Can I share smule songs on a YouTube channel ?

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I am planning to start a YouTube channel for upcoming singers. 

My query is whether I can download and share a smule video on YouTube channel ? Is it legit ? Or will there be a copywriter issue as smule is having original soundtracks ?

Anybody tried this and had any issues ?

[[Member open…]]

Smule allows social media sharing, but there can still be issues. Most songs on Smule are not official Smule songs, but community uploads where the publication of the song wasn’t negotiated with the rights owners. 

And of course the singers in the collaborations might not agree to having their songs posted on YouTube where the upload is out of their control. 

[[Member sdr…]]

1 hour ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

I am planning to start a YouTube channel for upcoming singers. 

My query is whether I can download and share a smule video on YouTube channel ? Is it legit ? Or will there be a copywriter issue as smule is having original soundtracks ?

Anybody tried this and had any issues ?

You can.  But any kind of monetizing the videos will not work for you. The benefits  will be for the original  music creator.

Don't do it too formally like asking the other singer permission etc... Post it and go forward. Already these videos are public anyway (at www.smule.com) so dont worry about posting it anywhere. 

[[Member sdr…]]

1 hour ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

whether I can download and share

No need to download. Share directly from the song page to your youtube account.

[[Member open…]]

Quote

Already these videos are public anyway (at www.smule.com) so dont worry about posting it anywhere. 

Sorry, that is absolutely wrong. The fact that something is already public doesn’t mean that one is free to publish it somewhere else. The entire foundation of copyright is that the copyright owners can decide over every copy. If an image is licensed for a particular website and public there, I still can’t just take that image and publish it on my website. It’s the same with music and all intellectual property. 

Also, keep in mind: for any collaboration on Smule, the participants stay in control of that recording. For any song I take part in, I can change my mind in the future and delete that particular song or even my entire account, which would also remove all my songs from Smule. If someone else takes the full recordings and posts them on YouTube, they are now completely out of my control. I can’t delete them. I can’t change my username. Nothing! That is a problem. Personally and legally. And that’s why the Smule songs we publish on Sing.Salon are all just embedded, never uploaded to our own server. If someone deletes the recording on Smule, it will also disappear from our website. As it should be. 

(For the sake of completeness: Taking the entire copyrighted work is always a problem. There are legal exceptions for posting a short piece of a song, thumbnails of copyrighted work, short quotes of a text and so on. That’s why something like Instagram stories and posts with Smule content are usually tolerated.)

And finally, it’s bad advice to suggest to YouTubers to use such practices. You are right, that typically copyrighted music in YouTube video will just mean that the video cannot be monetized. But constantly and intentionally posting content against the will of rights owner can actually get your YouTube account deleted rather quickly for the reasons mentioned before. Three copyright strikes and the account is gone. 

 

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51 minutes ago, sdr said:

You can.  But any kind of monetizing the videos will not work for you. The benefits  will be for the original  music creator.

Don't do it too formally like asking the other singer permission etc... Post it and go forward. Already these videos are public anyway (at www.smule.com) so dont worry about posting it anywhere. 

It's ok  if the songs cannot be monetised. The whole purpose is to expose the singers to the general public. 

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2 hours ago, opentype said:

Smule allows social media sharing, but there can still be issues. Most songs on Smule are not official Smule songs, but community uploads where the publication of the song wasn’t negotiated with the rights owners. 

And of course the singers in the collaborations might not agree to having their songs posted on YouTube where the upload is out of their control. 

I have a small query. Is the background music taken from original soundtracks is legit ? How small handles it ? I mean did small purchased the rights of these tracks ?

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1 minute ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

The whole purpose is to expose the singers to the general public. 

In that case I would suggest either not to use YouTube at all, or to ask every singer you want to feature first. 

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9 minutes ago, opentype said:

Sorry, that is absolutely wrong. The fact that something is already public doesn’t mean that one is free to publish it somewhere else. The entire foundation of copyright is that the copyright owners can decide over every copy. If an image is licensed for a particular website and public there, I still can’t just take that image and publish it on my website. It’s the same with music and all intellectual property. 

Also, keep in mind: for any collaboration on Smule, the participants stay in control of that recording. For any song I take part in, I can change my mind in the future and delete that particular song or even my entire account, which would also remove all my songs from Smule. If someone else takes the full recordings and posts them on YouTube, they are now completely out of my control. I can’t delete them. I can’t change my username. Nothing! That is a problem. Personally and legally. And that’s why the Smule songs we publish on Sing.Salon are all just embedded, never uploaded to our own server. If someone deletes the recording on Smule, it will also disappear from our website. As it should be. 

(For the sake of completeness: Taking the entire copyrighted work is always a problem. There are legal exceptions for posting a short piece of a song, thumbnails of copyrighted work, short quotes of a text and so on. That’s why something like Instagram stories and posts with Smule content are usually tolerated.)

And finally, it’s bad advice to suggest to YouTubers to use such practices. You are right, that typically copyrighted music in YouTube video will just mean that the video cannot be monetized. But constantly and intentionally posting content against the will of rights owner can actually get your YouTube account deleted rather quickly for the reasons mentioned before. Three copyright strikes and the account is gone. 

 

A bit serious query. If it's not advisable to share on youtube , can I make my own site for uploading of smule songs ? will it be free of any copywrite issues ?

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1 minute ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

Is the background music taken from original soundtracks is legit ? 

As mentioned, it depends. Only songs from the officially Smule songbook are fully licensed. Community uploads are mostly not licenses for this use. So, technically, they aren’t even legal to be on Smule, let alone be shared outside of the platform. 

