I Testified Before the SENATE On BLOCKERS | Here's What Happened

my fellow americans just kidding so i testified on tuesday this week in front of the uh the senate uh subcommittee for our on intellectual property about fair use they asked me to do this because i talk about it a lot on my channel obviously with uh with all the demonetizations and blocking i mean most of my videos have actually been on blocking but i'm going to read you some of the testimony i will tell you i'll tell you what i got asked a question by senator tillis who's the chair of the committee uh but let me i'm gonna read you a little bit of my of my statement my opening statement before i start uh discount code for today's live stream is rb731 it's 50 off the the uh my youtube instagram transcription pdf bundle which is 675 or something pages uh and 30 off my beater ear training same discount code rb 731. um that's how i support the channel you guys know that or you can become a member of the biato club i'm not used to wearing a tie here but it doesn't matter okay so let me talk a little bit about testimony so this is not like doing a live stream testifying in front of a senate committee even though there are only two senators there there's 15 senators on the committee but the chairman tom tillis and the um and chris coons who was the uh ranking member uh they were the only ones there conducting the hearing and they had two sets of people i was in the second group of five uh there were a bunch of lawyers that were part of it that were part of the um that were talking about intellectual property and it was interesting because i want to say that a lot of it focused on youtube more because if you listen to don henley's testimony that i played who had done who had done the testimony of the same committee a couple months before uh the his he focused mainly on youtube when he was talking about um when he was talking about having 60 people that worked for universal music group uh doing takedown notices um this is what he was talking about he's talking about youtube okay so they brought me in to discuss with youtube because that's that's what i have my expertise in even though i'm on instagram i'm on facebook i'm not really on facebook you guys should follow me on instagram at rickbiota1 anyways let me give you a little bit of my testimony that i uh had here i'm not gonna do the whole thing it's five minutes long or so but i wanted to talk tell them i had to talk a little bit about myself and why uh you know i was asked to do this because there's people obviously watching this that don't know anything about who i mean most people didn't know who i am actually two of the people that were in my group knew know my channel so i introduced myself i told him i have an educational channel that i call everything music i've got almost 1.7 million subscribers on it and uh then i said um when i began the series i uploaded episodes knowing that i'm talking about what makes it sound great so when i began the series i uploaded the episodes knowing that the videos would be instantly recognized by youtube's content id algorithm and demonetized a demonetized video means the artist or copyright holder receives all the ad revenue generated from the video that would normally go to the content creator me being the content creator some of the artists like the eagles jimi hendrix and guns and roses they're probably thinking who are what i refer to as blockers blockers are artists who have a zero use policy for any of their work regardless of the length or purpose of the excerpt i've never sought to claim fair use for any of these videos even though a case could be made that i was providing educational content through commentary criticism research and teaching based on the fair use policy defined by u.s law then i do give them a little background from 1987 to 1992 i was an associate professor of music at ithaca college in those days just as it is today the use of recorded music for analysis and classroom instruction was commonly used and protected under fair use in many ways youtube is the new university it's a place where people go to learn things that do-it-yourselfers who want to fix their hot water heater consumers who want to compare cameras one of my favorite things to do and students who simply want to learn how to play a song on the guitar in my view this is the most important function of youtube as a songwriter i've been signed a multiple publishing deals since 1992 most recently sony atv i don't know if you guys knew that i'm signed to sony tv i've had songs on many records including a number one million selling country song as recently as 2013 out of my 750 videos 254 have been demonetized and 43 have been blocked that's not exactly accurate because the 43 that have been blocked a few of which maybe five of which have been put back up because i edited out the uh the offending blocking part like i did with with uh king crimson which is why i did that video on dunn henley so uh have been taken down her block for the record i've never had a copyright strike filed against me by youtube which is true uh just to give you a little background i'm deviating from the from the script here so if you get a demonetization content id claim is what it's called let's say i used pearl jam which i did you know for um for the song black i finish the video i go upload it to youtube instantly i get a demonetization before it goes live on youtube i get a demonetization now what you could do a lot of youtubers upload things way in advance a few days in advance i don't i only do videos when they're done i put them up no matter what time of day so uh if you have time you could appeal this you could dispute the claim and say well this is really fair use now in the case of what makes this song great it's probably not fair use you know there are argue there are lawyers that said oh it's definitely fair use but i'm using the original sound recording that is not really fair use