Now here’s a crazy look into the world of major record labels, Interscope/Universal Records has used the YouTube DMCA policy to take down a song they wanted to buy for Eminem.
The story starts with North London hip hop artist Skepta. A few weeks ago he released his new album Lights, Camera, Action online and uploaded the single Dare To Dream to his YouTube account (hear it below). A few days later the video was taken down and replaced by a copyright infringement notice. Skepta had no idea why, but eventually found out last week. He tweeted: Just got a f*%king CRAZY email, I don’t know if I should be angry or privileged. This explains why the f*%k YouTube took ‘Dare To Dream’ off.
One of the first listeners who happened to hear the track online was Jimmy Lovine, the founder of Interscope Records. When Lovine heard the track he recognised the commercial potential and with help from Universal they had the track removed from YouTube on a copyright infringement claim. They then proceeded to contact Skepta’s record company with a large cash offer and Skepta signed the rights over to Interscope. Who gets the song, Eminem …
The original version is still popping up on file-sharing sites, although Universal is making sure they all get taken down quickly, but we found a version on SoundCloud.
