For my post yesterday, I tried to upload, to Revver, the following video of the birthday trio blowing out their candles.
I got back the following standard cookie-cutter rejection response due to a copyright violation:
Dear rasman,
Oops! Your video "Candle Blowing" is awesome, but are you sure you have rights to that music? We can't accept any videos that violate the copyrights of music artists.
If you have any questions or feel this video has been rejected in error, please respond to this email with any information that will help us verify that you own or have permission to use this music in your video
Alternately, you could re-edit the video with royalty-free music and resubmit. Go here for suggestions on royalty-free music sources. Rock!
Visit the Revver blog for updates - http://blog.revver.com
The Revver Team review@revver.com
This blew my mind, and it was late, so I shot back this less-than-tactful response:
You're kidding me, right? You're questioning the copyright of the "Happy Birthday" song? They're just singing it in Spanish.
I hope to hear back from you soon.
Erik
And then, this morning, I got back:
Dear Contributor,
The Time Warner company currently holds the copyright for the song 'Happy Birthday To You' and its copyright is licensed and enforced by ASCAP. Because Revver pays content contributors, this is considered a commercial use.
Therefore, any uncleared commercial music in your video is not acceptable for our platform.
Thank you for understanding. Cassie
One single internet search confirms it. "Happy Birthday To You" is owned by AOL Time Warner! I really thought that was a myth.
One of the things that I like about Revver is that they're tougher on copyright violations than other video services are. But what I hate about Revver is how inconsistent they can be. For instance, is my guitar rendition of "Happy Birthday To You" so horrible as to be unrecognizable as a copyright violation? What about my cover of a Grammy-winning song?? Goofballs!
I still take secret pleasure that any search for Revver's Click-Fraud policy will return my rant against them called: Revver's Click Fraud Policy: Guilty until proven innocent.
I think I'll put this post in the Complaining category. :-)