At 7/12/18 06:03 AM, Thegamingtrickster wrote: This is a piano cover, but I'm not sure if the song is copyrighted. Can someone get back to me on that?
Welcome to copyright hell :)
So the account and rendition you posted are legit. The artist wrote their own piano cover of a song which has no piano in it. The song itself (Stealing Sheep - Shut Eye) has a copyright on it, HOWEVER it is a sound recording copyright.
Bit of an education piece on ℗. Circle P. P for Phonograph, but means "sound recording copyright". What this means is that the specific mixing of the track is protected (usually by the label). It's common outside of the US to see both the ℗ and © symbols, where the first protects the publisher by saying they have exclusive rights to that recording done in their studio. The standard © symbol is generally linked to the artist, lyricist, or composer (sometimes all, sometimes one of the above).
Back to the track. In this case I would say that the music as uploaded is fine as there are none of the original recording in it, it was composed to Piano by the uploader, and the composition and content of the original recording appear to be in the public domain (in that I have not found a copyright notice on their content from official uploads), and the music as uploaded has very clearly linked back to the song it is covering.
The industry example of how lenient ℗ is: Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and its many many covers. That song was ℗ but not ©. (source on that, and some more info).
I'm open to differing opinions, but that is my interpretation of the law.
@Jackho @NekoMika @Lexrodent if you want to weigh in.
Audio / Forum / Games & Movies Moderator. Flag stolen content, don't be a dingus.
