A long list of known and respected musicians from a wide variety of genres have signed a petition against the systemic enabling of illegal streaming provided by entities such as YouTube and Google.
The petition urges Congress to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which protects companies that host user sharing from being held accountable for copyright infringement if they take down offending videos or songs when requested by the artist. Given the number of posts that go up daily on sites like YouTube, many artists have found the kind of policing involved in protecting a song from being shared illegally near impossible. The petition says that the DMCA has “has allowed major tech companies to grow and generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters’ and artists’ earnings continue to diminish.”
The list of artists is massive: Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, U2, Vince Staples, Kings of Leon, Carole King, Beck, Jack White, Trent Reznor, David Byrne, The Black Keys, Spoon, Pusha T, Miguel, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Pearl Jam, Pharrell, Yoko Ono, Ryan Adams, TV on the Radio, Roy Ayers, Mark Ronson, Lindsey Buckingham, Duff McKagan, Slash, Elvis Costello, Desiigner, Kacey Musgraves, Sade, Ronnie Spector, Rod Stewart, and Pete Townshend.
