p2p news / p2pnet: With Big Four Organized Music member EMI trying to cosy up to YouTube, the RIAA, owned by EMI, Warner Music, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, has been firing off Cease & Desist letters to YouTubers.

Seemingly, the C&D’s are, "demanding that they take down videos of kids singing along and dancing to their favorite songs," as Cory Doctorow points out on Boing Boing, going on, "This is pretty crazy, of course – as Battelle says, ‘Wake up. This is how we use music in the real world. Get over yourselves’."

"But, Doctorow continues, "that’s just the beginning of the story. Last July, RPG Films got a takedown notice from someone who claimed to be the RIAA. RPGFilms hosts videos of people’s video-game characters dancing to music – rock-videos made with games. They shut down and there was a terrible stink about it, and the RIAA actually contacted us to tell us that they hadn’t sent the notice – it was a fake.

"We reported that, and I asked RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) Director of Communications Jenni Engebretsen some followup questions."

Q: Are forgeries like this common occurrences?
A: I can’t really say – I’d have to speak to our folks to see if this happens with any frequency. As I stated in my email, we haven’t initiated any legal action of any kind.
Q: Do you plan to pursue the forgers who sent out the bogus takedown in your name?
A: I need to check into that, that’s all the information I have at this point.
Q: Will you pursue a claim against RPG Films for the use of your member-companies’ copyright music in the films they host?
A: We have not initiated any communication or legal action against them. Forecasting future actions is not something we do.
Q: Do you have an institutional policy on the use of your member companies’ music in noncommercial fan-films made from video-games?
A: I need to check on that.
Q: That’s great, thanks. I’ll post this and update the post when you get back to me.

However, says the Boing Boing post, that was all she wrote or, rather, said.

"In fact, I couldn’t get her on the phone at all," says Doctorow. "I’d ring her from my home number and mobile phone and no one picked up, and I never received a response to my emails. Eventually, I called her from a different number while travelling in the US and she answered. I asked her about all those ‘I need to check on that’ and ‘I’ll get back to you’ answers.

"She said, ‘Yeah, we don’t have any comment on those questions’.

"So now we’ve got the RIAA (?) sending takedown notices to YouTube over kids who rock out to the songs they love. You have to wonder — if this is a forgery, has the RIAA decided to do something about it? If it’s not, does that mean that they now have a policy about fan-films made with music?

"If Ms Engebretsen is reading this, I’d be glad to hear any comment you’d care to make on those questions now."

Digg this story.

Also See:
cosy up – EMI sidles up to YouTube, June 15, 2006
Boing Boing – Is RIAA nastygramming YouTubers over vids of kids singing and dancing?, June 16, 2006
Reuters – Microsoft developing rival to Apple’s iPod-sources, June 16, 2006

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