[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIh8VKw5_bM] If you're wondering why there is no sound on the above video, it's because YouTube muted the sound due to copyright violations. The song I'm covering is "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Croft, a 1972 hit.

In the exact words of YouTube: "This video previously contained a copyrighted audio track. Due to a claim by a copyright holder, the audio track has been muted."

After doing a quick search on YouTube, I found several other people covering "Summer Breeze." It turns out that copyright holders can decide what action to take against your YouTube videos if you're covering or using someone else's song, even if you give credit where credit is due. Even though there are others on YouTube covering or using the same song, they can still shut you down. What's more, it looks like they arbitrarily decide who to permit and who to not permit. Plus, how do you even find out who owns the copyrights? Some songs have more than one copyright owner. YouTube doesn't direct you in any way on how to figure it out. Funny how that works.

I get the need to protect your work, I wouldn't want anyone making money off of my work either. But where does it start and where does it stop? Doing cover videos does not make me money and it certainly doesn't take away money from the original artists? If anything it would bring more exposure to them! So what's the point of censoring?

I don't have the answers, just a whole lot of frustration. What I do know is this - If it's true that the actual copyright holder(s) of the song requested that my video (out of all the other videos covering the same song) be "muted," then someone over there knows about Anitra Jay!

Signed,

One Perturbed Indie Artist

UPDATE: As of Sunday, Nov 10 - the audio is back on. Hurray! Not sure what happened or why they decided to put the audio back on, but I sure am glad. Yayyy! :)