Cover Songs

We have been talking about copyright and its implications on the creativity and freedom of internet users.  During some of the discussions I started to wonder about massive amount of cover songs that have been uploaded onto YouTube and how they fit into the issues that surround copyright laws.  I found this article that I think delves well into how YouTube and its users manage to deal with copyright.  Cover songs are considered a violation of copyright and as Michael Hicks, a professor at BYU mentions in the article, adding a disclaimer to the video does not mean that it meets the fair use policy of copyright law.  I actually did not know that before we learned about the four criteria for fair use in class; for the longest time I thought that adding a “I do not own the song” or something along those lines meant that it was okay to post.  Although YouTube does try to control copyrighted material, there is just so much content that many of the violations do not get reported.

I also think that there is a double-standard when it comes to cover songs because on the one-hand people who upload them can get in trouble for violating copyright law but on the other hand the music industry has been able to pick up new music artists thanks to the cover songs they posted on YouTube.  I don’t think it’s fair that those individuals who post cover songs but are not chosen by music industry violate copyright laws but those same laws are overlooked when those people start to make them money.  In the article, Hicks also provides a counterargument; he states that cover songs are “predatory” and that they “’can also be erosive to [the original artist’s] work because it’s draining form their unique product.’” I do not agree with him because I do not think that cover songs “drain” the “uniqueness” of the artist’s song; I think that they take what is already a unique product and add to it.  Cover songs allow individuals to showcase their creativity and talents and they should have the freedom to so as well.