On Sunday I posted a YouTube video of the audio of me singing the Lord's prayer in Romanian, and unusually I sang the aria in the range of a tenor. I rarely sing that low because its not the most comfortable, and I know that I'll get lots of hate and abuse off people. The song is called, 'Tatal Nostru' (Our father). The sacred aria was written by Anton Pann (1790 - 1854). Pann was a composer and Romanian language poet.
I first heard Tatal Nostru performed by the soprano Angela Gheorghiu, and I fell in love with the piece straight away, and it wasn't until later that I discovered it was the Lord's prayer sung in Romanian. As a singer I was mostly self taught, but this is frowned upon in the opera world, but I taught myself to sing by mimicking other singers, and I was good at it 😀 I always tell people I'm not a good singer, I'm a good impressionist (of other singers). Most people don't get that that's what my music career is about, not how good my singing is, but how good my impressions of other singers are!
I naturally tried to copy the Angela Gheorghiu version, but her voice is too complicated for me to mimic, meaning her voice is far too superior. I just sound like a Russian singing, so I searched for another version to copy, and I found it. The aria was sung by a group of monks and it was so beautiful, and this one I could mimic. So I did a copy and posted it, but even though the song is in Public Domain because the composer has been dead for over 70 years, a publisher has claimed the copyright of the song.
The problem today with people who are releasing their music is they don't understand copyright and publishing laws. Nearly all of the songs I record are in Public Domain, but other singers are taking some of these 'PD' songs and releasing them, but they're claiming copyright ownership of them and this is wrong. Sometimes some people might slightly rearrange the aria and the big record companies will copyright it, lots of people in the music world don't believe they have the right to do this, but they've got lots of money and power, so no one can stop them.
I decided to delete my YouTube audio cover version because the publisher who claimed copyright over it, and the artist name was different from the one I heard and copied, so I have no idea who did that arrangement first. Once a song has been claimed by someone on YouTube, they make money each time its listened to; that's why I took my version down because I don't want the wrong person making money from someone else's hard work and arrangement.
After saying all the above, there is a problem on YouTube and its very easy for a big publishing company to claim copyright over your own music, I've seen it happen lots of times, publishers will come along and just claim music ownership and there's nothing you can do unless you have lots of money, and a legal team to challenge them. That's why I stopped writing music. There's a saying in the music business, 'A hit is always followed with a writ!' That's because there are so many greedy people out there who try to steal other people's hard work and money!
I would also warn people to be careful if you put out your own music, because I see lots of people doing cover versions and releasing them, but they claim they own the copyright, you don't, the publisher does! And if you do this you could get sued for thousands of pounds because you're stealing someone else's work. That's why nearly all the music I do is in public domain.
What I do is, if I like a particular arrangement of a song and I'm able to copy (mimic) it I will, to show people what I can do vocally; but if I find out that person has released the song commercially I usually take down my version/copy because I don't want people to credit me with the song or arrangement. I try to be fair; but the problem with YouTube and people who claim copyright to new arrangements of songs that are in Public Domain, is you could have a dozen or more people come up with the very same arrangement, because the actual song has already been written. The other problem is that you might have one hundred people record a rare classical aria, but if one of those one hundred people claims copyright on it, they take all the royalties off the ninety nine others and that's not right or fair. I strongly feel that all songs that are in Public Domain should not be allowed to be copyrighted, even if you change the original arrangement because its someone else's work you've altered.
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