Yeah so coming to 4chan for legal advice is probably not the

>>1590950
Music licensing is fucked up. In the US it's all tied up in consent decrees controlled by the DOJ from when they broke up a cartel controlling music production in the 50's.

There are two payment streams when you use music; the artist who performed it, and to the song writer.

For some uses (like broadcast radio, or internet streaming if the streamer owns a broadcast station) the performer gets nothing, and only the songwriter gets paid.

Technically when the song gets matched to a registered work, YouTube would have to pay SoundExchange, who would take a cut, and pay the record label, who would take a cut, who would pay the writer and performer.

In reality; the label of the original artist will probably be the only one to get paid, and the label will claim to pay the other people, and keep the money.

Can you be sued? You can be sued for anything; you just need a defense.

In all likely hood all that will happen is you will lose the ad revenue on some videos where the label claims it.

>>1590958
Great information.

But how does the fact that there are kind of two layers here matter?

For example, say the original song is "Beat It" by Michael Jackson. Someone owns the rights to that song, who knows who that is. Now this guy makes a cover version of that song. He uploads to youtube and the owner makes a claim. They work something out and the owner gets some of the ad revenue (or maybe all of it?). Now the cover artist says "I give you (me) permission to use my cover version of this song for whatever you want and you can keep 100% of your ad revenue."

Is he wrong?

>>1590966

you want an honest answer? nobody knows

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/flashback-prince-plays-a-jaw-dropping-cover-of-creep-at-coachella-20160422

Here's an instance where Prince does a cover of a radiohead song, radiohead throws it on youtube, then PRINCE sends THEM a copyright claim for using THEIR music, and manages to actually win, at least for a little while until they reverse it, and nobody still knows what the fuck happened in this scenario

>>1591891
>>1590958
Yeah, I guess this is kind of a gray area on multiple levels.

So let me ask it another way, maybe. If it were your youtube channel and you paid your rent with the ad revenue, would you take the risk?

I'm leaning towards "yes" because I figure the most likely outcome is no one ever cares because youtube's audio detection algorithm will flag it as being owned by the cover artist guy and he doesn't care. Second most likely outcome is someone from a record company happens to come across it and makes a claim, I work something out with them. Third most likely outcome is someone sues and the whole channel gets shut down and I have to pay them.

semi related question - how do youtube music mixes work? do the people who make mixes using other peoples songs have to pay some of their profits to the artist? or do the mix creator keep everything?