Redemption Sung

[EDIT: 1/05/09 - For some reason, even though my friend says they shouldn't've, YouTube forced me to choose between changing the music, muting the music, or deleting the video. I've muted it for now. This is the case with the Jimi Hendrix video as well. I'm not sure what to do, as reuploading the files won't change anything, and probably won't even succeed. Drat. Any suggestions?]

So I checked my email this morning to find that YouTube had blocked the public display of this video of my painting of Bob Marley due to a claim by "a copyright owner" and a "music rights issue". The music backing the timelapse video is "Redemption Song" by Bob Marley and The Wailers. The record label is Island Recordings. Island is owned by Universal Music Group.

Guess who knows the EVP of the digital media side of the business at UMG?

Me. We went to high school together. How cool is that?

So, I went to the dispute page at YouTube and claimed fair use as I didn't use the entire song, it doesn't infringe upon the market for the recording, and the video is educational in that it shows my process, not directly selling anything. Voila! It's back up!

I got an email back from my friend at UMG and he said that they expressly allow this type of usage and they certainly hadn't put in the claim. Apparently YouTube has an automatic filter to flag user generated content that also uses something copyrighted.

Phew! I was glad to find out I hadn't rubbed the label the wrong way. In my thinking big, I hope at some point to work with the label promotionally, so thank goodness I didn't piss anybody off.

I get all anxious when legal issues pop up. You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you've been accused of doing something wrong you know you didn't do, or you know isn't wrong? Man, that sucks. Fortunately I seem to have gotten rapid resolution, redemption if you will, to this deal and don't have to worry about getting personally sued. Also, I'm glad that my response automatically dropped the block on the video.

So now you can see it!

Peace.