RIAA Shenanigans – Radio Clash Podcast gets it’s first takedown

So yesterday I woke up to this email:

July 20, 2020

Radioclash.com
Bradler & Krantz GmbH & Co. KG

X20-440681595272916

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am contacting you on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America,
Inc. (RIAA) and its member record companies. The RIAA is a trade association whose
member companies create, manufacture and distribute approximately eighty-five (85)
percent of all legitimate sound recordings sold in the United States. Under
penalty of perjury, we submit that the RIAA is authorized to act on behalf of its
member companies on matters involving the infringement of their sound recordings,
including enforcing their copyrights and common law rights on the Internet, and
including with respect to the copyrighted works identified below.

We have learned that your service is operating and/or hosting the below-referenced
infringing web site(s) on its network. These site(s) are offering files containing
sound recordings which are owned by one or more of our member companies and have
not been authorized for this kind of use, including without limitation those
referenced at the URL(s) below. We have a good faith belief that this activity is
not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. We assert that the
information in this notification is accurate, based upon the data available to us.

We are asking for your immediate assistance in stopping this unauthorized
activity. Specifically, we request that you remove the files from your system,
including any mirrored or duplicate copies of those files, and/or that you disable
all access to the infringing files and associated links, and that you inform the
uploader/s and/or site operator(s), as applicable, of the illegality of his or her
conduct.  

We also ask that you consider the widespread and repeated infringing nature of the
uploader(s) and/or site operator(s)’ conduct (as applicable), and whether that
conduct violates your terms of service and/or your company’s repeat infringer
policy.

This e-mail does not constitute a waiver of any right to recover damages incurred
by virtue of any such unauthorized activities, and such rights as well as claims
for other relief are expressly retained. In addition, our use of your service’s
required notice form, if applicable, is merely meant to facilitate removal of the
infringing material listed below and is not meant to suggest or imply that your
activities and services are within the scope of the DMCA safe harbor.

You may contact me at RIAA, 1000 F Street NW, 2nd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20004,
Tel. (202) 775-0101, or by e-mail at antipiracy@riaa.com, to discuss this notice.
We await your response.

Sincerely,
Traci Crippen
Online Content Protection
RIAA

hxxps://www.radioclash.com/archives/2020/02/20/rc-318-stormy-weather-aka-veni-vd-vichy/?pk_campaign=Podcast&pk_kwd=rc-318-stormy-weather-aka-veni-vd-vichy
george michael – i can t make you love me

Yes – in it’s 15+ year history this is the first podcast-related takedown. As a podcast and blog that covers copyright issues I have to throw sunlight on the nasties of the RIAA and related organisations, the mafia-like strong arm tactics that don’t support small artists. I have almost never been paid for my work as the music industry is a den of thieves, and RIAA is no different.

Because my host requested it, even though this file is not hosted on this server I have had to remove links to the podcast in question. I suspect removing all links is overreach of the highest legal order, but the podcast remains on Mixcloud as they pay royalties and are fully licensed.

Apart from rare platforms like Mixcloud, downloadable podcasts like mashups in most of the world cannot be licensed for music, apart from maybe the sort of hyper-expensive per-track licensing that films and TV have which still means other rights organisations can have a pop. There is a reason mainstream broadcasters have to have massive budgets apart from the BBC who have a blanket Government license, music licensing is a major part of that budget….but that is way beyond the little person, even on a non-commercial basis.

There are no exceptions even though ‘fair use’ is a thing here and in the States, it’s untested for podcasting. And the RIAA et al want it to stay that way, they don’t want caselaw with suing individual users. When it does happen, it doesn’t go well for them and gave them really bad press.

There is in fact a MCPS-PRS podcast license in the UK, but as this proves it won’t stop you from being attacked by rights bodies in other parts of the world.

And the irony is I think George Michael if he was alive would be appalled by such tactics used on fans and his audience. I think in future I will avoid Universal – for it is they the RIAA are acting on behalf of, they can fuck off if they want any more free publicity. Hey kids: don’t sign with a major label!

There is already an informal SME ban here because of their muting of live streams. And all of this is happening in a lockdown, when nearly all the legal methods of are not available to us DJs…Mixcloud being the only exception I know for live streaming and podcasts, and with a relatively new and small platform it’s hard to monetise that. How can we recoup those costs?

But the RIAA doesn’t care about DJs, podcasters and artists, only their own bottom line and major artists, who usually get the lion’s share of any royalties on an arcane and strange ‘percentage sales’ basis rather than a per case basis. So yes the smaller artists lose out.

The RIAA does not care about us smaller artists, basically.