Artists To Lobby Lawmakers Over Bogus Videos

Hundreds of the country’s most successful recording artists are sick and tired of getting ripped off via pirated videos — and are demanding Congress do something about it.

The powerful group — Katy Perry, Billy Joel, Steven Tyler, Christina Aguilera and scores of others — wants lawmakers on Capitol Hill to sharpen the teeth of the current copyright law, 1998’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to keep illegal videos off streaming services like Google’s YouTube.

Currently, complaints made about the pirated work result in the video being taken down — and then re-posted, sometimes minutes later, according to The NY Post.

The streaming services, the artists, managers and music labels said, benefit greatly from the rampant piracy — at the expense of the artists.

The lobbying effort is being coordinated by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The musicians fired off a letter to the US Copyright Office on Thursday, the final day for comment on proposed changes in Congress to the DCMA.

“A law that might have made sense in 1998 is now not only obsolete but actually harmful,” reads a letter from the group.