There will be no artwork posted on this blog today - somebody thinks I need to Rumble with them instead.
Last week, someone suggested that we blog about the positive experiences that we have had working with other artists in the open sharing of content. We have used music from a couple of artists - Sonanaut and the Psalters - with their permission and attribution on our videos that show Haint making his art. The artists are happy to share with us and we are happy to share with them.
So this would have been just a nice little piece about the artists and the musicians. But I was waiting until I finished the series of posts on Circle Full of Circles. Before I got to make the post about music- crass commercial greed and profiteering raised it's ugly head.
We received a copyright violation notice from YouTube today Oct 23, 2009 on one of the first videos we put up in January 2009. The video was about my piece Superfluous and had just reached 300 views. We don't know if this 'magic 300' was significant in the violation notice or not - but it is a nice round number. Also note the part that says that the video may stay up and be seen with ads beside them.
The alleged owner in this notice is Rumblefish. We checked them out they are a place that wants to sell people music to put in their YouTube videos - no hassle. (Handy - just what I need after being shut down!)
We looked at their list of artists on their website - the Psalters were not on it.
We emailed the Psalters. We have known them for years and have two of their CD's both open source/fair share with attribution.
Reply from Psalters:
yeah--all that stuff is bullshit to us man. you use whatever you want from our music.
i have never even heard of rumble fish.
we thank you for using our music. i am excited that it gets to partner with your great art!
that is an honor to us.
I guess that the song in question may be considered questionable because it does contain a mix of media - audio clips, live music by the Psalters and recordings are mixed. It is 'Us versus US' from their CD of the same name issued in 2004.
I am under the understanding, especially given the length of time that this recording has been publicly available (2004), that this audio was the unchallenged property of the Psalters.
If the music was owned by one of Rumblefish's artists or made using music owned by one of Rumblefish's artists then they need to deal with the Psalters. The Psalters are clearly identified on the video as the ones responsible for the music.
And let us also say that we definitely don't think that the Psalters are responsible in this either. Even unwittingly.
Maybe we don't understand a lot of the new digital media stuff - the track in question seems like an audio collage to us- with bits and pieces from a lot of sources. Looking at it from a visual artists viewpoint, especially a folk artist - we use other people's content all the time. We never heard of National Geographic going after the guy who uses their magazines in a collage. The late Howard Finster (friend and fellow folk artist known for Talking Head and REM album covers) also painted Coke bottles and depicted them in paintings as have many folk artists. Coke isn't all in their business about unlicensed depictions or when a guy makes a vest out of bottle caps. So we don't quite understand how audio collage is any different.
We have to stand behind the Psalters at this time for their creative rights as outsider/folk musicians as well.
Given that the video has been posted since January without complaint and was only flagged as a violation after it had reached 300 viewers also calls the motive of the plaintiff into question - as does the clause about the advertisements.
No, we are not ready for Rumblefish. (The previous statement is meant as a pun and not a copyright violation.) We just want to go on doing on our thing and sharing with peace and love.
If there is anyone out there reading this who has any input, suggestions, or corrections, please leave them in the comments form or email haint@haint.info. We welcome assistance in resolving this. We have more information, emails and screenshots that we didn't post.
We are looking into posting the video on another site so people can see it and make their own determination. (I don't think I can directly embed the video in Blogger - I may be able to get the audio to play on this blog and if I figure it out I will update - L).
This is a far cry from sitting down and making art, but it has the same significance. I express messages in my art and these messages are about the way I see the world and the changes I would like to see. The piece Superfluous from the video is one such piece - an ornate machine that pumps out upside down American flag pins. And this is a real life experience of that.
We'll keep you posted on how this works out.
Peace and love
Haint (and Littia)
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