

How YouTube lets content companies "claim" NASA Mars videos - joshlegs
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/how-youtube-lets-content-companies-claim-nasa-mars-videos/

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relix
This is another symptom of Google's extreme "let's make algorithms do what
people usually did". In an effort to automate everything and minimize
employee-customer interaction, Google creates automated systems that work
correctly 90% of the time. The 10% of the time it doesn't work correctly,
you're fucked, and there's no way to contact anyone at Google to dispute or
fix things.

Google just doesn't care at this point, because trying to fix the remaining
10% apparently costs more than the resulting good user experience /
satisfaction would generate. This is also very visible in AdSense and Gmail. I
think Google just doesn't like edge-cases.

Highly relevant Dilbert comic: <http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-02-25/>

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sp332
_This is another symptom of Google's extreme "let's make algorithms do what
people usually did"._

Actually humans _can't_ process all the video uploaded to Youtube, and never
did. Viacom sued them for $1,000,000,000 (billion) and more rights-holders
were lining up behind them to do the same. Not just for money - a lot of very
powerful companies wanted Youtube shut down for good, and were willing to
throw real resources at making that happen. Google put ContentID in place to
placate the rights-holders in order to save Youtube's existence. It would
literally be sued into oblivion and no longer exist if it weren't for
ContentID. So there are issues, but don't think Google just did this on a
whim.

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ZoFreX
I'm reaching the point where that argument no longer holds water for me. So
it's impossible to run a video site as large as Youtube without breaking the
law or screwing people over? Then don't do it! Would the world really be worse
off if instead of Youtube, we had 1,000s of much smaller sites, capable of
handling their workload with real actual people?

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sp332
Is the world really worse off with Youtube the way it is? or even the way it
was, without ContentID? I can't say I see the harm in some people uploading
crappy copies of some videos and _not_ making a profit on them. Content owners
will always overreact even if _nothing_ bad is happening, for example this
just happened: [http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/08/09/007212/legitimate-
ebo...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/08/09/007212/legitimate-ebook-
lending-community-closed-after-copyright-complaints)

~~~
ZoFreX
> Is the world really worse off with Youtube the way it is?

With videos of Curiosity being taken down for copyright infringement? With
"the little guy" having to wait up to a month for anyone to prove wrongdoing,
and in the meantime their video goes offline? I'd say that's pretty bad, yeah.

~~~
sp332
Oh sorry when you asked about screwing people over I thought you meant content
owners. Yeah I definitely agree if you meant screwing over site users.

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graupel
I am a Content ID publisher - the point of it is, if you sign up with YouTube
as a partner, you commit to not upload content that you didn't produce (in so
many words).

So in an ideal world, every piece of content from a Partner would be unique
and original, and Content ID would work as intended.

The key is - 100% unique and original - it's not original if it's 2 anchors
introducing a clip of the Mars landing.

The problem here isn't just YouTube - it's partners that are uploading content
that they did not _entirely_ create.

The system only works if people cooperate; if news orgs contribute original
content and claim it (and other uploads) everything is ok - the problem is
that news orgs are just dumping content on to YouTube without thinking about
that.

We accidentally published a movie review to YouTube and CID claimed it, and
for the next 3 months I was constantly releasing claims, until I finally
unclaimed our own movie review completely to stop the matching.

TL;DR - publishers are very much at fault, as much or more as YouTube is.

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csense
> Publishers are very much at fault

I don't see how. From the publisher's point of view, it's completely legit: A
video that mixes public domain imagery with original additions. Any news org
that covered the landing without including some of NASA's public domain images
or video would have everyone (rightly!) saying "Their Mars coverage sucks!"

Even if they don't have original additions, it's in the public domain;
publishers can do what they want with it, including merely slapping their
watermark in the corner and uploading as-is.

I'd say that nobody's really "at fault;" rather, the widespread availability
of technology to easily and cheaply download, remix, upload, and stream video
is presenting new use cases which our existing notions of content ownership
simply haven't had to deal with before.

The solution will be through some mix of better technology (i.e. smarter
scanning algorithms), better modeling of the problem domain (maybe the next
version of YouTube's Content ID program will address the issue of situations
like this), and changing social and legal norms.

In the long term, I believe that one day, people, businesses, laws, and
private agreements like ToS will work out an equilibrium where expectations of
ownership and use are clear to everyone, penalties are considered reasonable
and proportionate to offenses, are enforced consistently with few false
positives or negatives, and people mostly manage to get along -- in contrast
to the current free-for-all environment where none of these things are true.

