Hi All,

Youtube User ZeroFossilFuel is a very good builder and I have linked his Youtube account
also in the left menu over here at overunity.com

In his latest movie he used at the end of his new Stove movie an old Ragtime music song
of around 1900, which shurely has all music rights already expired..

Now Youtube blocks his movie in Germany and tell us, that
GEMA (the German Music license company) has ordered to block the video...

See the attached picture how it looks inside Germany, if you want to watch his latest movie.

ZFF also compiled a thread about this here:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=3cae54f86435cb42&hl=en

Please help him by adding your comments there, so Youtube can unblock
his movie.

P.S: You can still see his movie in Germany, if you use one of the many Youtube proxy servers,
like:
http://www.proxfree.com/youtube-proxy.php
but these restrict normally the resolution of the videos and spam your PC with lots of
ads and sometimes also with virusses and trojan horses programs, so be careful.


All in All, GEMA is a very annoying company. As I was myself in earlier year a member of them,
cause I composed a few music pieces, I got some royalities when the music was played on the radio,
but their payout was always very unfair and only the old members and classic music artists and their stuff
 got a much bigger share
than the normal musician, so I quit being member there and now they have a dispute with Youtube, cause
Youtube only wants to pay them a flat fee, but GEMA wants 1 cents per view, which is just ridicilous !

GEMA could be happy, if they get at all any money for the music in youtube videos...

So GEMA really sucks and maybe you can also tell them this...

Please post to this thread and the upper thread at the Youtube support channel.

Many thanks.

Regards, Stefan.

Agitating to say the least. Disney is one of my biggest agitations. They came into Florida and helped destroy the pristine environment and continue to do so. To add insult to injury.

"Brand experts reckon his value to today's Walt Disney Co. empire at more than $3 billion. Acts of Congress have extended Mickey's copyright so long that they provoked a Supreme Court challenge, making Mickey the ultimate symbol of intellectual property."

 Greed mongers can change laws and have the Army to back it up!

Open letter to the GEMA

I understand that your organization is entrenched in a great big pissing contest with YouTube over music royalties. Meanwhile, YouTube content publishers, their audience, and even the music authors whose best interests you claim to represent all lose.

First of all, you are clinically INSANE if you believe you should be paid $0.01/view of any YouTube video containing music composed by a music author that you do legitimately represent.

Secondly, my latest YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqFxcpj3KEo is being blocked by YouTube in your name because it "MAY contain music for which GEMA has not granted the respective music rights." The music in question is Maple Leaf Rag, composed by Scott Joplin in 1899 and is IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN! You are CRIMINALLY insane if you believe you can claim rights to this music and get away with this obvious extortion!

Your organization is much like any labor union. It has grown so large that it no longer represents the best interests of its members. Rather, it now exists as an entity of its own whose sole purpose is self preservation, even at the expense of its membership. It is time for your membership to abandon you. In whose behalf will you extort then?

GEMA = German Extortionist Mafia Association

Oh, and have a nice day!