Comment by avhon1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by avhon1 | Hacker News Reader

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Firstly, how do I prove to Facebook that I have an appropriate license, or that one isn't required (for example, music in the public domain)?

Second, it is legal (in the United States) to perform or play music, even copyrighted music, at personal, private, non-commercial events. These events can be in-person or online. As an example: it is legal ("fair use") for someone in my family to strum a popular, copyrighted tune on their guitar during a family gathering. Another example: it is also legal for us to listen to music that only one family member owns a legal copy of -- this happens any time someone puts on a CD during Christmas. These perfectly legal, normal, un-bureaucratic activities seem to be prohibited by Facebook's new rules.

During COVID-19, online experiences have replaced many experiences that people would otherwise have had in-person. Facebook's rules seems to be unnecessarily restrictive, which is especially disappointing during this time when many experiences people would be having face-to-face are now taking place on its platform, or on competitors' who may imitate Facebook's policies.

Facebook doesn't require you to prove you have a license before posting. They just require you to have a license before posting. They will ask for that license if a copyright holder files a claim.

The first activity you describe is legal because a special copyright licensing regime applies to derivative musical works like strumming a tune in your guitar, so you could also steam your guitar cover of the popular song on YouTube without issue, even for commercial use. (And thousands of musical performers do, without issue.)

The second activity is part of the implied license granted by physically owning music on a licensed media like a CD. Unlike the first activity, there isn't a special licensing regime and so streaming that music online requires it's own manually acquired license... Even for non-commercial use. The license costs a few cents...

Facebook's rules aren't any more restrictive than they've always been. They're just letting you explicitly know what they have always been.

(I handled music licensing at my old job and we were a Facebook video partner back in the day so I'm very familiar with how the musical licensing works in the US.)

> Second, it is legal (in the United States) to perform or play music, even copyrighted music, at personal, private, non-commercial events. These events can be in-person or online.

But it is legal for you and Facebook to enter into an agreement to sublicense that content for Facebook's commercial use? You may get the benefit of Fair Use, but the same may not be the case for Facebook, who also must have a valid right to distribute the content.

No. You can't grant a (sub) license of rights you don't have. However, a special licensing regime applies to derivative musical works like covers of songs.

The issue here isn't legality but performance royalties. Music played over the internet is considered a performance. These royalties should be collected and paid out to recording artists, or whoever owns the master recording copyright, whenever that song is performed publicly. It's seems that FB doesn't want to pay artists these royalties.

>non-commercial events

I guess it depends on whether DJs are getting bits, subscriptions, etc. from their content.

I think the music companies are cutting off their nose to spite their face but that would probably be the argument against allowing DJs streaming mixes.

FB is not serving their users, they hedge against being rated as a publisher.

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