I had my first copyright dispute on YouTube a few weeks ago (well it seems, 30 days ago) when I posted the video of Red River Valley, a folk song that has been around since late in the century before last. It seems someone had mass registered rights to some songs and included a Finnish song that uses the same tune as that old cowboy's love song.
I'm not as wild about the earnings I might get from a handful of people watching my video as I am the freedom to re-use cultural works within reason. It's what makes the creative economy go round, if everything is rights-protected and if there's nothing new under the sun then how do we ever progress? I know I'm mostly preaching to the converted here...
Anyway - feel free to have another listen and click through to YouTube to see what lovely ad they play with it and boost my ad earnings, you never know I might get a payout one of these years :)
