
“Royalty-Free” Music Supplied by YouTube Results in Mass Video Demonetization - justinclift
https://torrentfreak.com/royalty-free-music-supplied-by-youtube-results-in-mass-video-demonetization-191118/
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rebuilder
The update to the article seems pretty relevant. YouTube says the music is not
from the official Youtube Audio Library, but could be from a channel titled
"YouTube Audio Library".

~~~
justinclift
It'll be interesting, if this update turns out to be correct.

~~~
tastroder
There's plenty of people on Twitter specifically denying this, e.g.
[https://twitter.com/Matt_Lowne/status/1196928532510851073](https://twitter.com/Matt_Lowne/status/1196928532510851073)

~~~
rasz
and yet its right there uploaded under "Dreams - Joakim Karud [Vlog No
Copyright Music]" to a channel with an enticing "Audio Library — Music for
content creators (Verified)" name with "This channel is not an official
YouTube channel." in the description. You can tell its in Content ID database
because whole video clip is "protected" (web server will 403/wont play without
Google generated crypto signature token).

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coreyp_1
A few days ago, I wrote about a very similar problem that I'm going through at
this very moment.

Basically, I recorded myself playing a song that was written 133 years ago,
whose composer died 118 years ago.

The copyright claim is that I used a melody owned by ASCAP, ICE_CS. But the
melody is long in public domain. It is _impossible_ for this melody to be
copyrighted. (Also, just to cover the bases of "what if...", I want to clarify
that the melody has been correctly identified as the melody written (and
published) 133 years ago.)

And yet, they have claimed copyright on my music and monitized it. I, on the
other hand, can't monitize it at all because my channel is very small.

This is theft.

~~~
e40
Same happened to me years ago, when I uploaded my son playing a piano piece
written in the 1800's. Immediately locked. What a complete joke.

It's theft and someone should be criminally prosecuted.

~~~
chimi
You and the GP should have both stopped before saying "It's theft." It's not
theft, not even close.

You gave them the video and they said they do not want the video -- for
_whatever_ reason. You don't have a _right_ to upload content to YouTube. You
do have a right to your property, your video and music you've created. They
didn't take it from you. They aren't making money on it and not paying you.
You don't have a right to force YouTube to display and distribute that content
on their website.

Imagine if Columbia records was _forced_ to distribute any and _all_ music
sent to it on a demo tape. Columbia saying, "No, we won't distribute this" is
not theft.

Columbia would be within their rights to say, "Your music sounds too much like
Taylor Swift to us. Sorry. It's too big of a risk for us to distribute it."

That's exactly what YouTube is doing. They are saying, your music is too much
of a risk for us to distribute based on our algorithms.

You can still go to Vimeo or soundcloud or build your own website to
distribute your music, just like the aforementioned artist that sounds too
much like Taylor Swift could go to Arista or upload it to youtube or or
soundcloud.

~~~
ubercow13
Seems a bit more like you sending your tape to Colombia and them deciding to
distribute it but give all proceeds to some other guy with no relation to your
music.

ed: You’ve edited your comment but I was referring more to the GP case where
they say

> And yet, they have claimed copyright on my music and monitized it.

That is exactly Youtube making money on the video and not paying the owner

~~~
chimi
That's not what I understood when I read it the GP saying:

>And yet, they have claimed copyright on my music and monitized it.

By "they," I think he meant: ASCAP, ICE_CS, not YouTube. The problem is that
ASCAP, ICE_CS has claimed copyright to something, which they are right to do
and that is their _performance_ of the public domain work. Since it sounds
like the same work that the GP uploaded, the GP's music was locked.

I am _no_ fan of YouTube's profiting off copyrighted material, I think it's
unethical, and in this instance I do not believe that is what they are doing.
I believe they have written algorithms to _prevent_ copyright infringement and
it is over-fitting on the GP's works.

The GP said they are "claiming copyright on my music" but I don't see any
evidence for that. I do see evidence that ASCAP, ICE_CS claim copyright on
their performance of the _same_ music as the GP.

Yes, the solution is to have a person in there to be smarter than the AI, but
YouTube has said it's not worth it to them to do that and so I believe that is
their right.

In this case, the GP's claim is that ASCAP, ICE_CS is doing something wrong,
but I don't think that is the case. I think everyone here is doing something
right and a bad thing has come from that.

Theft is _wrong_. There is no wrongdoing here.

