It seems to me that a keyword based filter doesn't kill cover songs. Why can't I put a song up and called it "Umbrella cover by Kane" That clearly states that it is a cover song by me, not the original by Rihanna and therefor non-infringing.

There are enough wealthy, well connected artists out there that if they truly hated the system they could form record company that basically does exactly what Prince has done. The artists cold create a record label, choose their executives to run it and make it very artist friendly. They could pay the artists the lions share of the profits and keep some for the company to help develop new talent and support existing acts.

The problem is most artists don't really mind the system until they have blown through all their money, no longer sell many records and have to stay on the road a10 months out of the year to make a living.Then they look back and see what could have been. By then it is too late.

there is not a band that has existed since rock and roll that doesnt do cover songs. Elvis did it, and soooo many before him. Many just do them live so they dont have to pay royalties, including Metallica doing Misfits songs

LOL Led Zeppelin covered Willie Dixon on Zeppelin 1 !!! (two songs off the album were dixons)

sure thing. A lot of bands just starting out also do it so that they can have a full set and can book live gigs. I don't have a problem with that. I do get annoyed when I see people recording covers and then using YouTube exposer to sell those covers without paying royalties to the original artists. It seems like it isn't easy to sell digital songs without the royalties being paid, but I would venture to guess there are people selling CDs that aren't. However, I'm sure that has gone on forever with bands recording their own CDs and selling them at gigs.

If you did deep you will find out most of the the first Led Zeppelin record was all songs they either covered or stole from other people. When it was recently reissued they had to add a bunch of credits to it and pay a bunch of royalties.

read the ruling it keyword filtering based on the title

umbrella would be the keyword
it would catch both riahanna version

and umbrella cover by kane

because you had the gaul to use the title of the song you were covering in the title of your torrent.

so gasp (the horror) people looking for that song would find your cover.