Hi Peter,

Photos of an artist in performance are the copyright/ownership of the photographer, not the artist, so the situation is simple.

Performance recordings (audio and/or video) are subject to different copyrights as well, most notably those of the composer of the material - who may well have assigned it to their publisher- (unless it is public domain), the performer/s of the material, and possibly the arrangers as well (not sure about that). For commercial use permissions need to be obtained, and normally money would change hands. For non-commercial use e.g. sharing via youtube, the same still applies, although youtube seems to have negotiated some "back door arrangements" whereby the content can remain online so long as it is not monetised (alternatively they can take it down). That is the legal situation at the present time as I understand it; different countries have different laws but I think in general they have the same principles.

So if I record my mate singing a Michael Jackson (or maybe Ralph McTell) song and put it on youtube, even if my mate is happy with that, Jackson/McTell's publishers might come after me either for money or with a Take Down notice. Or they might let it go through to the keeper. The fact that I made the recording is probably the least significant portion of the equation; however again, if someone later reproduced it without my permission, I might have rights, unless I have relinquished them of course.

I do have a few "historic" recordings of bands/artists in concert from 30-40 years ago that I have put on line as "cultural artifacts" but am aware that the artists concerned might request their removal, which I would then have to comply with. But normally I do request permission. In these cases the default is that the artist has written their own material (or it is trad/public domain) so no other composers/music publishers are involved, however as you can see from the above there are still potentially issues e.g. a record company might complain...

Whether this will continue to be an issue indefinitely I cannot say (I guess everything might enter public domain eventually after the passage of XX years, or re-use laws might change)...

So yes, sharing/publicly depositing photos is easy (the photographer is in control), audio and video much less so... Regards Tony