News about Sony's pony music massacre on YouTube and new ways to stop it!

UPDATE 2016/04/22: Good news, everypony! Sony has stopped blocking our fan creations with the songs from the show on YouTube! Hasbro has stepped in for us!

http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/622171/victory-my-friends-sony-has-given-up-d

Go and click one of those shiny videos down there and enjoy what we create, cause we got it all back!

UPDATE: If you don't want to read the first part, that explains better how grave the situation is, but immediately want to do something, scroll down to the second part where I explain what we can still do to stop Sony's actions!

Today I got informed by SuppliedRelic that Hasbro has made a deal with Sony to distribute three new MLP: FiM soundtracks after all.
I checked the Amazon links he showed me and the soundtracks list "Legacy Recordings" as the label for all of them, which is a label that is owned by Sony Music Global. So Hasbro has indeed made a pact with the devil here:

https://www.amazon.com/Friendship-Magic-Collection-Little-Pony/dp/B01EBCRL3G

https://www.amazon.com/Friendship-Magic-Songs-Harmony-Original/dp/B01EBCRV9A/

https://www.amazon.com/Friendship-Magic-Songs-Ponyville-Original/dp/B01EB5UHFW/

Up there is the reason why Sony feels in its right to block songs from MLP: FiM on YouTube and claim monetization for them. So, what songs are affected by this exactly? Unfortunately, the soundtracks include most of the big and most popular songs of the show from the first four seasons.
Here's a list of all the songs that are affected (in chronological order):

Season 1: Giggle at the Ghostly (listed as "The Laughter Song"), Winter Wrap Up, Art of the Dress, At the Gala

Season 2: Find a Pet (Listed as "May the Best Pet Win"), Becoming Popular, Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 (Listed as "The Flim Flam Cider Song"), The Perfect Stallion, The Smile Song, B.B.B.F.F., This Day Aria, Love is in Bloom

Season 3: The Failure Song (Listed as "Twilight's Failure Song"), The Ballad of the Crystal Ponies, Babs Seed, Raise This Barn, What My Cutie Mark Is Telling Me, I've Got To Find A Way (Listed as "Find a Way"), A True, True Friend

Season 4: Hearts Strong As Horses (Listed as "Hearts as Strong as Hooves", derp much?), Bats, Generosity, Apples to the Core, Glass of Water, Make a Wish (Extended Version), Music in the Treetops, Find the Music in You, Flim Flam Miracle Curative Tonic, You'll Play Your Part, Let the Rainbow Remind You

Additionally, the theme song from the opening of MLP: FiM is on there too.

So far, all the songs from S1 - S4 that aren't listed here, all S5 songs and Applebloom's song "Out On My Own" from "On Your Marks" of the current season aren't affected. There is also nothing known of plans to release soundtracks for Season 5 and Season 6.
So far. If those soundtracks up there sell well, then there will soon be more and then Sony's rampage becomes even bigger and more severe than it already is.

For what kinds of videos get taken down exactly, there is a possibility that Sony doesn't dare to touch videos with the songs that contain visual content owned by Hasbro, aka the scenes of the show that contain the songs, which would mean at least the popularity of the show that is to large parts owed to the upload of the songs isn't in danger.
But even this is very unsure, as I could find at least a few videos that were blocked by Sony which do contain visual content that Hasbro owns:

As can be seen by looking at the titles and descriptions of the videos, Sony is not only claiming the original, english versions of the songs that are on the soundtracks, it also claims language versions of the songs in French, Italian, German, Latino, Russian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Brazilian portuguese, dutch, japanese, european portuguese, polish, spanish, slovak, hungarian, czech and romanian.
19 different languages. Impressive, isn't it? I guess Sony must justify blocking the songs worldwide somehow.

Sony: We block the songs for every country of the world and if we block the songs in all the foreign languages of the countries they can't be watched in anymore, then people will sure be more accepting of it and don't make us trouble because of it. IT'S THE PERFECT PLAN!

