There has been a ongoing battle between the music industry and YouTube for awhile and now some artists are getting involved.
180 Singers and songwriters have signed a petition that will be posted in an ad coming out soon in Washington DC magazines including Zhu, Deadmau5 and Krewella. The ad calls for reform to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which regulates copyright online. The act which was passed in 1998 protects websites like YouTube from copyright infringement as long as they respond to takedown notices from rights holders. Artists usually are hesitant to get involved in copyright policy debates, but this time several signed an April 1st petition on the same issue. Like the petition many artists signed in 2012 against the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which would have lowered online radio royalties, this represents a rare case in which most of the music business agrees on something for once. The major labels involved are now negotiating deals.
As users of things like YouTube and SoundCloud, I think we had a feeling that us enjoying their benefits wasnt something that was going to be free forever. It was almost too good to be true. Not that long ago were the days of having to pay in someway for whole albums and every song so this luxury of having every song in the world at your fingertips for free sometimes didnt seem sustainable. For more info on this and to keep yourself updated, go here.