okay even though i'm breaking it up you would say it's transformative because i'm doing an analysis of it i'm breaking down the melody i'm bringing down the harmony so on and so forth i'll get to that my speech so i never appeal these things so this is i'm going to get to this let me get back to my testimony it says this brings me back to fair use two elements of fair use that i believe covers teaching videos have to do with the amount of copyrighted material used and whether or not it harms the copyright holders ability to profit from their original work i would argue that if the video is using brief excerpts of music to demonstrate a compositional or production technique it should be covered under the fair use guidelines the rules governing the application and interpretation of fair use should be shouldered by all parties not just the content creator the concept of fair use is meaningless when frivolous or random interpretations allow a team of searchers typically employed by a major label uh harass to harass or creators for content that falls under the legal definition of fair use a clear-cut case of piracy is one thing but there have to be exemptions for fair use now i'm breaking away from the script here there's you can claim fair use on these things i have some friends that are youtubers that claim for use and almost all of them are denied because ultimately it's the labels that are deciding this okay and then then i go on to say one of my recent video one of my recent music theory videos called the mixolydian mode they're probably thinking what was manually claimed by sony atv my publishing company because i played 10 seconds of a beatles song on my acoustic guitar to demonstrate how the melody is derived from this scale this is an obvious example of fair use and i'm breaking away again one of the other people one of the lawyers that was on here said after me rick biato's music theories videos would definitely be covered under fair use which i thought was very cool and then i say um i said this is an obvious example of fair use in response i made a video entitled the music industry scam to rip off youtubers this video describes how record labels employ content id farms essentially collection agencies to manually claim youtube videos for demonetization don henley testified to this before this very committee my video received over 500 000 views within 24 hours and the claim was then released by sony without me even filing a dispute i believe the claim was released because i have a channel with over a million and a half subscribers and hence have a platform to air these grievances creators with smaller audiences are not so fortunate i accepted the invitation to testify today because we need to find solutions to these problems in the case of fair use content creators should be protected from frivolous demonetizations i'd like to propose what i call a fair use registry where one could get a certification as a good actor similar to twitter's blue checkmark i decided to use twitter because all the senators use twitter right when a video is posted it can be checked against the database of certified fair users the content creator would then be whitelisted for use youtube already sets benchmarks for channel monetization the fair use registry work would work along the same lines the reason i create videos such as my what makes this song great series is to introduce classic songs to new audiences and reinvigorate the saints audience same songs to older odd to older fans thank you so much for your time so the idea was to was to offer a solution this is uh you know it's easy to go on and complain about things i do it as much as anyone else to complain about things that are wrong but offering solutions is really a i think the way that you know these are you're more likely to grab someone's attention there one of these senators and say wow certified fair user that sounds like a good idea you create a database maybe people pay in maybe youtube creators pay in 250 bucks a year or something like that and they're allowed to use x amount of time now everybody thinks and i thought the same thing oh you can use up to nine seconds you can use up to 30 seconds none of that is true if they have a zero tolerance policy that means that that these content id algorithms instantly grab your video before it's up there and when don henley says oh you know there's all these there's six billion things up there and four billion of them are you know are not using or are using pirated content that's baloney it's not true it's just not uh that i and i told senator tillis asked me about this why have you never filed a claim and i said well one of the reasons is that uh that you know on what makes a song great that i don't necessarily feel that that is fair use uh and you know it's the artist's copyrighted work now i am providing commentary what happens when i do things out of a uh like a film score for example um what hollywood does i did like uh one of my videos was a breakdown of the opening sequence the shawshank redemption by thomas newman what i did was i took the opening scene i took away the music and i re-mocked up the uh string part orchestral part and then i had a piano reduction running along with the video now what they did what i forget who was universal or somebody um what they did was they did a revenue sharing on it and pretty every single thing that i've done from a movie soundtrack is revenue sharing where they split the money 50 50. totally fair and you know maybe the the uh maybe they what makes it sound great maybe it could be a revenue share and that might be a fair there might be a fair you know thing there so um uh as far as the certified fair users you know maybe you pay uh i'm just throwing spitballing this but and i didn't suggest this to the committee but maybe you pay a small fee each year to to maintain the database and people to run it maybe there's uh you know to have a your channel monetize you need