Music plays a huge part of my life. I’ve been playing guitar since the 6th grade and that’s when my music taste started developing. I can remember the first band I was really into and since then many bands have taken the spots on what I would consider my favorites of all time. Since the 6th grade, many years have come between then and now, and with all the time spent listening to music, reading up on histories of bands, and watching documentaries I’ve learned several things about the music industry. One of the issues I learned through this time was about the idea of Copyright, Piracy, and Fair Use. 

I believe that understanding these things are important because when you know the rules and/or regulations, you can move around and avoid any trouble. It’s understandable why these things are in place, artists/musicians don’t want to lose out on making money, or others in Don henley’s case, are misinformed. About 2-3 years ago I heard a song over the radio (I know, old fashion) called “Boys of Summer”. It turns out that this very popular song is Don Henleys. I looked it up on Youtube and could not find the song at all. It was strange to me because every song that I knew was a Youtube click away. I never really thought anything of it until recently. During one of my classes, we talked about Copyright, Piracy, and Fair Use. One of the things that were interesting that related to the topic was the video of a well respected musician named Rick Beato. Rick Beato has a Youtube channel where he uploads a lot of music related things. From a few videos I saw, it looks like he has an appreciation for music and is knowledgeable on the things he is talking about. In class we saw a video where he expressed his anger and ideas about one of his videos being flagged down because he used a couple seconds of a song in a video where he was showing his appreciation in a video series called “What makes that song great?”. One thing that was interesting about the video to me is that he explained how some artists are misinformed about how a lot of the stuff works in respects to youtube, spotify and the use of copyrighted material. With these misunderstandings, artists seem to be going to great lengths to make sure no one uses their music without permission. In Henley’s case, they went as far as to hire 60 people who are in charge of filing complaints against people who use their songs despite for what the reason maybe. In most cases, it is not used to monetize.

It’s funny how these things work in life. This week Rick Beato posts another video that was entertaining to watch and as usual he brings up several good points. This video mentions a current event that I’m sure many people are familiar with. Several weeks ago towards the end of September, a video went viral of a man who was riding some sort of board on his way to work while also drinking a huge bottle of Cranberry juice. The video was loved by many because it was just this man living his best life all to the tune of Dreams by Fleetwood Mac. Rick Beato explained to us that if the man had used another Fleetwood Mac song like the popular “Go Your Own Way”. The video will possibly get flagged if not now, soon but In this case Dreams was used and it’s interesting why this is. Although the two songs are from Fleetwood Mac, the songs were each written by a separate member. Lindsey Buckingham wrote “Go Your Own Way”  and Stevie Nicks wrote Dreams. Each of them gets a say pertaining to their song. In this case Stevie Nicks embraced this situation. She has gone out to show her appreciation and credit the man for putting Dreams back on the charts. If she wanted to, She could have possibly had the video removed but in some way this is also exposure for the band. Everyone on these platforms, especially TikTok, probably never heard of Fleetwood Mac but this video opened them up to the possibility of expanding their music taste. 

Channeling the rules of Copyright, Piracy, and Fair Use can be a tricky thing because a lot of the situations vary case by case but for the most part all end in the side of the people who aren’t trying to make a profit from popular works.