Rights Clash on YouTube, and Videos Vanish – NYTimes.com

The Times has a good overview of some of the problems with the YouTube/Warner Music dispute and the removal of videos that infringe copyright in the strictest sense of the law, but perhaps not in the spirit of the law.  In one example, a young musician’s video of her playing Winter Wonderland on the piano is removed.  She later explains that she:

…has been hesitant lately to use YouTube as an outlet for her musical talents. “I’m kind of nervous now about putting up covers,” said Ms. Weybret, 15, who plays in a band with her friends called the Knockouts.

This is exactly the kind of creativity that copyright was not intended to stifle. How many 15 year olds have the talent to compose an entirely original song and feel that it’s good enough to post online? While there are certainly a few, I would argue that we’ve all “got to start somewhere.” By performing a cover, you get an intimate feel for how a song was constructed–you learn from it. By doing this again and again, eventually you might start writing some good songs on your own.

If we stop nascent creativity–right when it is beginning to bloom–we are doing a disservice to our culture. That’s not what laws are supposed to do.