This is my first post to Corfid
 

I'm sorry it has to be bad news!I'm one of the producers on the Lightfoot Tribute Team. For further details see

YouTube - Message to Viewers and Subscribers -...

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

I am so sorry to know this -all your hard work! I hope the fair use issue is resolved and that you're able to carry on.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Yes, please - short sighted of Warners or whomever to try and eliminate what is basically free advertising for their artists' works. Perhaps when you find another location you can PM Char or someone on this list and we can pass it among ourselves (secret decoder ring required, lol.)

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

It looks likes even more have been removed.In order to quickly check for new uploads I had made a mental note of the total numer of videos on Tom's channel.Befores this upset it had reached161,being the 158 vistories plus 3 other videos by Tom. I did therefore wonder why it had suddenly decreased to 138 and now it is down to only 134 a loss of 27.Fortunately I have all 158
safely stored on my hard drive

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

28 as this morning :-(

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Tom,

We're all with you. As an ironic twist, I mentioned your site as well as corfid as being the ideal links to Gordon's Music. In my post Lightfoot under the Christmas tree. By the way she loved the laptop, and she has used the links.

Kevin

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Tom J - I am deeply saddened to hear of this news. And not because my request was apparently up soon for production - a very hard song I would think; however, that was not my motivation at all - 'Is There Anyone Home' ~ gl - I just have loved the mysterious nature, and soaring strings and vocals in the song.

Far more important, - the main issue at hand - the general censorship by what I hear is presumed to be Warner maybe ? As was said - what a great way to not only get free advertisement on Lightfoot and others, but to express artistically as your team has so beautifully - fitting tributes to all those songs. Work that could inspire a whole new generation of fans - thats money in the drawer for Warner/Linus/Rhino et al.... I don't get it.

I will say a little something that you folks may continue.... a noble quest indeed that you've all embarked upon in your team. Very saddened to hear this. Optimistic of another venue, though.

One Q Tom - why would they remove only some, and a minority at that ?
Or am I the only dummy here lol.... Could a pro-bono attorney - or one in corfid membership comment on the jurisprudence of this ? Are there precedent court rulings in and after the the 'reasonable use act' ?

All the best to you and the whole team, with my heartfelt thanks for the further beauty you folks complimented Lightfoot's work with.

-'geo'-Steve aka geodeticman.5

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Hey, Tom (and everyone else), did you see where RIAA is backing down on its piracy lawsuits? They lost a case recently. In part, the judge said:

"Merely making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work available to the public does not violate a copyright holder's exclusive right of distribution."

See http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9932004-7.html for the article and
http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp...080429Decision

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Thanks to all of you for your consoling comments.

As of this afternoon we are now up to 29 blocked videos. From what I understand and I don't pretend to understand everything, the issue is around the amount of royalties to be paid by YouTube to the Warner Music Group. Their negotiations have reached a stand off. From what I can gather, The Warner Music Group owns or has an interest in about 95% of Gordon's music. The ones they don't appear to have an interest in were produced in the United Artists Years and not purchased By the Warner Music Group. There aren't too many of those. Gordon also did some work with Reprise Records, HOWEVER, Reprise Records is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, so anything Gordon did with this company qualifies for blockage.

Gordon isn't the only one... I've had personal videos removed in the last week where the Warner Music Group apparently owned the rights (Atlantic Records).

To give you some sort of understanding of just how huge the Warner Music Group is, you should check out Wikipedia. There must be a huge amount of material on YouTube that the Warner Music Group has an interest in. Slowly but surely they are all being blocked... we're not the only ones.

Yesterday, I did a couple of test uploads to the Lightfoot Tribute Channel. One was the good vistory that I just completed... Can't Depend on Love. It was immediately rejected. The other, which you won't see because it is marked as private and not at all complete, is Oh Linda which from what I can tell, Warner has no interest in. Interestingly enough it was accepted on the upload.

Right now, that's pretty well all I know. For me, it's like watching someone die of cancer... SLOWLY... and knowing you can't do anything about it :-(

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

oTJ, that number now sits at 30. We lost Your Love's Return, my personal favourite :( and Sundown today. I suppose we're lucky that we haven't lost everything. I imagine that YouTube's program that hunts for matches can only do so many at a time, and I don't think they'd want to down an artist's complete song library for fear of being accused of targeting/descrimination.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Perhaps as an interim procedure the Team could consider completing vistories for the considerable quantity of songs that should not be under Warner's control, These include the 5 United Artists albums plus Harmony and the early stuff in particular the Two Tones and Early Lightfoot (with the exception of the 2 songs that escaped onto the Songbook boxset plus the Canadian Talent Library . So these could be tackled whilst Warner's wait for their new spectacles to counter their short sightedness.You should take heart that unlike TJs earlier collision with the powers that be the entire channel has not yet been summarily blocked in toto or removed as the original Stonewall Studios channel was

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

I just had another pertinent thought
As the Chairman of the Board founded Reprise I wonder if and when the Warner/Youtube Axis will tackle the scads of Sinatra videos out there .I just searched and found 21.900, including this one
"with the pictures of the most beautiful woman ever... Grace Kelly..."
That sounds very like a vistory inspired opus to me!!

