Warner Music Takes Down "Regional at Best" Fan-made Lyric Videos

Warner Suddenly Cares About Copyright

Throughout the past week, the Twenty One Pilots fanbase has lost something precious to them: lyric videos to treasured songs that were not commercially released. Before Twenty One Pilots got signed on to their record label, Fueled by Ramen, they released and album called "Regional at Best" which was the first album that Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun recorded together in 2011. The album was made into a few CDs and sold at early live shows and given to friends, but never officially released. The same thing goes for a solo album Tyler Joseph released before Twenty One Pilots was formed called "No Phun Intended." Nevertheless, audio files of Regional at Best and No Phun Intended were posted on YouTube by fans so everyone could listen to these songs. These videos were up since about 2012 with no problems or copyright run-ins but suddenly in the beginning of April they were taken down by Warner Music Group for copyright reasons. This left many fans outraged because these songs are not available on streaming platforms (other than Pandora if you're lucky enough to get the songs to play on the stations) or available for purchase anywhere. Fan-made videos on YouTube were the only way for fans to legally listen to the albums. The comment sections of these videos were also filled with stories of how the songs helped people through hard times and were a "safe place" for many. Some fans were lucky and got screen recordings of the videos but most were not. Fans have begun calling WMG asking for the videos to come back to no avail until April 26.

This directly effects the music business in a variety of ways. It proves that record labels hold power over what is posted online at any time regardless of the wishes of the musicians and fans. I did find it strange that WMG decided ti take the videos down after about 7 years being on YouTube. WMG has every right to take down the videos because they were fan-made, but it seems a little heartless to take down the videos if they had special significance to the fans. This situation also shows the power of fans. Many fans have made phone calls to WMG telling them to unblock the videos and within the span of 2 weeks, 2 videos have been re-uploaded. There is truly strength in numbers and after probably hundreds of phone calls, WMG gave in. Videos getting taken down is no new occurrence, but this was an extreme case and I think we will see more fan backlash at record companies for taking down precious videos in the future.