In an announcement that rivals Footloose for the internet age, the RIAA has now taken to sending Cease and Disist letters to YouTube users that have videotaped themselves dancing to popular music. While no loss of income can be proven, the RIAA is claiming that because the clips contain un-licensed music that their interests and rights are being trampled by kids like these. As you can see the quality of these amateur videos is abismal, and the viral nature of video, with users posting links to each other, has been a nice organic form of marketing that you can’t buy if you wanted to, but RIAA officials, and the Big-4 they represent are starting the crack down. While most of the C&D letters will not amount to much, they do amount to this: a scare tactic, targeting largley uneducated (in copyright law) and underage music lovers that are cheap to send, and is largely a show of force. I don’t konw about you, but this seems like it would fall easily into the category of Fair Use.
If you’re a music lover and want to tape youself dancing to a Polyvibe track, post your video online and let us know about it. First person to Email Us with their video, will get a big bag of swag.
originally published on xnlb.com
*Update*
Mega-Blog, Boing Boing, previously looked into a similar threat to fan-made films that contained commercial music in them. A Site called RPG Films used to host amateur videos staring popular game characters “dancing” to commercial music. Eventually they received a Cease & Desist letter from the RIAA to take down the clips. Further investigation revealed that the letter was actually not sent by the RIAA. This may be what’s happening to the YouTube users.
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