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

John, you’ll find a list of members of the Warner Music Group, if you make a visit to Wikipedia or click on the link. You’ll find your Reprise label is covered there, so it is just a matter of time before the Sinatra collection and anything owned by Reprise is also blocked due to copyright infringement. In fact, some may have been already. I have lost one of my own videos that was on the Asylum Records label.

But as this is the Lightfoot Forum, I’ll bring this back on topic. You have mentioned “the early stuff” many times, but as you are also aware, we are not in possession of a complete Lightfoot Library. Are you offering? The United Artists albums also contain songs that Warner holds the copyright to. Also, the purpose of this “opus” was to produce a vistory for each and every one of Lightfoot’s songs, not just what doesn’t belong to Warner. I’m sure TJ and oTJ will agree with me in that it is still our intention to do so.

Since you brought it up, for your edification, the StonewallStudios channel was originally removed in the pre-Google/YouTube days, when infringements weren’t “blocked”, but instead, after three, the channel was closed. The talent with which the three offending vistories and the others on that channel were produced garnered a noticeable following and the channel views soared, as is the case now on the Lightfoot channel with over 5,000 views daily. The songs of the three beautiful vistories that resulted in the closing of the channel were obviously not Warner-owned. The record label obviously didn’t consider it free advertising nor were they having their pockets lined by YouTube for each view.

The Lightfoot Tribute Channel exists because TJ sought to honour Gordon Lightfoot and share the amazing music with anyone who cared to watch/listen. Our sadness now is that it is being slowly taken away from old and new fans alike. Not everyone has a complete collection, nor the technology and know-how to have downloaded each of the 158 produced so far to stash in their own personal collection. We will complete this opus, with all the Warner-owned Lightfoot masterpieces, and with or without YouTube. ~~ Lynn

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Tom,
somewhat belated I would like to thank you for all the great videos and especially my'Christian Island' - which you so kindly did for me.
I hope the problem is quickly resolved.
Blessings

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

Podunklander,

When you use the word "Tom" here it can be very confusing for our team because we have two Tom's... me being one of them. I'm not Captain Tom (TJ) who started the channel. I am Tom (oTJ). Right now I'll speak on behalf of myself which may or may not represent the Lightfoot Tribute Team's official position.

I joined at the end of July 2008 and have produced 44 of these vistories... 43 which are publicly available on the channel and 1 (last one done -- Can't Depend on Love) which was rejected on the upload to YouTube, another victim of this YouTube/Warner battle. On average, I produce one of these a week. Again, on average, it takes me about 20 hours per vistory. I'm not a LightHead or a member of Gord's Horde although I can honestly say that I've very much enjoyed doing this work in the last six months. It has been a very educational experience for me also... I could go on and on about this but I'll spare you the agony... I imagine you and everyone else have probably heard my story from others many times before. I've also met and worked with some very fine teammates. It is amazing how well we all work together.

When you mention something like "do the work through a charity", I get a little turned off. Up here in Canada, charities are heavily government-regulated, meaning lots of paperwork just to keep your charitable status. Personally, I'm quite knowledgeable about all the issues facing charities. To me that's taking it a bit too far... at least as far as the effort I'm willing to put in/contribute to the team is concerned. It just adds one more layer of complexity or hassle in my opinion which I don't need.

Although I'm not at all happy with the turn of events during the last 10 days, in the end, it's people like you Corfidians and the general public that are the real losers. Our team still retains all of our 159 vistories that we have produced to-date. And the quality of our raw source files far exceeds that of which you see on YouTube -- a lot higher resolution, screen size and detail.

And there is nothing stopping us from continuing to complete the Gordon Lightfoot opus. We just might not be able to share it with the general public which would be unfortunate, but maybe that's the way the cookie crumbles?

We do appreciate your ideas and new ideas are always welcome on our team! Thank you.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

I must admit, I don't understand a whole hell of a lot myself, but what it sounds like to me is that Warners is trying to get a strangle hold on all aspects of the entertainment industry, all in the name of profits.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

timetraveler,

Who knows but that could be a valid explanation or at least part of the story.

