Letter Sent Denoting my Disgust
I wrote the following letter because I can't believe that someone would actually get so out of shape that one of their songs were used to illustrate a video that nobody gives a shit about that another artist would get upset that one of their songs was used to illustrate photos of a missionary trip to Mexico. Our country has gone down the toilet the last year and a half because of this crazy notion that there are two Americas. One America is the rich America whose greed sucked the life out our country and the other is the middle class America who are spending their day trying to figure out where to pinch money. If you are in the latter group I don't have to explain to you anything. You are living the nightmare every day. If you are in the former group you are so disconnected by reality that your incapable of seeing anything beyond your own stock portfolio.
This is the second time in two days that I have had my video's blocked because I used a song to illustrate my photography. Yesterday was Sandcastle Newport Beach and today was Ministry Trip to Pedregales. What is it with these artists? At the end of both of these videos I clearly state "Copyright __________ " blank meaning the name of the artist and the song. I would like to request that you send me the names and contact information of both of the artists who are complaining that I'm using their songs so I can contact them and ask them personally how it's impacting their livelihood.
Has anybody ever watched these videos? Do you know who I am? I'm just a special education teacher who in their spare time likes to take photographs and then make them into video slide shows. I'm not making any money off of this. There is no money involved. It's purely for fun. These songs are not being used to sell a product or being used in a way that cheapens the song. If anything it's editorial and I'm promoting their work. I make in a year what they guys make in 30 minutes. What do they expect a Regular Joe guy like me to do, pay them a $1,000.00 for the use of a song to use in a video that nobody gives a shit about? At last count my Sandcastle Newport Beach video which I uploaded in October 2008 was watched by a total of three people, actually two as one of them was me. Wow! Three people in eight months. I'm going to see if I can get a Hollywood Studio to front me some money for wider distributorship. I think I may have the next "Titanic" on my hands. I have a copy of the video I showed my wife, mom and best friend. Should I throw it away? Is keeping it illegal?
Regarding the Pedregales video, these are photographs that I took on a missionary trip to Pedregales, Mexico with my church last December. We go every December and deliver toys to the kids down there. The whole point of the video was to get more people involved in Ministry work south of the border. An artist would actually be upset that a song of theirs was used to promote something as positive as this? It boggles the mind.
I picked the songs for the videos because they are great songs that illustrated the photos in the best way possible. I could have picked a hundred different songs, but I chose these. What should a person use for a sound track for photos about poor kids and the church ministry that serves them? Gregorian Chant? Handel? some obscure punk group? This is too much. I can see why there is such a backlash against artists and why nobody gives a damn about downloading their songs for free. At least I have the decency to give them credit for their work and am helping to promote their work in my own way. Some of these artists haven't had a hit in decades. When songs are used to promote something positive the winners are the artists themselves because their work becomes affiliated with it.
I would like you to send the videos to the artists themselves or one of their handlers, watch it from beginning to end, and then write me personally letting me know how what I'm doing is evil and wrong.
Based on that I will either have my videos unblocked or I will delete them, blog my experience, and I will never in my life time buy music from any of the artists who are complaining.
As a final note, I have a video called New York which is illustrated by a song by U2 called New York on YouTube. Their publishing company thinks the songs goes great with the video and had no problem with my using it. In fact they added their own content to the video which I was fine with because it created a win-win situation for all concerned. I will always be a life time U2 fan because they have so much class and understand they are part of the human race and not a class above it.
Sign me disgusted at this point.
Luciano
This is the second time in two days that I have had my video's blocked because I used a song to illustrate my photography. Yesterday was Sandcastle Newport Beach and today was Ministry Trip to Pedregales. What is it with these artists? At the end of both of these videos I clearly state "Copyright __________ " blank meaning the name of the artist and the song. I would like to request that you send me the names and contact information of both of the artists who are complaining that I'm using their songs so I can contact them and ask them personally how it's impacting their livelihood.
Has anybody ever watched these videos? Do you know who I am? I'm just a special education teacher who in their spare time likes to take photographs and then make them into video slide shows. I'm not making any money off of this. There is no money involved. It's purely for fun. These songs are not being used to sell a product or being used in a way that cheapens the song. If anything it's editorial and I'm promoting their work. I make in a year what they guys make in 30 minutes. What do they expect a Regular Joe guy like me to do, pay them a $1,000.00 for the use of a song to use in a video that nobody gives a shit about? At last count my Sandcastle Newport Beach video which I uploaded in October 2008 was watched by a total of three people, actually two as one of them was me. Wow! Three people in eight months. I'm going to see if I can get a Hollywood Studio to front me some money for wider distributorship. I think I may have the next "Titanic" on my hands. I have a copy of the video I showed my wife, mom and best friend. Should I throw it away? Is keeping it illegal?
Regarding the Pedregales video, these are photographs that I took on a missionary trip to Pedregales, Mexico with my church last December. We go every December and deliver toys to the kids down there. The whole point of the video was to get more people involved in Ministry work south of the border. An artist would actually be upset that a song of theirs was used to promote something as positive as this? It boggles the mind.
I picked the songs for the videos because they are great songs that illustrated the photos in the best way possible. I could have picked a hundred different songs, but I chose these. What should a person use for a sound track for photos about poor kids and the church ministry that serves them? Gregorian Chant? Handel? some obscure punk group? This is too much. I can see why there is such a backlash against artists and why nobody gives a damn about downloading their songs for free. At least I have the decency to give them credit for their work and am helping to promote their work in my own way. Some of these artists haven't had a hit in decades. When songs are used to promote something positive the winners are the artists themselves because their work becomes affiliated with it.
I would like you to send the videos to the artists themselves or one of their handlers, watch it from beginning to end, and then write me personally letting me know how what I'm doing is evil and wrong.
Based on that I will either have my videos unblocked or I will delete them, blog my experience, and I will never in my life time buy music from any of the artists who are complaining.
As a final note, I have a video called New York which is illustrated by a song by U2 called New York on YouTube. Their publishing company thinks the songs goes great with the video and had no problem with my using it. In fact they added their own content to the video which I was fine with because it created a win-win situation for all concerned. I will always be a life time U2 fan because they have so much class and understand they are part of the human race and not a class above it.
Sign me disgusted at this point.
Luciano
posted by Luciano at 7:38 PM
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