Don't cover Ed Sheeran songs on Facebook
LOS ANGELES — As any music fan knows, “cover” videos are huge on YouTube and Facebook. But as one singer found out, covering an Ed Sheeran song could trigger Facebook to suspend your account.
Just ask London busker Charlotte Campbell.
She posted a video on YouTube about how Facebook suspended her for three days after posting a snippet of a Sheeran cover song. That got the attention of Sheeran, who apologized.
Former Nickelodeon performer Ariana Grande got her music career started performing covers on YouTube.
On Facebook, posting covers isn't as easy. Because the social network doesn’t have licenses with music companies, it has been taking down members' videos, or worse, suspending their accounts.
Digital Music News described the situation in which Sheeran fans found they were in hot water with Facebook, and it blamed the artist, not the social network.
In her video, Campbell described the pain of going three days without her account and noted that Facebook told her that if she posted another cover video, “they will delete my account.”
Sheeran wrote her on Facebook to apologize and urge her to keep it up.
The ban "definitely has nothing to do with me," says Sheeran, who got his start posting songs on MySpace and has the No. 1 album on Billboard, his latest, Divide.
Sheeran blamed the trouble on on his record label, Warner Music. "I bloody love seeing people cover my songs," he said.
What does Facebook have to say?
Not much. The company said it's in talks with the music industry to resolve these types of situations. "We’re also working with the industry and continuing to explore solutions that may not result in the content being removed," the company said in a statement.
I should mention that I often perform my own covers of songs on Facebook, but my guitar renditions apparently sound so unlike the original that the computer bots aren't on to me yet. I’ve never received any takedown notices, but that says more about the way I perform the songs than my luck with Facebook.
For those of you who might be more faithful to the original, there aren’t a lot of great solutions for you if you're dead set on posting to Facebook. Posting videos directly to Facebook will get you more traffic than putting a YouTube video on your page, because Facebook rewards direct uploads with more eyeballs. The embed will get your video to your followers, and YouTube will handle the copyright issues.
Music fans, what songs are you covering this week? Tell me, I’d love to hear. Look for me on Twitter, where I’m @jeffersongraham. Don't forget to subscribe to the daily #TalkingTech podcast on iTunes and Stitcher.
Related:
The best critics slams of Ed Sheeran's 'Divide'