Saturday, January 6, 2018

Did You Know The Song "Whatever Lola Wants" Was In The Movie Platoon?

A few years ago I kvetched about how complicated and outdated copyright law is in an era of YouTube.
It gets even worse when the automated tools used to "help" don't work.  The lesson here isn't about copyrights and artist's legitimate need to be paid, but more about how automated processes fail.  (and) "When the Machine breaks down, we break down." -Staff Sergeant Barnes. 

In the time lapse movie of my back yard for 2017, I used "Adagio for Strings" as background music.  I can't say this style of music is to my normal tastes, but it seemed to fit well with the video and I had (relatively) recently watched Oliver Stone's movie Platoon which uses the song extensively.
Once uploaded to YouTube, my back yard time lapse was flagged for copyright content.  Fair enough - I originally thought the origin of "Adagio for Strings" was much older than it was.  But "Adagio for Strings" was arranged by Samuel Barber in 1936.  While Copyright Law has a lot of twists and turns, work from between 1923 and 1977 are generally protected for 95 years after they were published.  So by any measure, my time lapse video does contain copyrighted content.  Mea Culpa.
But when I looked closer at the YouTube flag, they said it had the song "WHATEVER LOLA WANTS LOLA GETS" - well that isn't right...  If YouTube is going to flag me and allow others to monetize my video, the least they can do is make sure their data is right and the right people subsequently get paid.

I disputed YouTube Copyright Content designation - in the dispute, there are several options, but there is not an option in the automated dispute process for "YouTube is a dumb-ass."

And then there is a list of 16 Claimants, but this list does not match anything close to what YouTube's search function shows as to who owns the rights to either "Adagio for Strings" or "Whatever Lola Wants."  And is the list of Claimants the owners of "Adagio for Strings?"  Or "Whatever Lola Wants?"  Or something else entirely?

Not unsurprisingly, my dispute was rejected.  No reason is given, but I suspect the rejection is just as automated as everything else.  Or at best, some flunky is paid to go through all the disputes that come in and serially reject all of them.
It is, quite frankly, not worth anyone's time (including mine) to correct this, but it demonstrates that the issue of copyright protection by YouTube and those who own the rights is a farce (especially for video's that will at best get a few hits in their lifetime).

The only conclusion to all of this is that I am wrong.  The system works.  Oliver Stone must have used "Whatever Lola Wants" in the movie Platoon and I've missed it all the times I've watched it.

So please sit back and listen to what YouTube says is Samuel Barber's and Richard Adler's collective work of "How do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" performed by Iron Maiden.


And somewhere around 2031, "Adagio for Strings" will no longer be copyright protected and YouTube will remove the content flag.  Right?
Or, since it is actually "Whatever Lola Wants" written by Richard Adler, it may be available around 2050.

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