I recently discovered how much fascinating stuff one can find on Youtube (thanks to a thread I opened in GQ about an obscure Celtic song). So, I since wasted a lot of time there, mostly listening music (before, I assumed it was a place where stupid teens uploaded crappy videos of their friends or something similar)
Today, I wanted to listen to a song I like a lot, but found out not only that it wasn’t available, but that there were only a couple existing videos of this singer (and not even of its best or even most well-known songs. One of the existing song is the soundtrack of a movie, for instance).
For the record, this French singer and writer has been quite famous here during the late 60s and the 70s, made a come-back during the late 80s, but his last album was apparently released 10 years ago. So, he’s apparently not any more even remotely a big star.
Well. I would like 1) to be able to add some of his songs on my Youtube selection 2)Share with people who might be interested. There’s one song in particular I’d like to upload, which never was a hit, and isn’t even available anywhere except on e-bay or similar sites (but I’m the lucky owner of the CD ).
Now, how do I go? In all likehood, my mail won’t even get a response, and if I get one, it will probably be negative, since artists generally don’t like much their material to be disseminated on the web. However, some artists don’t seem to mind and even have created their own Youtube channel, as I discovered. And it doesn’t cost anything to ask, does it?
So, assuming you’d be in my situation, what would write to the singer? How would you present your request to optimize the likehood of a positive answer? Ideally, I would like to upload several songs (amongst them some famous), though I’m particularily interested in one (apparently completely forgotten).
Since somebody is going to ask, the singer/writer is Yves Simon (I doubt anybody here has heard of him) and the mostly unknown song "La planete endormie.
The singer probably does not own the publication rights to the song, or the copyright of that particular performance. Those are the two most important legal clearances you must make.
I’d just write the letter: “Dear M. Simon, I am a fan of your works and would like to request permission to legally put some of your performances on the internet. Could you possibly put me in contact with the copyright holders of “X”, “Y” and “Z”?”
Even better if you have a specific memory or two to share with him of how his music has moved you or affected you - a concert you attended, a song that helped you get through a hard time or something similar. I have a hard time believing that any artist - especially one now out of the limelight who’s probably reading his own mail - wouldn’t be delighted to hear how his art has impacted you, if your flattery is sincere and genuine.
If you don’t have his personal address, look on the back of an album and find out what label he recorded under. Send a letter him c/o them, and they’ll forward it. (Although chances are good he’ll refer you back to their legal department in the end.)
As Walloon said, the singer probably does not own the rights to the song. And the entity that does own the rights will refuse to grant you the right to put the song up as a matter of course. And of course the TV show has a copyright on that particular videotaped performance. Legally, they have to refuse to grant permission to maintain the value of the copyright.
But the singer and the publisher are unlikely to object to you putting it up without permission. If they do object, the video will be removed. If you have videos removed several times, your account will be banned. That’s it. There is nothing to prevent you from creating another account, and virtually no chance that they will pursue the matter further.
I have literally hundreds of videos up on YouTube. A lot of them are my own shooting of performers in concert. But the rest are from my collection of stuff I taped back in the 80s and 90s. In only one case have a had a video removed, and that was a performance on Saturday Night Live - NBC has been very aggressive about going after YouTube uploaders, mainly because of their competing Hulu site.
I’ve heard from performers asking if they could get a copy of a particular performance, or if I had when they were on show X. They were on the show or made the music video (and the costs to make the music video came from their share of the royalties) but they never got a copy of the music video and didn’t get a copy of the TV show.
My advice? Create a new YouTube account for videos of this particular artist. Make your own “music video” composed of pictures of the singer and upload it. Make sure you have the singer’s name, the song name, the genre, the country the singer is from and the subject matter of the song as “tags” for the video.
The worst case is the video gets removed and that account gets closed. The best case? The singer checks YouTube, sees that someone loves his work enough to put it up, reads the comments from everyone on the video asking “why isn’t he performing anymore?”, figures “why not?” and decides to give it another try and schedules a series of shows.
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