~~~
ubercow13
My understanding is that Youtube will allow the supposed content owner to
monetise _your_ video. They can choose to let you keep it up as long as they
get the advertising revenue from it.

~~~
chimi
I did edit to elaborate where I thought there was ambiguity.

Yes, I agree, if ASCAP, ICE_CS laid claim to the GP's work, then that needs to
be fixed. I would suggest any money paid to ASCAP, ICE_CS for that video be
returned to the GP, with interest paid by ASCAP, ICE_CS and perhaps some
punitive damages so they don't make the same "mistake" again.

To be fair, or give the benefit of the doubt, this could be a Hanlon's Razor
scenario where ASCAP, ICE_CS just doesn't understand how to do it right. Or
they could be too heavy handed in which case the punitive damages should
soften their hand.

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JeremyMorgan
If you rely on YouTube for income, the time to diversify was a couple of years
ago. It seems like they have a whole team of people whose sole job is to mess
with the creators. Squeezing out the "little guy" so they can be the sole
provider of content. They don't need you anymore.

~~~
benologist
It's the teams Google doesn't create that tell the real story. Nobody is paid
to care about these users, it's just one big accounting scam contributing to
their $100+ billion in savings. Wherever there are _consequences_ for not
providing support... Android users get phone and email. Domains users get
phone and email. Everyone else collectively enriching Google gets nothing.

[https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7299936](https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7299936)

[https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7100415?hl=en](https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/7100415?hl=en)

Their support is so bad they literally stole $75m from their own customers
while support repeatedly said checks were coming and it was nobody's job to
fix it until they were being sued.

[https://marketingland.com/class-action-lawsuit-accuses-
googl...](https://marketingland.com/class-action-lawsuit-accuses-google-of-
improperly-withholding-refunds-for-ad-fraud-261219)

------
sly010
> "SonyATV & Warner Chappell have claimed 24 of my videos because the royalty
> free song Dreams by Joakim Karud (from the OFFICIAL YOUTUBE AUDIO LIBRARY
> BTW) uses a sample from Kenny Burrell Quartet’s ‘Weaver of Dream`"

Isn't that protected use anyway?

~~~
microtherion
That's a case by case distinction anyway. But as far as I can hear, "Dreams"
does not use one short quote, but basically the entire melody of "Dreams"
consists of snippets of "Weaver of Dream" looped over and over again.

If you believe in music copyrights at all, this looks like an open and shut
case of infringement to me. Plus "Dreams" is a godawful piece of music.

That said, YouTube represented this as safe to use, so it seems to me that the
onus should be on them to work out a license and pay the associated costs. I'm
sure Google can find enough change in their couch pillows to pay off the
rightsholders.

~~~
jedimastert
> If you believe in music copyrights at all, this looks like an open and shut
> case of infringement to me.

There are some that truly _don 't_ believe that sampling copyrights should be
a thing. They think it's just a way to stifle creativity. One could also argue
that Dreams is so completely derivative that is bears little to no resemblance
to the original recording it samples, and as such does not infringe on any
intellectual property.

> Plus "Dreams" is a godawful piece of music

You opinions on a piece have no legal bearing on what does or does not
constitute copyright infringement. The comment was completely unnecessary and
uncalled for.

~~~
microtherion
> There are some that truly don't believe that sampling copyrights should be a
> thing

That's why I said "if".

> One could also argue that Dreams is so completely derivative that is bears
> little to no resemblance to the original recording

That's not what "derivative" means.

> You opinions on a piece have no legal bearing on what does or does not
> constitute copyright infringement.

Maybe not, but in light of your general point about "stifling creativity", it
might be worth pointing out that this is hardly a good piece to highlight said
creativity.

------
Keverw
I have never really been a fan of the YouTube Audio library, a bunch of
channels use the same music and I think it subtracts from the video when
another video you seen earlier has the same music. I know there's paid
libraries of royalty free music, but even then they still get claimed so got
to dispute it but it seems some of those libraries have their own form or
canned message to paste in to help. I know I've even heard Apple Loops from
Garageband get claimed too even those you are licensed to use them. Even
public domain NASA clips got someone flagged, because some news company used
them in their broadcasts.

Then fair use isn't always considered too, like if you were walking and a
little bit of music was picked up in the background of your vlog, say maybe
from a car driving by blasting loud music.

I know with the DMCA there's legal penalties for filing false ones, but
Content ID isn't considered a DMCA, so why it doesn't count as a strike unless
you disputed it and then the company can then create a DMCA actually
reviewing. Really feel like automated technology for policing isn't really
ready yet, even flaws in red light cameras.

