Protected

See oil painting “Armor of God” come alive in 2 minutes (time lapse)

I’m continuing with my project to upload my painting videos to YouTube, after a long break from using that platform. It seems that my videos are no longer hidden there, at least so far anyway. But, it’s a bit tedious to jump through the hoops for each video and several have copyright claims on them. I used royalty free music from sites that advertise free-use music for content creators. Apparently the catch is that some of these sites hold copyrights on the music and because only one person can claim copyright on a video, it means that I cannot claim copyright for the video myself.

When YT does the auto search for claims and gives the claim to the copyright holder of the music, it means that the content creator (me) no longer has a claim to my own video! There’s no option to split the copyright fairly. Should a mass-distributed music track be given rights that will cause a denial of copyright to all of the other creative content in a video? Well, obviously I don’t think so.

It’s not even that I expect to monetize my videos, that’s not my problem with this issue. First of all, I can’t monetize. I don’t have enough subscribers to qualify. Secondly, I have very mixed feelings about doing it. I don’t like the idea of ads on my videos that I have no control over. So what is the issue then?

It’s really more about someone else having a claim on my work. After years of unpleasant experiences, I work for myself. I don’t want unsolicited scammy partnerships where someone else takes credit for my work. I’ve had too much of that during my lifetime. It’s a spiritual thing. I am independent and don’t like to be taken advantage of.

I do understand that musicians want to be paid, but there are several honest sites that set up ways to pay these indie musicians without a sneaky copyright claim that is triggered upon publishing the video. I also give credit when the musician has expressed how to provide a credit on the video. In this way, I hope to help them get exposure.

But what I’m seeing is that at least one of these copyright claims is from a big record label. So clearly it’s not just about hungry indies wanting a fair payment. It seems as if the big companies discovered that they could stake a claim on hundreds of “nobodies” like me and then it all adds up to a lot of money. It’s volume that would generate wealth from this scheme. Indie musicians would not have that kind of volume, but a record label who has a big music library of “royalty free” download sites could have.

Anyway, it just feels off to me. Call it a gut feeling, as it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense otherwise. I don’t see monetization in my near future, and possibly never, so why should I care? Yet I feel a sense of foreboding, which leads me to the thoughts that I wanted to share in today’s blog post about being protected.

This painting is about protection, as it is inspired by a metaphor about the “Armor of God”, which comes from Ephesians 6 in the Bible. When someone wears a suit of armor, he’s weighed down but he can still move. He has to work harder to carry himself, but he is protected from harm, so it is worth the effort. This is how I felt today when I had to take this video back down and find different music for it, re-edit it, and try uploading it again.

Now, this little video hassle is not that big of a deal. I spent a lot of time explaining to you what’s going on with it, so it may seem as if I’m really agitated over this, but honestly, I only find it to be a pesky nuisance problem that is causing me to waste time doing extra tasks. It’s certainly not a crisis. It is a good example though of times when we can choose whether or not being protected is worth the effort it takes, so it makes a good point for my blog.

I find that it is nearly always worth the effort to do things “right” according to what our intuition, gut feeling, heart, common sense, logic, ability to see patterns and predict future events, understanding of human nature and manipulative tactics, and much more are telling us to do. Whether our risk is small, like this copyright claim issue, or much greater, the process is the same: in order to be protected we may be weighed down and we’ll have to put in more effort.

Apply this to anything in life. Work, money, family decisions, health and lifestyle choices, and much more- all of these can put us at risk of harm. Being protected may take effort. It may weight us down, slowing us down. It may seem easier not to care, to be free of such armor. On the other hand, we may be so anxious that we pile on too much armor and we can barely move at all. The key to this, and nearly everything, is balance.

Feeling protected is a lot like feeling loved. In fact, many people feel loved when they feel safe. And love brings happiness! So, it’s definitely worth the effort to work harder to protect ourselves from harm in all decisions, big and small. Value who you are and what you do. Eat well, live well, and love well. Respect yourself by protecting yourself.