Unfortunately, "the long term" may be very long -- I'd say 30-60 years. Also,
while my assessment may sound positive on first reading, the previous
paragraph actually leaves substantial space for very distopian scenarios --
where (for example) permanent ownership is considered reasonable, fair use no
longer exists, the expectation is that copyright violators will be jailed,
financially ruined, and/or permabanned from the Internet, those penalties are
swiftly and surely enforced by extremely invasive monitoring of all computer
activity, and anyone who tries to make waves about the situation is dismissed
by the media establishment as a fringe lunatic, and can't effectively organize
due to the intense restrictions on the Internet.

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lazugod
> I don't see how. From the publisher's point of view, it's completely legit:
> A video that mixes public domain imagery with original additions. Any news
> org that covered the landing without including some of NASA's public domain
> images or video would have everyone (rightly!) saying "Their Mars coverage
> sucks!"

Why does the stuff they upload to YouTube's content violation detector include
public domain content? It doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, exactly the
same as what they broadcast.

~~~
graupel
Exactly - publishers shouldn't upload and claim content with public domain
footage in it; they should specifically remove any videos with content not
originally produced by the TV station from the CID system. But that takes
work, and generally people just shovel content from TV -> Web, let CID make
the decisions, and move on. It's one mouse click to turn off CID matching,
really easy.

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crazygringo
I don't think the system is technologically broken -- I just think companies
should be subject to big fines for wrongly claiming ownership.

I mean, fines like $5,000 per false claim.

That will stop abuse of it, real fast.

~~~
theevocater
The problem is that its algorithmic. The content owners aren't clicking around
and claiming videos -- Google's Content ID system finds videos that look
similar to theirs and then claims the video.

The ideal case would be someone reposting a trailer or a music video to
Youtube. The content is identified as being owned by a partner. Now the
partner gets the money and the poster still gets views.

Cases like the OP thus cause a problem: the majority of the content is 3rd
party and free.

Note: I'm not defending CID or saying its a good thing. I just think your
proposed solution won't fix the issue at hand.

~~~
necubi
The initial claiming process is automatic. But as noted in the article, the
uploader then has an opportunity to dispute the claim. The rights holder is
then supposed to manually verify it and either approve or dismiss it. The
problem is that there is no penalty for just approving every claim after
"reviewing" it. Contrast this to the DMCA process, where after the uploader
files a counter claim the rights holder must file a court order in order to
keep the material down.

At the moment it's a terribly one-sided process that allows big media
companies to profit for absolutely no reason. Fining companies for approving
disputed claims in error seems like a pretty good solution.

~~~
theevocater
Oh I agree, my point was more "the system is faulty".

I just don't think any sort of band-aid (like a fine for example) is the real
solution. I think the solution is to redo the law.

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extension
YouTube has become a Kafkaesque nightmare, at least for regular users. They
recently opened up monetization to everyone, but if you actually try to use
it, half your videos will go "under review" and you will be asked to provide
proof that you own all the content. They won't tell you specifically what you
have to provide, and nobody I know has managed to figure it out or get a video
out of this state. Of course, there is no way to contact anyone or get any
more information.

Apparently, "full partners" can actually get real customer service and avoid
these problems, but you need to get on the order of 1000 views/day before they
offer you that, which most people never achieve.

I will absolutely never do business with that company.

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jeza
Perhaps it would be a start if Google would recognise public domain content
before matching against claims of other content owners.

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GlennS
It seems like when you submit material to the content ID system, the first
thing it should do is check it against material that's already been
registered. Conflicts found there need to be resolved before that material is
used to automatically send out ownership claims.

This change would surely weed out a big chunk of these false claims, and would
put a lot of the effort for doing so squarely on the shoulders of the
claimants.

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Zenst
Hmmm could this be used to turn the tables. What I'm thinking is you buy a
area of land that needs clearing up - video it and when it is claimed as
copyright you then sue the copyright abuser to clear up the land as they
claimed its there rubbish. Not best example but hopefuly shows how this can be
levelled.

What has happened is alot have loaded up alot of common things and sounds and
as such any autobot will match them up with pretty much anything you do in
some situations.

Can bet if you upload a video of your first born that it will match up with
something somewere else. It's like patent trolls, only automated, utter
nightmare.

This is also one of those moments were I liek the UK libel laws as deformation
of character under the guise of falsly breaking copyright of somebody else's
contents is one of those area's were you would have fun in court and fiscaly
rewarding.

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thewileyone
I think a different monetization systems is necessary here. One that can allow
for the Youtube-like company to tell the media moguls to go fuck off.

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Mordor
Sounds like copyright law requires updating and people should stop using
YouTube.

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GvS
Why won't he just change site? YouTube isn't the only video service out there.

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meatsock
CT tech junkie is a great site run by brilliant folks doing some awesome work.

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mrdmnd
This is probably a bug, and will be treated as such. I wouldn't worry about
this one.