It doesn't matter now...the party's over now with the Lightfoot Tribute Team on YouTube. On the evening of January 8, the death toll stood at 41. We couldn't stand the slow torture any more, so we pulled the final 117 down ourselves. The Lightfoot Tribute Team has left the building. I produced the very last one (Can't Depend on Love - V159) which by that time was immediately rejected on upload.

So there you have it!

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

That is really, really sad news!
I never saw 'Can't Depend on Love'. Can I see it anywhere?
I also hope the LTT will someday resume business, someplace.
So sorry, you guys. You do such sterling work.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

In the dying hours before the death of the LTT, I actually tried twice to upload Can't Depend on Love to my own YouTube channel. I was then going to put a link to it on the Lightfoot channel. Unfortunately YouTube wouldn't let me upload even to my own channel :-(

Yesterday, in total disgust with YouTube, I tore my own channel there down also. There was not much there so it was no big deal.

No doubt, the LTT will regroup at some point. When, I don't know! Where, I don't know! Personally, I intend to continue to try to complete the opus, albeit, at a lot slower pace than I've been used to lately. Of the remaining songs we have to complete, to be honest, I'm not crazy on all of them. So in the interim, I'll just cherry pick the ones I want to do. I can share them privately with my teammates during that time, but that's it. We always did that before (for review purposes) so why not continue to do it now. So when the LTT resurfaces, I can upload them publicly then.

But until that time comes...

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

You know, I hate to be on the other side of the fence on this and I am NOT saying that Warner Bros is a wonderful and reasonable company (I wouldn't know and they may be one of the worst, although Rhino was great when Thane was there). But from the artists' perspective not just the record company there are many issues here.

First, with the internet, file sharing, and the impossibility of protecting music files, there is a real business model issue. The artists are affected, not just the record companies. As we know from Sir John, a You Tube video can be captured digitally. Or, for someone who doesn't want to play with such software, it can be recorded through the soundcard using almost any music player. So, for every video using a recorded song, people can get a good to fair full recording of the song. If they play the music on their PC or on a portable player, a modest sound quality is usually adequate (few of us buy high-end headsets to wear while biking, jogging or working out).

How many people are doing this and not buying CDs or even mp3 downloads? I don't know the answer to that, but it isn't zero. Record sales are down significantly and even adding in MP3 sales, total revenues are down.

The separate issue of how much goes to the record company, and how much to the artist, complicates things, but with tradiational record companies artists get an advance which is against future record sales. As the sales are made, the company keeps the artists' share (recording portion, not the songwriter part which always goes to the songwriter or publisher) until all the money advanced is recovered. (This process is known as recoupement). Picking random numbers, if the artist is given a 100k advance, requiring sales of 25,000 to break even, then the advance isn't earned until that many have sold. If sales go down then it takes longer. If the record never sells that number, then it is added to the sales of future records. The point is that the money is out of pocket to the record company. (It includes both the cash paid to the artist and the cost of recording, production and promotion, in return for a commitment from the artist to do certain things).

So, however much we may dislike how Warners has handled the Lightfoot catalog (letting many albums go out of print, for example), the fact that they ask You Tube to pay something for the privilege of playing their music without restriction is not unreasonable, especially since every video with music may reduce actual sales. We can't assume that the videos will create enough new fans who will buy the music, rather than just listen, or listen and capture to cover any losses due to free capture. We can hope that more people buy, but as long as total revenues are going down, it's hard to make that case.

Bottom line, if the record business reaches the point that the artist and the company that pays to record and release the music (when it isn't done by the artist himself) can't make money, then it will be harder for musicians to make a living. Even highly respected indie artists are seeing a drop in sales which are usually not made up for by downloads.

I am not sure what the answer is, but the issue is very complex. Personally, I predict that Warners and You Tube will eventually sign a new agreement. Let's hope it is sooner rather than later.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

vlmagee,

I find your point of view well-reasoned and persuasive. If I were on a jury, I'd be leaning toward your side of the fence.

I hope your prediction comes true.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

I didn't know that you even visited the site, you never posted any comments about the vistories. You must have liked them since you downloaded them all. I think it is too bad that you didn't give them any credit for their creative efforts....too late now I guess.

Re: This is my first post to Corfid
 

That is indeed a sad thing. One would think that Warners would appreciate the devotion that the group had shown, as well as all of the hard work that I'm certain you put into what you did.

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Well, there are always two sides to any story. Both posts have very interesting view points that make a lot of sense.
I will say this though, the vistories of the Tribute Team have helped me immensely in knowing what Lightfoot music I will buy. I have never looked at their videos, or any videos on YouTube, as a substitute for buying the actual cd.

I just want to say that I will miss the privilege of watching all the wonderful work the dedicated fans of the Tribute Team put up on YouTube.
I am so very sorry for what happened to you. I hope something can be worked out soon so that you can continue.