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1 minute ago, opentype said:

In that case I would suggest either not to use YouTube at all, or to ask every singer you want to feature first. 

Its ok. I have already asked the singers who are either joining me or whom I am joining. Is it ok to upload on youtube ? Since smule songs will be having copywriter issues and youtube will not allow monetisation , things become simples for me as there will be no revenue and so no issue of sharing the revenue.

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1 minute ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

A bit serious query. If it's not advisable to share on youtube , can I make my own site for uploading of smule songs ? will it be free of any copywrite issues ?

Yes, that is possible. You can copy the embed code for a song directly from Smule:

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1 minute ago, opentype said:

As mentioned, it depends. Only songs from the officially Smule songbook are fully licensed. Community uploads are mostly not licenses for this use. So, technically, they aren’t even legal to be on Smule, let alone be shared outside of the platform. 

You mean officially Smule songbook are fully licensed. So it means smule has purchased rights of these tracks ? right ?

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Just now, Naresh_Kumar said:

You mean officially Smule songbook are fully licensed. So it means smule has purchased rights of these tracks ? right ?

Yes.

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1 minute ago, opentype said:

Yes, that is possible. You can copy the embed code for a song directly from Smule:

Thanks for your encouraging answer. My idea is to have a site which will be open to all and will be advertised as a platform to listen to upcoming singers. But specifically smule singers will be able to upload /share their songs and can participate in any contest . My only concern is that there should not be any copywriter issues from the smule company ?

[[Member sdr…]]

52 minutes ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

It's ok  if the songs cannot be monetised. The whole purpose is to expose the singers to the general public. 

Just type #smule and search on youtube. See the recordings. Do you think all these recordings are going to get copyright strike? 

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Just now, sdr said:

Just type #smule and search on youtube. See the recordings. Do you think all these recordings are going to get copyright strike? 

Hmm I just noticed that smule has a youtube channel also :). They are posting lot of smule songs there. 

[[Member sdr…]]

Read the above also. Just to have an alternative perspective. 

[[Member Nare…]]

56 minutes ago, sdr said:

Read the above also. Just to have an alternative perspective. 

OOPS .... !!! Now that is a big news.

So this is what I was expecting. Its because nobody has the pockets to take copywriter rights of bollywood ( indian music industry ) tracks. 

Kindly answer my query. What if I make a site where smule and starker singers can upload/share their songs. The site will be like youtube platform but for music only. But it will be a free site and no monetisation will be there for any song. Do you think that will be a safe venture ? 

[[Member sdr…]]

3 hours ago, Naresh_Kumar said:

What if I make a site where smule and starker singers can upload/share their songs

I don't think they would interfere in such a portal because in reality it's free advertisement for them. And certainly you are not into the same business as theirs.

[[Member Rock…]]

14 hours ago, opentype said:

Sorry, that is absolutely wrong. The fact that something is already public doesn’t mean that one is free to publish it somewhere else. The entire foundation of copyright is that the copyright owners can decide over every copy. If an image is licensed for a particular website and public there, I still can’t just take that image and publish it on my website. It’s the same with music and all intellectual property. 

Also, keep in mind: for any collaboration on Smule, the participants stay in control of that recording. For any song I take part in, I can change my mind in the future and delete that particular song or even my entire account, which would also remove all my songs from Smule. If someone else takes the full recordings and posts them on YouTube, they are now completely out of my control. I can’t delete them. I can’t change my username. Nothing! That is a problem. Personally and legally. And that’s why the Smule songs we publish on Sing.Salon are all just embedded, never uploaded to our own server. If someone deletes the recording on Smule, it will also disappear from our website. As it should be. 

(For the sake of completeness: Taking the entire copyrighted work is always a problem. There are legal exceptions for posting a short piece of a song, thumbnails of copyrighted work, short quotes of a text and so on. That’s why something like Instagram stories and posts with Smule content are usually tolerated.)

And finally, it’s bad advice to suggest to YouTubers to use such practices. You are right, that typically copyrighted music in YouTube video will just mean that the video cannot be monetized. But constantly and intentionally posting content against the will of rights owner can actually get your YouTube account deleted rather quickly for the reasons mentioned before. Three copyright strikes and the account is gone. 

 

This. 100% this.  It's important to ask the other singer if it's ok and get a response back. 

It's their voice and they agreed to share it on Smule.  Anything beyond that requires both people in the collab to give their blessing. 

[[Member sdr…]]

1 hour ago, RockMeSlowly said:

It's important to ask the other singer if it's ok and get a response back. 

Assuming that 99.5% tracks on smule are illegal, any duet made with them are equally illegal. How much more illegal is taking one such duet and posting it elsewhere? For smule or other singer to object the duet should be recorded on a legal track. That is near impossible with current situation in smule.

[[Member open…]]

It’s not merely a matter of legality. It’s also a matter of being a decent human being who respects the concerns and wishes of other Smule singers. 

[[Member Isa_…]]

On 12/31/2021 at 9:17 PM, Naresh_Kumar said:

It's ok  if the songs cannot be monetised. The whole purpose is to expose the singers to the general public. 

It is very unethical to post the collaboration outside Smule, for courtesy you need the permission of the singer.. It was recorded for public (only in Smule)  but that doesn't mean you post it everywhere in the social media.. 

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55 minutes ago, Ysabel_aus2019 said:

It is very unethical to post the collaboration outside Smule, for courtesy you need the permission of the singer.. It was recorded for public (only in Smule)  but that doesn't mean you post it everywhere in the social media.. 

Thanks for your advise , but who is posting the collabs without the singer consent ?