to have four thousand watch hours within a one year period or a thousand subscribers i believe and honestly every there's all these benchmarks on youtube just to make a uh just to make do a live stream like this you have to have x amount of subscribers to do a thumbnail a custom thumbnail you have to have a certain number of subscribers i don't know what it is billy you know it is or not but there is like there's all these different things right the other thing is that one of the reasons and i didn't get to explain this because i didn't have time honestly i didn't put in my testimony you had five minutes is the three strike rule on as far as copyright strikes if i had a copyright strike if i disputed this they have 30 days to respond to the claim to my dispute if they don't respond and respond in 30 days you get the claim released now typically with a big channel you know a lot of subscribers they will respond to those claims sooner maybe i don't know if that's true or not but i'm assuming that might be true um and the um if you do get a copyright strike billy is everything okay on here the sound sounds good yeah if you do get a copyright strike they can i think it's a seven day suspension i'm not positive of this uh seven day suspension of being able to release a video and if you get two copyright strikes you can't live stream for 90 days something like that i mean it's really ridiculous right so you don't even want to take a chance they they put this threat over you as a youtuber so that you don't even want to challenge the things right and then if you lose it you know three strikes and they take your channel down completely which is really you know look for people that are abusing it okay fine you know they know the deal i know the deal what it is so my a clear case of fair use was my mixolydian mode me playing the melody not using any of the beatles sound recording to demonstrate how the scale is used that's fair use now i would have fought that claim if i didn't make the video the next day that got a half million views because of you guys getting on here and frankly people got on twitter or instagram or whatever and they they wrote to sony atv about it and the people took the claim away that was it so i explained that to uh to senator tillis and he got he got that so anyways you know and the other side of it is that i decided that okay well making money making a living from the from views on youtube is uh you know that in order to make content that i want to make to actually teach people something i'm going to be making content that gets demonetized you guys know that i said this way up front i'd rather make the videos i want to make and and not get any money you know rightfully so or whatever from the uh from views on the videos right so uh and then teach the things that i want to teach because you have to teach using examples if i'm going to teach you know cool guitar voicings i'm going to play allen holdsworth his an allen holdsworth song or something or a uh or a pink floyd song although you'd get it would get taken down um and and use an example from one of their songs that people know you know i would use if i'm going to talk about um you know the use of side chain uh compression i would use something by you know gravity or something by you know or what i'd use or clarity for uh i mean by uh by zed you know something like that that uh there's a lot of sidechain compression or maybe playing a ariana grande song or max martin production something like that anything that that has a bunch of sidechain compression where uh or someplace something that i had a multi-track on uh so yeah so that's instead of playing instead of me doing a mock-up of something it's uh you know it's to me that's not an appropriate way to to do to to do it now when i use examples of things like uh to teach a film score those things are definitely fair use and and you know doing a revenue sharing thing i think is acceptable but like i said that's why i have my store i've got a sale going on today of my biato book my bundle and my youtube transcriptions youtube instagram transcriptions discount code i'll do the shameless plug here but it's rb 731 that's how i support my channel honestly i support it through that i support it with my ear training course same thing 30 percent off rb 731 go to beyond you can check it out there or people donating to super chat here you know these are the these are the ways because frankly most of my big videos are demonetized they are so it is but i'm not going to alter my content to make money on views period that's it people need to have uh need to hear songs that they're familiar with to learn from i believe so um you know and and maybe um maybe the um you know maybe it is uh maybe one of these ideas maybe maybe the senators say hey you know that that beato guy maybe that certified fair user thing is kind of a cool idea we'll take that okay great you know and and frankly when people tell me on here i always see this oh you should get together with the other youtubers and you should go to a different platform it's like i don't want to go to a different platform and i don't want to do some class action suit or anything like that that i honestly i'm too old to do that these things take years and i'm not interested in that i bro i want to talk about music i want to teach people about music and that's it period so you know if i was if i was 30 years old and doing youtube yeah i would i would fight this probably i would um so so that's uh that's the deal with my with my testimony there um you know honestly if it wasn't for you guys subscribing to my channel and um and oh thank you for all the super chats by the way i haven't gotten to those uh i'll get to those here in a second um but if it wasn't for you guys not only subscribing to the channel but going out there on twitter and and you you don't don't harass people but make it known that that you know that there are certain cases of fair use