Why is this OKAY?

[funsongs]

Hmmm... sounds like a COVER of an Alan Jackson/Jimmy Buffett hit -
but it appears presented as the work of the artist whose name is on the channel:
Wuddyathink...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWVk8OItTc

Some have suggested it's A.I. generated, or at least altered (auto-tune); or a counterfeit.
Just seems weird to me, from The Peanut Gallery.

[AlanHall]

I've seen many videos posted to youtube that make no mention of the composer or original artist. Makes it hard sometimes to find the original source. Is it right to post vids on the internet without proper attibution? Not from my understanding of how all published (shared) work needs to cite sources, according to copyright law and current academic standards of conduct.

Is this performance AI? you could look up 'Chris Else' to see if they are corporeal or virtual. I did not go that far.

[RPaul]

Hmmm... sounds like a COVER of an Alan Jackson/Jimmy Buffett hit -
but it appears presented as the work of the artist whose name is on the channel:
Wuddyathink...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWVk8OItTc

Some have suggested it's A.I. generated, or at least altered (auto-tune); or a counterfeit.
Just seems weird to me, from The Peanut Gallery.

The credits, or lacks thereof, may depend on the digital distributor and the timing of when it was released. I've put out some cover songs, fully-licensed with any song royalties going to the publisher (who would be paying the songwriter). But I just checked how the credits work for both my most recent cover single and an earlier cover single, and the credits are quite different.

My most recent single is a cover of CCR's "Bad Moon Rising":

https://youtu.be/-i9_H2K140s?si=6iA8b12g5w7ja0Qi

I released this through Soundrop, which has the same parent company as CD Baby. If you open the description on this one up, you'll see the songwriting credit to John Fogerty.

However, back in 2017 I put out a cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind":

https://youtu.be/QRCnb0ULGRQ?si=7_Zx9mRd40RNJWJM

That was released through CD Baby, back when they handled licensing of cover songs. (They stopped doing that a few years back, which is why I switched to Soundrop for any cover song releases -- I still use CD Baby for originals and public domain songs.) If you open the description of that one, there is no songwriter information, so CD Baby wasn't providing that information in their providing the songs to YouTube.

Of course, that release was from a long time ago, so I thought I'd check one of my original singles from late last year that was co-written. The song is "Bad Influence", written with Erin Main:

https://youtu.be/tdZCFvp4kiQ?si=JYyX-c5xVSEAc89a

Opening the description there also does not show writer (or publisher) information. Yet, when I submitted the single to CD Baby, I did have to enter all the writer/publisher information, so it appears CD Baby still isn't providing that information to YouTube in their release submissions. Yet, if you look at the same track on Spotify, the writer information is there:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7bChfxmG ... oTDsdr6VAQ

Whether Spotify gets that writer information from CD Baby, the MLC, or some other source, I haven't a clue.

So, getting back to the original question, I think the net is the distributor the guy doing the cover used simply isn't providing that information to YouTube. (The description there also doesn't say which distributor submitted the release, unlike my singles on YouTube.) I also noted that the tracks for the single in the post seemed fairly similar (though not identical) to the Jackson/Buffett version (at least as far as I listened), though the singing voice is obviously way different. I personally don't see much point in covering a song so similarly to the original artist (at least on recordings -- playing live I do sometimes stick pretty close to the original style, though I also take some major departures on some songs), even if the singer's voice is way different, but maybe that's just me.

[funsongs]

Hmmm... sounds like a COVER of an Alan Jackson/Jimmy Buffett hit -
but it appears presented as the work of the artist whose name is on the channel:
Wuddyathink...?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qWVk8OItTc

Some have suggested it's A.I. generated, or at least altered (auto-tune); or a counterfeit.
Just seems weird to me, from The Peanut Gallery.

The credits, or lacks thereof, may depend on the digital distributor and the timing of when it was released. I've put out some cover songs, fully-licensed with any song royalties going to the publisher (who would be paying the songwriter). But I just checked how the credits work for both my most recent cover single and an earlier cover single, and the credits are quite different.

My most recent single is a cover of CCR's "Bad Moon Rising":

https://youtu.be/-i9_H2K140s?si=6iA8b12g5w7ja0Qi

I released this through Soundrop, which has the same parent company as CD Baby. If you open the description on this one up, you'll see the songwriting credit to John Fogerty.

