We Break the Law

Join the Petition

Evan Miller — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:21:17 +0000

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YouTube and the Muting of our Culture

Evan Miller — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:05:40 +0000

On Jan. 16, Rolling Stone reported that YouTube started muting copyrighted material on their site. They cited a My Chemical Romance music video that had fallen victim to this new policy:

This new epidemic seems to only affect some of the thousands (maybe millions) of WMG-owned videos on YouTube. For instance, while watching the My Chemical Romance above, you should be hearing “Kill All Your Friends.” What you do hear is silence. The video’s page greets users with the notice “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.” Since some MCR videos on YouTube still have their audio intact, it’s unclear what criteria the site is using to determine what gets muted.

Since the writing of the Stone article, the video has been completely removed from the site.

Copyright “Criminals” for Change

Evan Miller — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:07:46 +0000

Have you ever violated a copyright law using the Internet? This includes:

1. Downloading copyrighted material using torrent and peer to peer file sharing networks.

2. Uploading content that was “remixed” from, or uses copyrighted material without the right holder’s consent.

Or, even if you have never participated in the aforementioned criminal acts, do you feel that labeling a generation of Internet users as “criminal” is harmful to the mindset and morality of said users?

If you do, this will be your action center for serious digital copyright reform. Join our Facebook group here and sign the petition here. Lets come together in our effort to introduce and pass substantial digital copyright reform in the 111th Congress.

Stay tuned for more updates!