America may get a law soon that would make it a felony to upload a video of yourself when Justin Bieber (or any other kind of mainstream music) is playing in the background. A felony that could get you into prison for as long as three years.
Of course the entertainment mafia behind this bill happily ignores the fact that Justin Bieber himself was discovered through YouTube; by the very music industry that is milking every cent out of him now. His career started with him covering his favourite pop songs there, something that would be a criminal act under the new law (that, by the way, would also allow any American state’s attorney to have any website of the world censored if he doesn’t like it, without any judge looking at the case).
But the USA aren’t the only country with a legal system getting raped by the music industry. Germany has the infamous GEMA. A music rights organisation that doesn’t flinch from charging kindergartens for the Christmas songs their 3-year-olds are singing. I kid you not. Their revenue for 2010 exceeded the one billion dollar mark.
Other than that they made sure that pretty much every single music video you can find on YouTube is blocked in Germany. No matter if the artist is a member of the GEMA or not. Even obscure Japanese bands who never heard of the GEMA and are uploading their own videos to YouTube are having their content blocked in Germany because the GEMA wants to see 12 cents from YouTube for every single view of any video containing music whatsoever.
As Karl points out on the Destroyer blog this has some side effects. For example this video of an 8th-grader who is telling about the bullying he is going through and his suicide attempts can be watched anywhere on the world. Just not in Germany, because his video happens to contain music.