We recently had a couple of members of Music Eternal pose a problem to us. They used audio samples of President Trump and their respective labels denied them from publishing these tracks. They were mad at the labels for not allowing this, but in their particular circumstances the labels were 100% in the right.

The reason the labels were in the right were that the bands had pulled audio from news feeds and used these as parts of their music. The problem in this is with the newer standards in digital copyright laws in 2013 that further defined what these audio clips were and how they apply on the Internet in the United States.

When you post any media (audio clips, photos, graphics, videos) on the Internet you are claiming ownership of it. For a blog, personal or business website it is anything you post on these entities. Unless you have it defined as otherwise via the terms of service or copyright agreement, it is viewed as a formal copyright claim. Unless defined by a notice on the photo or page that states it is public domain or creative commons you are claiming ownership.

This applies to social media sites, places where media is stored, or anywhere where you have to login to post or share material. In these cases, since you are a third party in the eyes of these sites, the legal rights are further defined in their terms of service, governing pages (if applicable), copyright agreement, and privacy policy pages. This is something we will touch base in future articles.