and when i don't think something is fair use i'll say it i'll say no i don't think that what makes a song great is necessarily fair use the lawyer on the on one of the lawyers on the panel thought it was you know but uh i don't i'm not interested in that fight honestly right now but i'm glad to give suggestions um okay so super chats ivy thank you um frank zeppelin awesome very cool uh fretless 67 yeah very cool very cool uh let's see here who else um river2319 big money sucks always well good thing money isn't real gold and silver is let's see here ever considering putting my black videos on dropbox for club members no you can't do that that's that's illegal to do that and i would not do that um sending a small donation donation thank you chris das appreciate that uh toro held thank you so much um oh man andy racks the cams yeah very so cool l-e-r thank you thank you thank you uh thank you to everybody miguel uh miguel herranda hernandez thank you so much everyone so yeah you know i appreciate this fred turd nice um everybody knows billy i don't know how thank you for passion and music from berlin oh my gosh okay everybody phil uh jade oh geez okay so all the the people thank you so much on the super chat it's greatly appreciated like i said subscribing to the channel sharing my videos with people that's probably the most important thing here because that's really how you build um how you build a movement behind these things to address things like fair use now i will say this and and um every country the united states has its own laws on fair use but every country has different laws on this stuff i did a video uh i've done videos that were blocked only in certain territories you might be blocked in a couple different countries you can always get around that by using a v and what is it billy vpn another thing anytime that you're watching that you see commercials skip them okay it doesn't i don't make any more money from things by you watching them i just don't and that's that's the thing that that uh the five second skippable ads as soon as five seconds are up hit skip okay it doesn't it doesn't do anything so um now if people want to see my testimony you can go to the senate website the subcommittee it's a judiciary committee i believe that it's up there i'll try and put a a link to it here in the description if i can um if i can remember if i can find it again my brother had found it for me but it was funny because i had my phone here and my siblings were all on watching it i have six siblings and um i was texting them right up until i went on but when i went on i have to admit i'm going to admit to you guys i'm never nervous here but i had a twinge of nervousness and my throat got a little bit dry as i was talking and that's that's one of the first times that happens which is ridiculous because nobody's really watching these things you know so i mean compared to this that you know i guarantee you 6 000 people didn't watch that they probably had 3 000 people or something if that that watched it probably not even that many probably the families of the people that testified on there and that was about it so uh so you guys are are great uh like this video share it uh the uh rb 731 is the discount code for my biato book instagram youtube bundle pay buying that is basically like the cost of half of a lesson with a guitar teacher or something or a piano teacher that that's what that is that's how you support the channel that's how i can keep making videos i don't do any sponsored content i'm not you don't hear me saying i'm this video is sponsored by blah blah not that i have any problem with that well podcasts do that and a lot of youtube youtubers do that and i commend them for that but i don't want to um be beholden to companies like that and i want to be able to talk about things right from the start so that's how you support the channel be auto club you can support it as well and uh you guys are great what do you guys think about the uh about me wearing a tie should i wear a jacket and tie uh for my live stream from now on i i think we need to get a uh to get a ruling on that so i'll put it in the comment section and uh anything you guys want me to talk about i've got some new what makes the song greats coming up um and i've been doing i did a video yesterday on neil sending orsted pedersen who is one of the greatest upright bass players of all time just an incredibly retro said no really weird just an incredibly great great great bass player one of the most talented of all time and my dad and i listened to his records that he was on constantly and um and he is he died in 2005 at 58 my age and um i wanted to make a video about that i'm going to make these little short 10 minute videos on people that were my heroes influences things like that i think that that's uh that's another that's kind of another thing that i want to do another series of videos i don't really have a name for it if any of you want to suggest names for that please send that to me so i'd like to think of something anyhow you guys are amazing once again rb 731 50 off my youtube instagram transcription bundle it's 750 pages or no 650 pages 6.75 and my beato ear training course rb 731 30 off that you guys are awesome and i'll put the link in the description when i find it for the testimony for the actual real testimony i did on last tuesday thanks everybody you guys are the best bye

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 513,790

Rating: 4.9584765 out of 5

Keywords: rick beato, everything music, perfect pitch, absolute pitch, relative pitch, ear training, music theory, music lessons, guitar lesson, how to learn music, music theory basics, advanced music theory, guitar, bass, ear training program, fair use, music business, music copyright, demonetization, blockers, music industry, youtube, music law, youtube channel

Id: qhxLuFx-Sbc

Length: 27min 10sec (1630 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 31 2020