March 2015 news - time for spring cleaning

Hey there, friends of wikiloops!

Besides the latest news from the headquarters and some more "backstage collaboration" reporting, this post also contains some important information on our changed [b]policy on copyright infringement handling[/b], which will be in effect from april 1st on - please do not miss this info (also available "auf Deutsch", s.u.) !

In my last Blog post, I talked about the "backstage collaboration" on wikiloops and the many ways people are lending a hand to improve wikiloops - obviously, many users took interest in this aspect of how wikiloops is run, and I have received quite a lot of helpfull hints & help offerings ever since.

One project that I am really proud about and that definetly deserves an explicit public notion is the newly created cooperation between wikiloops and the Faculty of Media of the Leipzig University Of Applied Sciences (HTWK Leipzig, Germany) - I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Bleymehl and Professor Liesching in Leipzig at end of last month.
In case those names sound familiar - yes, both are actively participating on the 'loops, and besides that, both were looking for interesting real projects which they could let their students investigate and possibly improve.
As a first project, one of Professor Bleymehl students tackled the task to anaylize the current wikiloops mobile site and write a structured concept on "[i]what the wikiloops app should look like[/i]" as a part of his bachelor thesis.
I guess it is needless to say that I am more than happy about the chance to collaborate like this - the feedback from these professionals is priceless for a do-it-yourself coder like me.

Besides this "big one", I really need to give thanks to all of you who have been reporting bugs, suggesting improvements via the forum or helping out on the translations lately - with all of your help,
I have been able to fix a whole lot of minor bugs and issues during the last four weeks,
including the long needed update of the help section,
improved lyrics handling across all remixes of any track with lyrics,
an entire redesign of the remix tree based on hurzels help concerning mySQL,
adding the missing volume handle to the profile-players and, last but not least, improving the administrative functions of wikiloops, which I'd like to introduce next:

[b]Important News on track moderation / copyright infringement handling[/b]
Before I get to the news, let's make sure anyone is aware of the unchanged rules once more.
As anyone participating on wikiloops should be aware of:
Uploading music that has been composed by anyone but yourself is not allowed.
Whenever you share a piece of music on wikiloops, the legal responsibility rests with you - should any musician or label claim that you have violated their copyrights, you will in the end have to face the charges, while wikiloops may have more or less trouble defending itself against any claims.
Anytime you upload, you are confirming that you are aware of your responsibilities and have not copied/covered any artists song.

As the guys who are organizing things on this platform, we cannot possibly do a legal research on any track that is uploaded, so the responsibility has to rest with our users.
Wikiloops is proud to connect musicians across the globe, which again means we are operating in many different legal zones which have quite different ideas on how to pursuit copyright infringements.
Our risk of getting into legal trouble must be considered quite high, so sticking to the simple "If you didn't write the song, don't upload it to wikiloops"-rule is the best thing to do, since it will definetly comply with any international law.

Now, speaking from the experience of now almost four years, I know people tend to skip reading the small print, and the excitement of joining wikiloops seems to blindfold some of us sometimes... so me, Oli, Wade and Lutz have been trying to call those enthusiasts to order and been removing tracks whenever we spotted clear copyright violations.
Again: This is not a wikiloops service which anyone should rely on, do not lean back and think: "they are going to check it anyways!" - we are just trying to prevent the worst.
Since the amount of time needed to check new members contributions and contact them manually in case they were disregarding the rules has been growing and growing, I have been coding some quite smart helper functions which will ease the workload - especially by sending automated informative emails.

The one important change about our copyright infringement handling policy will come in effect on april 1st:
[b]Should we spot any cover songs uploaded after april 1st, the track will be removed immediatly and the uploader will receive a one-time friendly warning via email.
Should we spot another copied track after this friendly warning, the rule-breaking user will be blocked from uploading more tracks automaticly![/b]

Should you just think "Oooops!" and happen to have any older copyrighted material on your profile or know about clear covers posted by someone else, please remove (flag) those tracks yourself, or contact me if they have been remixed and thus can't be self-removed.
Please, be aware that this sort of spring-cleaning is not intended to spoil anyones fun, we just can't let legal issues spoil wikiloops as a whole.

As some may know, we will be celebrating the 4th wikiloops birthday on april 1st, and there are some more good news to come along with that event, so "stay tuned" :)
Thanks for your time & the read, and happy jamming on wikiloops!

todays stats:
23.083 users registerred,
30.498 tracks online

p.s.
Since I was asked - here is the most relevant info summed up in german as well:
[i]Um es mal ganz, ganz knapp zu umreissen:
Die einzige wirkliche Änderung zum schon bestehenden "keine Covers auf wikiloops" Regelwerk ist, dass wir ab dem 1.4. Leuten, die nach einer ersten freundlichen Warnung kein Einsehen haben beim zweiten Copyrightverstoss den Upload sperren werden ohne lange zu fackeln.
Wenn jemand in der Vergangenheit aus versehen das ein oder andere Cover gepostet haben sollte, bitten wir darum, diese Tracks im Rahmen der "Frühjahrsputz"-Aktion selber zu melden (per "flagge", oder IDs per mail an mich). Dankeschön![/i]