Taylor Swift, 180 artists want copyright reform
Taylor Swift has faced down Apple and Spotify. Now, she is expressing bad blood with YouTube. Swift joined more than 180 artists and bands — among them Christina Aguilera, The Band Perry, Jennifer Hudson, Elton John, Yoko Ono Lennon, Paul McCartney and U2 — in lobbying lawmakers to update the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to address the issue of unlicensed copies of music on YouTube. The DMCA, passed in 1998 to protect digital works from infringement, has a “safe harbour” provision that protects Internet service providers and websites from copyright violations if they take down content when notified of the existence of pirated works. However, as YouTube has grown into a go-to source for legal and unofficial music, the takedown concept has become unworkable, artists say. They argue that “the law was written and passed in an era that is technologically out-of-date …. It has allowed major tech companies to grow and generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters’ and artists’ earnings continue to diminish.” Also backing the group is music mogul Irving Azoff, who manages artists such as the Eagles, Aguilera, Steely Dan. In an op-ed last month on tech site Recode, Azoff challenged YouTube, saying, “You have built a business that works really well for you and for Google, but it doesn’t work well for artists. If you think it is just the labels and publishers who are complaining, you are wrong. The music community is traditionally a very fractured one, but on this we are united.” Azoff’s comments directly challenged those of Christophe Muller, head of YouTube’s international music partnerships, posted on The Guardian music blog in April. “Music matters. Musicians and songwriters matter. They deserve to be compensated fairly,” he wrote. “We believe this deeply and have partnered with the music industry for years to ensure it happens on our platform.” Swift has been on the forefront of challenging streaming music services for improved payment. Last year, she held back new album 1989 from Apple Music, the company’s streaming service, until Apple agreed to pay royalties to artists during customers’ threemonth trial period. “Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing,” she wrote at the time. “We don’t ask you for free iPhones. Please don’t ask us to provide you with our music for free.”