Have you ever heard or seen “I do not own this song” accompany a social post or video upload?

Then you have witnessed blatant and admitted copyright violation, something that has run pretty rampant in all the years of social media and, now, with the advent of AI “chat” apps and platforms, even more obscured from view.

It’s time the world learned what is meant (by definition) by the word “copyright” as distinguished from “ownership” to finally sort out any and all confusion of these two vitally important and very significant terms.

We know an artist, author or the like, owns a work that he has created. That is pretty obvious. He owns it. He created it. It is not a “right” he has so much as a bold-faced fact of existence.

But an author’s creation and ownership of his work has become sufficiently confused, in our modern society, with the rights he instantly gains when it comes to the usage of his work.

When it comes to the distribution of material produced by an author (usage), that author’s rights to distribute are exclusive, and permissions are needed for anyone other than the author to duplicate and/or otherwise distribute anything created by said author. Use is what is the right in question here.

The author’s right to use and dictate how such works will be used (or not used) by others.

I know. That’s a mouthful. But I will break it down.

Copyright.

You’ll need to add the words “use,” “duplicate,” and even “distribute” to your vocabulary to really gain an understanding of it and properly apply it.

Copyright is a compound word and has become a kind of household name. It’s everywhere, but people think it’s a “brand stamp” the likes of which you may find on steer or cattle to signify ownership by a rancher.

Perhaps it is a sort of brand, but not as regards ownership. Otherwise, the word chosen may have been “ownership-right”. But the word chosen contained “copy,” and “copyright” has a very intentional and specific meaning in this regard.

”Copyright” does not mean “ownership claim”.

“Copyright” means (literally) what the word says: “Right to copy”.

A copyright is not ownership. It is the right of the author to control or dictate the “copy” (duplication) of his work. This could be if another musician wants to cover a songwriter’s song in a live performance or even on an album. Whether there is monetization involved or not, even when there are zero dollars collected by the “duplicator” (the one performing the other artist’s song), copyright law still applies.

Permission must be obtained from the original author to duplicate the work.

This applies more modernly to posting or reposting some author’s work. If you are to upload a song by an artist to a social platform, for instance, you are now “copying” that song, distributing it. The violation of copyright becomes fact, however, only if you have not obtained permission from the author of the work to so distribute the song.

Again, literally, the artist’s “right to copy” is the governing principle.

Most people think of this as music exclusively, but this is in written and spoken work too, even if it is in coaching, consulting, advising or otherwise conversing.

And there are many ways people distribute without permission, some of them getting more and more obscure from view by even the violators themselves.

Early symptoms of this abound and can be found most prominently on YouTube in the description fields of posted videos.

“I do not own this song” is an admission of violation of copyright (by its very definition) by posting it, and especially in cases of having monetized it, further making money without permission from the artist (e.g. “Billy Joel and his publishers”).

Once again, ”copyright” does not mean “ownership claim” at all, but is an indication of a special right someone is guaranteed when they do own a work they have created.

Copyright LAW protects this right for the artists so people don’t go distributing their works without their exclusive permission and to prevent making any revenue off such creations without permission (if the artist decides to give permission) and paying any due royalty to the creator of the work.

This includes publishing, sharing, broadcasting, recording or performing the song in any situation, including posting it on social media like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.

But any written, spoken, sung or otherwise dictated work is covered by copyright. And it isn’t just “uploading” those words or creations to a social platform, it is any duplication of them distributed in any way possible.

Perhaps the least obvious of which would be “chat” or other AI search engine which “learns” from your questions, prompts, and even shares of information you have received.

Should a coach, mentor or consultant give you proprietary advice, perhaps you wouldn’t consider uploading and distributing it publicly via social media. Realize, however, that when you tell it to a learning AI application, that information is being “learned” not just locally but globally by a collective of the internet. So, without knowing or realizing it, you are violating copyright.

If you do any of these things without permission from the artist, you are violating copyright.

Again, (most obviously) saying “I do not own this song” confirms this and is an admission of a copyright violation. What you’re saying is, “this song is owned by someone else who retains the rights to reproduce this song, but I am reproducing (distributing) it anyway without their permission.” As well, in this case, you may be additionally earning revenue from advertising.

The proper thing to do is to secure permission from all artists and publishers, then arrange for their proper compensation for the reproduction. 121K views times the amount of ads in revenue, you owe a big chunk to the artists and publishers.

And, in chat AI apps, consider what distribution or proprietary information does to that person’s overall work. It gives it to everyone, if indirectly, without the permission or the originator.

In the case of music, whatever the going royalty rate is times, say, 121K views is what you have “taken” from the artist and publisher, but more importantly, even if you paid these, you are cutting that artist’s rights to dictate whether or not this gets distributed in the first place.

I saw an example recently of someone posting Billy Joel music on a fully monetized channel.

The publishing indicated it was 1976 Columbia Records, a Division of Sony Music, and the copyright itself belonged to Billy Joel. That distributor owes them. Should permission and arrangement for payment of royalties be secured, the proper thing to post would be something like “©1976 Billy Joel… etc”, not “I do not own this song”.

We live in an era of sharing and distribution, and one of ignorance of the real meanings of the words that govern these activities, and even unknown violators.

Whether AI chat apps, YouTube, TikTok, or what have you, copyrights are copyrights.

Ownership is ownership.

They are not the same.

What you are doing when heeding copyright is respecting an owner’s rights to copy.

Please do respect those rights and insist that others respect yours!