Pinkie Pie: Hey, stop quoting me, you dumb InsertWordICan'tSayBecauseChildrenWatchMe! You don't own what I say, stop claiming my words as yours!!!!!!

With that in mind, it's fairly safe to say that Sony is not even stopping for Hasbro's visually owned content. If it blocks song uploads containing said content in languages in which the songs aren't even on the soundtracks, then it will definitely block uploads in english language too, visual content or not.
This means, over time there won't be any uploads of most of the songs from S1 - S4 be accessible on YouTube anymore soon. If there will ever be S5 and S6 soundtracks, the songs of those seasons will be met by the same fate.
Same goes for all the songs of any future seasons My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic will get. As soon as there is an official soundtrack that is distributed by Sony, those songs will get the axe on YouTube.
This is a very grave thing, as the popularity of the show relies to huge parts on the to YouTube uploaded songs.
What Sony does here is nothing short of ruining Hasbro's business, as shrinking popularity of the show = shrinking toy sales. For us, this would mean that the show will get cancelled soon because Hasbro's toy sales break in. Sony is threatening everything that is dear to us AND dear to Hasbro here.

And letting these already sad facts aside for a moment, it of course means, even more so, the slow destruction of our creative endeavors with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as a lot of these that get uploaded to YouTube rely on the songs from the show. Here are a few examples of the SFM Ponies scene that got blocked by Sony for containing songs of the show that are on the soundtracks:

[SFM Ponies] Find A Way (My First SFM Project) by GeekBrony:

[SFM Ponies] Bats - Make Them Go by WitchTaunter:

A True, True Friend [SFM/MLP Re-creation] by Nutrafin (Yes, THIS ONE!):

[SFM PONIES] You'll Play Your Part by TwiJybe SFM:

All of these got blocked worldwide and monetized because Sony now has distribution rights for the soundtracks these songs are a part of. Needless to say that what Sony did here is against Fair Use as the videos here are transformative works; while Sony does have distributions rights on the soundtracks, it does not have rights on the visual content seen in these videos. The rights still belong to other people, the trademark on the characters seen in it belongs to Hasbro, all of the SFM assets, including the ponies, belong to the respective creators. And yet, Sony claims ALL of this content as its own. Watch Sony eventually lifting this block for a few countries and then cashing in with these creations, instead of the creators who should rightfully receive the money from monetization.
The mentioned videos up there cause, monetization by the creators or not, also no financial or economic harm to Hasbro, which makes another requirement for Fair Use fulfilled. Look at the definition of "Fair Use" here:

http://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

Equally worse as this is the fact that Sony will also attack pony musicians who make mostly original pony music, as many of them like to use snippets of the songs from the show in their tracks.
Do you love the mashup tracks Foozogz makes? Yeah, those will probably be put on the chopping block next by Sony. Not to mention his actual remixes of the songs from the soundtrack.
And of course, the actual remixers, who provide everyone with new creative versions of the songs of the show without asking for money for them, will be hit the hardest by this. The process of blocks of their remixes has already started:

Yep, PonyFireStone's remix of "Hearts Strong As Horses" is blocked worldwide by Sony now. Many more will follow soon. And to top it off, even musicians who make something as simply as vocal covers of the songs are getting attacked. Here's a channel that contains some covers that were done in collaboration with no one else than MandoPony, scroll a little further down and check out some uploads to find them blocked by Sony:

https://www.youtube.com/user/BronyDuet/videos

MandoPony himself made some covers of these songs, so they are expected to be blocked soon too, if they aren't already, that is. So, you are not even safe if you dare to film yourself while singing one of the show's songs and upload this video to YouTube now.
Do you sometimes make vocal covers of songs like "Hearts Strong As Horses" or "You'll Play Your Part" and share them with others? Sony is blocking your voice now. This has the magnitude of cracking down on freedom of expression, because all you do then is singing a song from the show the way you like and can. Apparently, Sony believes to own your voice.