However, back in 2017 I put out a cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind":

https://youtu.be/QRCnb0ULGRQ?si=7_Zx9mRd40RNJWJM

That was released through CD Baby, back when they handled licensing of cover songs. (They stopped doing that a few years back, which is why I switched to Soundrop for any cover song releases -- I still use CD Baby for originals and public domain songs.) If you open the description of that one, there is no songwriter information, so CD Baby wasn't providing that information in their providing the songs to YouTube.

Of course, that release was from a long time ago, so I thought I'd check one of my original singles from late last year that was co-written. The song is "Bad Influence", written with Erin Main:

https://youtu.be/tdZCFvp4kiQ?si=JYyX-c5xVSEAc89a

Opening the description there also does not show writer (or publisher) information. Yet, when I submitted the single to CD Baby, I did have to enter all the writer/publisher information, so it appears CD Baby still isn't providing that information to YouTube in their release submissions. Yet, if you look at the same track on Spotify, the writer information is there:

https://open.spotify.com/album/7bChfxmG ... oTDsdr6VAQ

Whether Spotify gets that writer information from CD Baby, the MLC, or some other source, I haven't a clue.

So, getting back to the original question, I think the net is the distributor the guy doing the cover used simply isn't providing that information to YouTube. (The description there also doesn't say which distributor submitted the release, unlike my singles on YouTube.) I also noted that the tracks for the single in the post seemed fairly similar (though not identical) to the Jackson/Buffett version (at least as far as I listened), though the singing voice is obviously way different. I personally don't see much point in covering a song so similarly to the original artist (at least on recordings -- playing live I do sometimes stick pretty close to the original style, though I also take some major departures on some songs), even if the singer's voice is way different, but maybe that's just me.

Thanks for all of that; I appreciate the time you took to post a reply/comment.
Assuming you notify your PRO anytime you release a work to the public (i.e. on YouTube) - as CD Baby/Tunecore have posted my stuff 'automatically' on YouTube - they're not doing the work of the PRO;
so it makes sense to me that they make no effort to offer the credits to writers and publishers.
Cheers,
Peter

[funsongs]

I've seen many videos posted to youtube that make no mention of the composer or original artist. Makes it hard sometimes to find the original source. Is it right to post vids on the internet without proper attibution? Not from my understanding of how all published (shared) work needs to cite sources, according to copyright law and current academic standards of conduct.

Is this performance AI? you could look up 'Chris Else' to see if they are corporeal or virtual. I did not go that far.

Thanks, Alan.
As I stated in my original post - to me, to my ears - the giveaway is what SOUNDS LIKE too-obvious auto-tune/pitch-correction on the vocals.
So much so that it sound drained of any and all emotion or energy - assuming the original performance and recording HAD SOME.
That track just sounded SO BLAND to me. Maybe pitch-perfect; but void of any 'human feeling'.

Your mileage may vary.

[RPaul]

Assuming you notify your PRO anytime you release a work to the public (i.e. on YouTube) - as CD Baby/Tunecore have posted my stuff 'automatically' on YouTube - they're not doing the work of the PRO;
so it makes sense to me that they make no effort to offer the credits to writers and publishers.

The thing is, in recent years, CD Baby has collected the information on songwriters and publishers as part of their forms that you fill out to have a recording distributed. So they could easily supply that information to the streaming and download sites, *if* both ends are set up to be able to do that -- i.e. the streaming site to receive the data and CD Baby to provide that data in the right format. My checking sites for my late last year cowritten song showed that YouTube did not get the information but Spotify did. (They don't have that info for my releases that came before CD Baby started collecting the data.) I also just checked Pandora for another point of data, and they have the information, too, but YouTube Music doesn't (the other link was not to YouTube music, but the YouTube "topic" side that gets any information for releases by an artist). That might tempt me to suggest YouTube just isn't putting the information up, but, of course, they got it for my CCR cover, so that can't be it, either. They also don't show the songwriter info for the CCR cover on the YouTube Music side, so it might be just a general limitation for YouTube Music (but not the video "releases"/topic side.

As for PROs and such, I pretty much always register with them (for performance royalties) and the MLC (for mechanicals). In fact, on the PRO (ASCAP in my case) side, I tend to register soon after the song is written because I generally play the songs on the live front, and that is where most of the money I get from ASCAP comes from (i.e. the ASCAP OnStage program). I just add the recording information once I've got a recording in the distribution process and have the ISRC to tie it to.