Being a musician myself, I know it’s not 100% kosher to take copyrighted material and slab it onto a little YouTube action. Still, given the high-scale rampant copyright violation constantly taking place on YouTube, I hardly expected to have my little video muted by the powers that be.

To put this into perspective, my video has 60 odd views. It contains no hidden advertisements or agenda. I know this is YouTube trying to cover its ass, but I think this is going a bit too far.

(WMG is Warner Music Group.)

I decided to do a search for “Tree Hugger” on YouTube. (Note that this was not the name of my video.) So without further ado (deep breath):

• Tree Hugger by Antsy Pants and Kimya Dawson (has over 80,000 views)
• tree hugger by antsy pants (entire song for the purpose of just posting the entire song. over 900 views)
• Tree hugger by antsy pants (over 133,000 views)
• For Kimya. (and Juno) (almost 3,000 views)
• Tree Hugger (over 500 views. I like this one.)
• treehugger (over 500 views)
• tree hugger

The list goes on. Just do a simple search on YouTube for “Juno Tree Hugger” or similar. There are something like 70 listed based on that search. By the way, I did not tattle on (“Flag”) any of these people.

I don’t really see this as an issue of the music industry not “getting” the internet. I agree that artists need be compensated for their work. My problem here is that this is either a bad case of micromanagement, or (worse!) that one of the family members and friends to which I sent my video tattled on me.

I must say, though, my shopping experience was massively diminished by an auditory onslaught of overdone holiday cheer. I was cringing and trying not to vomit as I picked up a variety of decent quality, good value food items. I really wish I could describe the music in more detail, but I was trying my darndest to ignore it or repress it or whatever.

I never do this, but I just had to ask the funky, hip young woman at the register, “Doesn’t this music make you crazy?”.  She had asked me how I was doing and, uh, I wasn’t doing that well. I felt weighed down by every musical Christmas cliché possible. Her overly friendly demeanor changed quite a bit, and she responded,

“No.”

I was beginning to think I had just insulted her favorite brand of Christmas music cheese, when she trailed off with, “I don’t even listen to it. Maybe that’s why not.”

At that moment, I felt somewhat redeemed, as if my question had had some validity. No, things were definitely not right in the world, and I didn’t quite get the answer I was hoping for, but it was a start.

So, in conclusion, if you own some sort of establishment frequented by the general public and want to play Christmas music, don’t pick the stuff that tries way to hard to put people in the Christmas spirit. Don’t overdo it. Take it easy. Thank you.