice and YouTube will remove the content immediately without reviewing the claim, so they tend to abuse the system by sending notices over pretty much everything.

Then, when things like this happen and the artists get angry, the entire system gets bad PR as the news spreads. Record labels are becoming so obsessed with taking unauthorized content down that it's beginning to stop fans from enjoying the content that artists are anxious to share.

This once again shows the madness that is currently taking place on the net. All caused by the so called gaurdians of copyright.  

[Trestor]

I'm ignorant about such matters: are there any record labels that are not part of the cartel? Maybe new artists could sign with them, and contracted artists could also change over when their contracts expire. Cartel labels should more like a millstone than a help.