So for a few years I've been posting music to my soundcloud account,
mostly extreme metal I write for two solo artist of mine. As of late, a
theme has popped into my lyrics, a not-so-clean theme that I don't
normally write about, wanking. But since I am massively pro-wanking(tm) I
decided to write 2 songs about it. So I uploaded one, not realizing,
that soundcloud's terms of service say you can't do that, your content
cannot be sexually explicit.... WTF! Here is the exact text from the
terms and services section:
"Representations and Warranties
You hereby represent and warrant to SoundCloud as follows:
(i) Your Content, and each and every part thereof, is an original
work by you, or you have obtained all rights, licences, consents and
permissions necessary in order to use, and (if and where relevant) to
authorise SoundCloud to use, Your Content pursuant to these Terms of
Use, including, without limitation, the right to upload, reproduce,
store, transmit, distribute, share, publicly display, publicly perform,
make available and otherwise communicate to the public Your Content, and
each and every part thereof, on, through or via the Website, any and
all Services and any Linked Services.
(ii) Your Content and the availability thereof on the Platform does
not and will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party,
including, without limitation, any intellectual property rights,
performers’ rights, rights of privacy or publicity, or rights in
confidential information.
(iii) You have obtained any and all necessary consents, permissions
and/or releases from any and all persons appearing in Your Content in
order to include their name, voice, performance or likeness in Your
Content and to publish the same on the Platform and via any Linked
Services.
(iv) Your Content, including any comments that you may post on the
Website, is not and will not be unlawful, offensive, abusive, libellous,
defamatory, obscene, racist, sexually explicit, ethnically or
culturally offensive, indecent, will not promote violence, terrorism, or
illegal acts, or incite hatred on grounds of race, gender, religion or
sexual orientation.
(v) Your Content does not and will not create any liability on the
part of SoundCloud, its subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, and
assigns, and their respective employees, agents, directors, officers
and/or shareholders.
SoundCloud reserves the right to remove Your Content, suspend or
terminate your access to the Platform and/or pursue all legal remedies
if we believe that any of Your Content breaches any of the foregoing
representations or warranties, or otherwise infringes another person's
rights or violates any law, rule or regulation."
Look at part 4 above:
"Your Content, including any comments that you may post on the
Website, is not and will not be unlawful, offensive, abusive, libellous,
defamatory, obscene, racist, sexually explicit, ethnically or
culturally offensive, indecent, will not promote violence, terrorism, or
illegal acts, or incite hatred on grounds of race, gender, religion or
sexual orientation."
So basically they are not allowing people to upload merely offensive content of any kind. Define offensive? Some lyrics I write might offend the idiots out there? In fact you can say that any content can be offensive, because there will always be someone who will find it offensive.
Notice
that it also outlaws "culturally offensive content". WTF! Define
culturally offensive. That is a complete subjective statement. Someone
can find a song's lyrics about zombies eating babies to be offensive or
"culturally offensive". It's stupid, vague and idiotic that that,
sexually explicit, obscene and indecent content are not allowed......
They are vague, subjective content definitions that all require the
person 'offended' by them to find them offensive for it to be any of
those..... Not objective. Is our country and our Internet such a nanny
state now that offensive content has to be gotten rid of... For the
children? WTF!
Also, what the fuck is the
problem with sexually explicit content? Both youtube and Soundcloud
block this stuff and it's completely normal and natural. Yet in this
world it's horribly offensive to even mention any kind of sexual
content in lyrics. It's like 'all mentions of sex = bad for a children's
mind so we need to get rid of it'. It's stupid.
It's
really lucky of me to upload the music lyrics I do which can fit into
some of these categories and not be deleted yet. I have had some
suspicious problems with my soundcloud accounts in the past so maybe. I
wish soundcloud would get rid of the 'offensive','abusive','culturally
offensive','obscene',and 'indecent' clauses. It isn't needed. People
offended by lyrics can put them in categories like this to get them
taken down and that is NOT the way the Internet should work.
I'm not happy about this. This crap should not be on the Internet at all. Subjective content restrictions need to be Gotten rid of, completely.
They don't do anything positive. They just prevent people from being
offended. It's like accidentally or purposely offending people is a
crime now. It shouldn't be. Guess what folks.... you have the right to be offended. You have no right whatsoever to be shielded from offensive content because that's fucking stupid. End of story.
