Examples for songs copyright violation it looks like you have to learn from examples of what constitutes copyright violation when sampling someone else's tune for example in a hip hop song (or even in a rap song). I used search engine duckduckgogo to find &quot;song copyright trial&quot; in video section but found no examples of actual trials discussing this matter. I remember not too long ago Led Zeppelin got away with one, maybe it wasn't too similar. But cannot find the trial on the internet- maybe it was livestreamed and no one recorded. Is there anyone that can share examples of how they decide if a song is similar enough to another song? maybe you are solicitor or they copy from you? or even the one copied (if you are not in jail!)?
Rolling Stone has a short non-technical article on a dozen famous cases. This page is a massive database on music copyright infringement cases going back to 1844, along with analysis of the cases. That analysis may well suffice for your interests: here is an except from a recent case: In fact, there is no melodic material in the section in question in the plaintiff’s work. The harmonic progression of the arpeggiated chords of both songs is utterly commonplace and not copyrightable expression. Neither are “structure, tempo, instrumentation” when, as here, these elements in both works contain no protectable authorship individually or combined. The plaintiff’s references to “iconic notes” and “feel” are meaningless. What excited the plaintiff was merely the fact that a portion of the defendant’s song sounds like his. This similarity, however, doesn’t support a claim of infringement of a musical work when, as here, the musical elements of the portions of the songs in issue underlying the recorded sounds of both works contain little or no protectable original expression Apart from providing the appellate court rulings, this also includes original complaints and petitions, certain trial court rulings, and amicus briefs which are the &quot;technical&quot; core of the court's finding of fact. However, you will need to read a varied sample of these cases and not just pick one at random. This will at least provide the raw material basis for discovering how these decisions are made.
The takedown action is a little sketchy. The law regarding takedown notices and host liability is here. The notice includes &quot;Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed&quot;, a &quot;signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed&quot;, and a statement that &quot;the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law&quot;. These things are present in the notice, for which reason the items were taken down. The complaint states that The clear purpose of this source code is to (i) circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube, and (ii) reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings owned by our member companies without authorization for such use. We note that the source code is described on GitHub as “a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites.” and the source code expressly suggests its use to copy and/or distribute the following copyrighted works owned by our member companies: Icona Pop – I Love It (feat. Charli XCX) [Official Video], owned by Warner Music Group Justin Timberlake – Tunnel Vision (Explicit), owned by Sony Music Group Taylor Swift – Shake it Off, owned/exclusively licensed by Universal Music Group Complainants are &quot;confused&quot; about actual infringement (which is prohibited by copyright law), and creating a method for infringing copyright. Under DMCA and US copyright law, copying is infringing, programming is not infringing. The complaint does not clearly allege unauthorized copying of another person's intellectual property, and their complaint is based on the theory that certain programming actions constitute copyright infringement. I don't actually think they are confused, I think they are testing the boundaries. Github has no reasonable options but to comply; the authors have the option of filing a counter-notice; then RIAA has the option of claiming that they have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit. If they do, the material remains taken down and the courts sort it out if a lawsuit is actually filed. There is minimal burden on the complainant to reign-in over-zealous takedown notice practices: Lenz v. Universal Music finds that complainants must give good faith consideration to a fair use defense. 17 USC 1201(a)(1)(A) states that No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. Let's assume that the removed material does circumvent a technological measure protecting a work. This is a separate offense in Title 17. 17 USC 501(a) defines infringement of copyright, saying Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner as provided by sections 106 through 122 or of the author as provided in section 106A(a), or who imports copies or phonorecords into the United States in violation of section 602, is an infringer of the copyright or right of the author Production of an anti-circumvention technology is not included in those sections: on a plain reading of the law, this is not infringement. To summarize the legal dance at issue: RIAA has taken the first legal step in alleging infringement, and Github has taken the material down because Github does not get to decide what the courts would conclude. Let's assume the authors file a counter-notice stating that there is no infringement; then, equally, let's assume that RIAA states that they files a lawsuit. Github will leave the material down. Let's also assume that RIAA actually files suit. Under the prior assumption that the material violates 17 USC 1201(a)(1)(A) which seems likely, the authors could be slapped for being in violation: but they would not have been in violation of §106-122. What recourse would the authors have for RIAA's misuse of the term &quot;infringe&quot;, and against whom? Nothing against Github: the service provider does not get to decide the merits of the case. Perhaps RIAA. From Lenz supra, If an entity abuses the DMCA, it may be subject to liability under § 512(f). That section provides: “Any person who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section—(1) that material or activity is infringing, or (2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be liable for any damages․” Id. § 512(f). Subsection (1) generally applies to copyright holders and subsection (2) generally applies to users. Only subsection (1) is at issue here. The court said that We must next determine if a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Universal knowingly misrepresented that it had formed a good faith belief the video did not constitute fair use. This inquiry lies not in whether a court would adjudge the video as a fair use, but whether Universal formed a good faith belief that it was not. Contrary to the district court's holding, Lenz may proceed under an actual knowledge theory, but not under a willful blindness theory. Perhaps the authors can prove actual knowledge. The Lenz reasoning on this point (§IV C) is rather contorted.
