Like many independent musicians, Charlotte Campbell posts a weekly cover song on YouTube. Recently, she was so proud of her new Ed Sheeran cover that she posted a 15 second clip of it on Facebook. Then the fun started.
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After a takedown request from Ed Sheeran’s label, Facebook took the offending video down and barred Charlotte Campbell from her Facebook page for three days. With the punishment also came a stern warning: do it again and you’re cut off from your 13,000 Facebook followers forever.
You could easily argue that Campbell should have known better. Or that at 15 seconds, Universal should have let it go. And shouldn’t Facebook have a YouTube-like deal to compensate creators when their songs are covered?
All are true, but the best part of this story is that Sheraan found out and apologized to Campbell.
I’ve been an @edsheeran fan for about 7 years now so I couldn’t believe this when I saw it 🙉
Thank You Ed. Ever the gentleman. pic.twitter.com/8Vgq0QOcIR— CharlotteCampbell (@Ccampbellmusic) March 9, 2017
Here’s Campbell telling the story in depth.