In a stunning David and Goliath legal challenge backdown, the Axemen came out with pea-shooters and slingshots blazing to bring the heavy handed but hamfisted WARNER BROTHERS franchise to its knees after its bullying challenge to the bands right to post their own material online.
The bizarre set of events began when Warner Bros, with their hordes of copyright lawyers and the huge stick of the publishing industry behind their back simply GOT IT WRONG, accusing the Axemen of infringing copyright which it claimed on the bands own material. A simple copyright search on APRA/AMCOS records would have shown the rush-to-judgment giants that all Axemen material published and released on Flying Nun, Sleek Bott, Silt Breeze, Negative Guest List, etc. is the sole property of Sleek Bott Publishing, with royalties being divided amongst the songwriters as appropriate.
The arrogance of Warner’s in assuming because they are the top feeders, swallowing up Flying Nun from the stomach of Mushroom records as almost a burp but finding some remnants of possible income in the bowels and seeing an opportunity to squeeze out a couple bucks from the ruminant remains, is astounding and simply serves to expose their greed and arrogance and highlight some of the injustices and the inherent unfairness of the existing copyright system.
A timely reminder to register your songs and protect your rights inasmuch as they can be protected, but at least avoid the ridiculous situation where a corporate can legally force you to remove your own material from display….
You can see the allegedly offending video at the link below in the backdown email from YouTube/WMG (Warner’s Music Group).
Never let it be said the Axemen take shit from the man!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: YouTube <no_reply@youtube.com> Date: 29 July 2012 3:21:37 AM NZST To: N0ISYLAND <noneofyourbusiness@somewhere.nz> Subject: Information about your video ""Mourning of Youth" (1987) by AXEMEN" Dear N0ISYLAND, WMG has reviewed your dispute and released its copyright claim on your video, ""Mourning of Youth" (1987) by AXEMEN". For more information, please visit your Copyright Notice page Sincerely, - The YouTube Team ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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