You can report it to the publisher(s) Protection of copyright is a matter for the individual rights holder: some (I’m looking at you Disney) are vigilant, thorough and draconian in protecting their rights, others don’t care at all. Unless you are the rights holder it’s none of your business. In much the same way that the guy charging your neighbour for 4 hours gardening but being long gone in 2 isn’t. If you like your neighbour or feel duty bound to do something, you tell them and then leave it to them what they do with it. This is not a matter for the authorities as it doesn’t rise to the level of criminal copyright infringement. Just like the gardener above, this isn’t a crime.
First of all derivative works are not exactly "illegal". They are fully legal if the owner of the copyright in the original work has given permission. If no permission has been given, they may be copyright infringements. But they may fall under an exception to copyright. Under US law, the most common exception is "fair use". See this question and answer for more on fair use. But particularly relevant in this case is that a parody is usually a fair use, although as in every fair-use decision, there is pretty much no clear-cut, hard&amp;fast rule on what is and is not fair use. In the UK and much of the EU (or maybe all of it, I am not sure) there is a somewhat similar concept known as "fair dealing". It is also an exception to copyright. So it is possible that such works fall under fair use, fair dealing, or another exception to copyright, or that the rights-holder has given permission. Secondly, copyright infringement is a tort, not a crime, under most circumstances. It is enforced when, and only when, a copyright-holder chooses to take action, sending a take-down notice or copyright complaint, of filing suit for infringement. Some rights-holders choose as a matter of policy not to take such actions, thinking that such derivative works actually benefit them. That is their choice to make. Some rights-holders don't have the time or money to track down and take action against most infringements, and will only act if they think the derivative work will in some way cost them a lot of money or harm their reputation. Some rights-holders may just not have heard, yet, of specific possible infringing derivative works. As for Acta2, it has not yet been approved, the Wikipedia article linked in the questions says: In order for the text of the directive to become law in the EU, it must be approved by the European Council on 9 April 2019 The article also mentions significant continuing opposition. If it is approved, it is not clear, to me at least, how it will affect sites hosting such content, nor how it will interact with the copyright law of individual EU nations. If approved, it will no doubt take some time before enforcement is widespread. And of course it will only apply when EU law applies. If both site and author are outside the EU -- say if both are from the US -- it seems that it could not apply.
The RIAA changed their litigation strategy in the late 2000s and it (and its members) generally no longer sue individuals. See https://hbr.org/2008/12/why-the-riaa-stopped-suing If you're just asking for a prediction about whether Tenenbaum or Thomas-Rasset would be sued today if they were to impermissibly make copyrighted music available to the public again, my preduction would be no. But I have to say this is an odd prediction to ask us to make. And I wouldn't have much to argue against somebody who predicts the other direction.
No, it's still copyright infringement. When you modify a copyrighted work in any way, you generate a derivative work which you are not allowed to distribute without the permission of the original copyright holder.
They wouldn't need to keep samples, just the fingerprint. So they could send a guy with a laptop to Japan, download all the songs, fingerprint them, and take the fingerprints back home. It's not a problem, but it would be expensive. I suspect that US and European record companies will make the music available to them for free, otherwise they'd have to pay 20-30 million dollars for 20-30 million songs. The Japanese record companies wouldn't, so while it is technically and legally possible to collect the fingerprints, it would be expensive. And what is the benefit? We are talking here about music that you cannot legally own, that you cannot legally buy after the software recognised it, so there is very little incentive to spend that money.
I see that channel offers playlists and &quot;videos&quot; of popular music by several artists. The one video I tried had the music with no accompanying video or images. The channel's about page says that then operator does not own the copyrights to the music and cannot grant others permission to play it. It is possible that the channel operator has obtained permission from the artists and is thus operating under a valid license. It is possible that the channel is committing copyright infringement, but the various copyright owners have not noticed the channel, or have noticed it but decided not to take action. There is no easy way for an outsider to tell which of these is correct. If the operator has not obtained proper permission, then it seems that this would be copyright infringement. If so, any copyright owner could send a takedown notice, use YouTube's own copyright complaint mechanism, or could file a copyright infringement suit. But nothing compels the owner to act if the owner chooses not to, it is entirely the owner's choice. I do not see that the US fair use or any other exception to copyright would be likely to apply here. If the owner brought suit and won (and a win seems likely to me, from what I can see), the operator would be liable for damages, which might be sizable, or mild. In the US at least the owner could also obtain a court order (injunction) requiring the operator to stop using the owner's copyrighted music. If the owner complained to YouTube, the site could add a &quot;copyright strike&quot; against the operator's account. After a few strikes (I think three) YouTube will cancel the account, according to its posted policies. Similar outcomes could face anyone else who posted or made available for streaming copyrighted content (such as music) without permission from the copyright owner. But again, everything depends on action by the copyright owner. If the owner chooses, for whatever reason, not to act, then nothing is likely to be done about the infringement.