So, this is how the situation looks now. Sony is owning distribution rights on a bunch of new MLP: FiM soundtracks and it is using these rights to destroy us, to destroy what our community has built up over more than five years now and we have to sit and watch everything crumbling and falling apart.
There is nothing we can do, this is a battle we can't win. (Yeah, I went there. Come and sue me, Sony!)
Everything is over. Everything is lost. Right?

WRONG.

Despite the distribution rights Sony holds on these soundtracks, now that we know that those exist, its nefarious plan still has gigantic flaws, that not only make Sony's actions ridiculous, but also dangerous for itself.
While it has the distribution rights, it does still not have any copyrights or trademarks on the songs or the characters singing these songs. All these rights are still with Hasbro and only Hasbro.
All the distribution rights allow Sony to do is to put the name of its label on the soundtracks, to advertise them (to some extent), to offer them for sale at several platforms, probably including its own platforms, and to get a little shared profit of the sales Hasbro makes with these soundtracks.
And that's it.
It is not legally allowed to act on Hasbro's behalf by blocking the videos and put monetization on them.
YouTube offers doing those options to copyright holders, but Sony isn't a copyright holder of these songs. Hasbro is.
So what Sony is doing here is imposing itself on Hasbro, pretending it has exclusive rights on the songs and acting out these fake rights, trying to earn money with Hasbro's property by monetizing the claimed and blocked videos and directly threatening Hasbro's profit by blocking pretty much everything that creates the free advertisement for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic that bronies provide and that has become so important for Hasbro over the years, as this is what made the show popular in the first place and what made it possible that it got more than three seasons.
This is the same thing that Shout Factory did years ago with clips from the show on YouTube, it believed it holds all the rights on MLP: FiM just for getting the distributions rights for the DVDs.
And there's still applying Fair Use, distribution rights or not. Look up the definition of "Fair Use" and when it applies behind the link above to see for yourself.
All of these things put dents into Sony's plan and put Sony highly at risks of lawsuits, not only from content creators based on Fair Use grounds but also from Hasbro itself because it's illegally using Hasbro's property.
This is why we STILL can do something. And here's what we can do:

1. Don't buy the three soundtracks "Friendship is Magic Collection", "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Songs of Harmony" and "Friendship Is Magic: Songs of Ponyville" and let Hasbro and Sony know about that.

This is already the big thing. Consumer power is not to be underestimated. If most people don't buy these soundtracks out of protest against what Sony does with its distributions rights, then Hasbro will soon realize that getting Sony as a partner wasn't such a good idea afterall.
I don't know if this will lead to it that Hasbro breaks with Sony again and searches for other distribution partners for future soundtracks (that would be preferably, though, in addition to stop Sony from what it is doing right now), but it will definitely make Hasbro act and tell Sony to calm the buck down and to stop using its property and enacting rights it doesn't even have.
The first thing is going to happen anyway, as Sony is already causing havoc for Hasbro without taking the future sales of these soundtracks into account, but if Hasbro sees that Sony is directly hurting the sales of the soundtracks they made those deals for, then it will definitely act faster and sooner and it will also increase the chances that it parts with Sony again.
The soundtracks have their official release tomorrow, April 22nd 2016.
Don't buy these soundtracks and tell Sony and, most importantly Hasbro, that you won't do so until the rampage of Sony on YouTube does stop!