~~~
aidenn0
There are no legal penalties just for filing false claims, only if it's false
_and_ made in bad faith. This is an important distinction because "I hold the
copyright and disagree that the usage qualifies for fair-use protections"
probably doesn't fall into the category of "bad faith"

~~~
matheusmoreira
What makes it bad faith is:

> I own the copyright and will use an automated system to spam massive amounts
> of complaints to anything that even remotely looks like my content _without
> even thinking_ about whether it's fair use

> sending these complaints costs nothing for me and require lengthy appeals
> and manual review for the affected party who will likely face reductions in
> revenue in the mean time

> if someone successfully appeals the complaint I'll just send it again until
> they tire of it because I suffer no consequences

------
cuboid
Something is going to have to be planned. YouTube is very quickly becoming
something we won't like.

~~~
b3kart
This something that is going to have to be planned will also need a way of
dealing with copyright issues. It sounds like an extremely difficult problem,
which is why YouTube is having trouble in the first place. I doubt they enjoy
these (very public) mistakes.

For example, how exactly do you catch videos using copyrighted material and
deal with disputes when thousands of hours of video are uploaded every hour?
Doing this manually is likely infeasible. But algorithms are error-prone, as
YouTube exemplifies very well. Or how exactly do you stand up to these massive
billion-dollar media companies without going bankrupt during your first court
case? Which (I think) is why YouTube currently simply goes along with whatever
these companies demand.

Criticizing YouTube is easy. What is hard is coming up with better solutions
that could actually be implemented in whatever YouTube could potentially be
replaced with.

~~~
wolfgke
> What is hard is coming up with better solutions that could actually be
> implemented in whatever YouTube could potentially be replaced with.

Anonymous, encrypted, censorship-resistant peer-to-peer networks.

~~~
aphextim
Lbry.io

Think torrenting + youtube + blockchain had a baby.

[https://lbry.com/faq](https://lbry.com/faq)

------
buboard
It should be possible to source-separate the music from any voiceover and
surgically remove it. Google should implement this feature.

------
mnm1
So Google is encouraging illegal copyright usage to make other companies more
profit. Do they at least get a kickback? And why doesn't the government go
after them like they do after pirate sites then?

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otterpro
The music in question is Joakim Karud's "Dream" song, which was made famous
when Casey Neistat used it for his vlog. It's also popular with Youtuber since
Joakim's music are all free to use on Youtube. Apparently the song sampled
from short guitar riff from a musician from the 1955. However, the samples are
usually sped up or its pitch made high as to not be recognizable from the
original source. It's unfortunate, because some of my videos use his songs.

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rezeroed
Is it possible for a youtuber to switch their videos to silence/mute/delete
the audio, while leaving up the video?

~~~
mchristen
Yes, you can edit out the audio from the file on youtube, but it's my
understanding that it removes ALL the audio from the segment you delete so any
voiceovers will be lost.

~~~
rezeroed
Far from ideal, it would at least prevent royalties on future viewings of
existing videos from going to the music companies.

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znpy
why people don't use music from sites like Jamendo ? Is jamendo still a thing
btw ?

also: friendly reminder that peertube exists.

~~~
type0
Because it would be copyright claimed in mass, even more so than the tracks
from youtubes own media library.

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wolfgke
If the media groups apply violence (by using the law enforcement agencies as
goon squads) even though you did nothing wrong, give the media groups back
violence - that's self-defense.

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kd3
YouTube is in dire need of competition.

