It’s not just bad guys
A couple of guys made a big splash on YouTube with somne video lessons on how to play guitar that became VERY popular.
Problem was, they had not obtained a license to publicly perform the popular songs they were teaching. Now before you worry about every music lesson going on in the back rooms of music stores and band halls of schools all over the world, this was not the normal music lesson scenario. Instead of a one on one lesson between a teacher and student, these were videos of a musician playing the songs, and the videos were placed on YouTube with the specific intent that they would be viewed by the public - and they were, viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, in fact.
Although the two guys teaching in the videos thought their use of the songs would be welcomed by the songwriters, that is not their call to make. The owners of the song get to decide whether they want the song used, and if they do, the owners of the song get to decide how much they think is a fair price. if the owners believe free is fair and they want to let the song be used for free, then they can decide that. But the other side - in this case the performer - does not have the right to move forward on a plan that THEY think is fair whether or not the other side agrees (and in this case, the other side hadn’t even been asked what they thought). It would be like a couple going to look at a house they were considering buying, and having the seller close the deal and obligate the couple to terms the seller determined were fair but that the couple were never told about until after the fact. it doesn’t matter how objectively “fair” or “beneficial” a use of a song is, the owner still gets to decide whether they want to agree.
In this case, the popular video lessons were saved when the two teacher guys and the owners of the song rights worked out a partnership on terms that all parties actively agreed to.
Here’s the full story.
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