2. Make your videos private and file appeals on the grounds of Fair Use if any of your videos was blocked by Sony.

The important thing to understand here is that the videos aren't gone. They were not deleted from YouTube, they are just blocked worldwide so that no on except the uploader can see them anymore.
The block can be lifted to let the videos getting reinstated by Sony OR Hasbro anytime. And since Sony is still not holding any copyrights that would legally allow it to do all these things in the first place, your appeal will reach Hasbro and Hasbro is the one that will look into this appeal and answer to it.
This is another way of letting Hasbro know what Sony does.
And if all should fail, YouTube not only offers you the option to file appeals against copyright claims, but there is also the counter notification process (skip to 2:55 in the video to hear about it):

As the video explains, this allows you to file a legal form directly based on DMCA laws. And this is above the jurisdiction of YouTube, as well as Hasbro and Sony itself.
If you do this, it only leaves a company claiming one of your videos two options anymore: Either letting your video alone or suing you.
This is a risk no company will take if you confront them in your counter notification with it that it violates your Fair Use rights, as court will most likely judge in your favor based on that.
It especially won't risk it if a lot of people do this. This is the second thing big corporations are afraid of aside from angry customers who don't buy their products; lost money because of court decisions that were made against them.
You also don't have to worry about Fair Use not applying to YouTube. YouTube is indeed operating on Fair Use standards, as even the definitions of Fair Use and a general explanation what Fair Use is can be found on its site:

https://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/fair-use.html#yt-copyright-four-factors

Make your videos private, appeal Sony's claims and, if necessary, send legal counter notifications!

3. Continue to alert Hasbro of Sony's illegal doing.

Write Hasbro or call it and tell it that Sony is trying to earn money with its IP. Here are all the ways to contact Hasbro again:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hasbro (Make sure to include a link to this journal entry here if you tweet Hasbro, as tweets are too short to convey much. You can find an URL shortener here: http://derpy.me/)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mylittlepony/ (There doesn't seem to be an actual official Hasbro facebook page for the company as a whole, but there are Hasbro employees who confirmedly take care of this site, so messages get read by someone related to MLP: FiM. For some reason the URL doesn't get displayed correctly, just type in "facebook.com/mylittlepony" to reach the page.)

E-Mail: [e-mail]

Phone: [phone] (Toll free)

Postal address:

Hasbro, Inc.
1027 Newport Avenue
Pawtucket, RI 02862.

Below is the updated template for writing Hasbro. Feel free to copy/paste it and send it to Hasbro, but also make sure to add something personal by you if you can think of something to give your mail more impact! You can of course use it for letters too, just replace "e-mail" with "letter" in the text then:

Header: In regards to takedowns of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic songs by Sony.....

Dear Hasbro,

today it became apparent that Sony, the company you recently agreed with on a licensing deal for distributing the "Equestria Girls: Friendship Games" and the recently released Christmas album "It's A Pony Kind Of Christmas", has begun blocking videos containing the songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". The videos in question get blocked by Sony worldwide and afterwards, Sony claims the videos and switches on the monetization of them.
This procedure by Sony is in effect for clips from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" that contain one of the numerous songs that are a part of it, audio-only uploads of the songs, special versions of the songs uploaded by fans like instrumental or acappella versions, fan-made remixes, cover versions of the songs and music videos containing one or more songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic". The same goes for other fan-made creations, like custom-made animations that contain one of these songs and original music that only uses snippets of the songs.
All of the uploads mentioned get blocked in every country of the world by Sony and then Sony starts to monetize off of these videos.
As a big fan of the show "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and the many fan creations that are made for it, I am writing you to ask you to step in in this case and stop Sony's actions.

I am aware of it that Sony holds distribution rights on the soundtracks "Friendship is Magic Collection", "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Songs of Harmony" and "Friendship Is Magic: Songs of Ponyville", but I also know that Sony does not hold any copyrights on songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" that are part of these soundtracks.
This e-mail is also meant to alert you of it that Sony, by monetizing these songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic", is trying to make profit off of your intellectual property.

Furthermore, by blocking uploads of the songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and remixes and covers thereof, Sony is systematically destroying something that is a very huge part of brony and general My Little Pony fan culture.
Fans of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" have provided free advertisement for this show for years by uploading the songs of the show and fan-made creations that use these songs.
Many of these uploads have several 100,000 views on YouTube, some even viewer numbers that reach up to 1,000,000 views and beyond. The upload of the songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and the creations that are made with the help of these songs are to very large parts responsible for the ever growing popularity of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and have attracted countless of new fans who started to watch "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and started to buy toys and merchandise based on it over the years.
A high number of these new fans made this decision after listening to the songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" as their high quality convinced them of it to give this show a chance.
Sony blocking these songs and the creations fans make with them is hurting this highly positive development and it is discouraging fans of "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" to continue with creating the fan-made content that provides this free advertisement.
If Sony should succeed with removing the songs from "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and the fan content based on them from YouTube, it is not only hurting the worldwide My Little Pony fan community, but Hasbro as well.
Sony succeeding with its plan would mean that one of the main advertising factors for "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" and the only free one gets lost for your company. It would hurt the popularity of the show and it would hurt your toy and merchandise sales as a direct consequence.
What Sony does would lead to a situation that is a disaster for everyone who holds value in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic", be it economically or out of passion for one of the best animated shows in animation history.

Please step in and tell Sony to stop the destruction of the "My Little Pony" fanculture and to hurt your profit with the "My Little Pony" franchise by earning money with your IP and by ruining the free fan-provided advertisement for your franchise.

Sincerely

Go and write/call Hasbro and tell it that Sony is unlawfully exercising control over its own property and trying to earn money with it!

4. Write Sony as well and inform it that it is breaking laws.

Sony is, like any other company, afraid of Fair Use for all the reasons mentioned above and being confronted with it that it illegally uses the intellectual property of another company is something it won't and can't ignore for its own sake. And be as angry as possible as well, it will further ignite Sony's fears and that's the only language it will really understand!
Here's again how to get through to Sony:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sony

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sony (Same as for Hasbro, include a link to this journal due to the short nature of tweets. Make Sony afraid! URL shortener here: http://derpy.me/)

Write Sony and remind it on it that its actions are illegal and against several laws!

5. Spread The Word!

This is crucial as well. If you have something to reach many people anywhere; a Facebook page, a homepage, a website, a Twitter account, a blog or anything that lets you spread the word, tell others about the situation and include a link to this blog entry!
Notice, though, that reposting my text here on your FIMFiction.net blog is unfortunately against the rules regarding spam, so if you want to spread the word, use another site or distinct your blog entry enough from mine and, at best, only link to my blog entry here, to not break any rules and risk a ban!
If possible, make videos where you explain the situation and what can be done about it and upload them to YouTube!
This is something that needs to become viral quickly and as much as possible, to prevent Sony from destroying our community and everything that we have built up over the last years, so let everyone know in all the ways you can!

These are hard times for the brony fandom, the hardest times we ever had to went through, as what Sony does now will destroy the whole pony video/song/remix creators scene, one of THE main structes of our fandom's foundation, if it isn't stopped. But it isn't the first time that the brony fandom stood together in a hard time and fought together against some injustice we had to endure and it wouldn't be the first time we win.
We can stop Sony from destroying us and together we will, so take action now and protect our achievements of more than five years of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic! /)

Comments

[Fracturedheart]

I love greed!!!!!!! Buckers..

[Fluttercheer]

3886615

I'm not sure if your comment is meant to sarcastically make fun of Sony for doing this, but if you're serious, you're at the wrong place here.

[Fracturedheart]

3886759 Really? Its this one "sarcastically make fun of Sony for doing" I was being sarcastically.

[Fluttercheer]

3886814

Good. This whole situation is pretty stressing me out so I can't make heads or tails anymore right now.
Please act against Sony and spread the word.

[Fracturedheart]

3886827 I am going to hit utube tonight and spread the word. Mind if I link your blog?

[Fluttercheer]

3886831

Go for it, that's what it's there for. Please link the video here once you have uploaded it so that I can watch it.