
The US recording industry is stealing from me - mitchie_luna
http://www.aardvark.co.nz/daily/2012/0221.shtml#continue
======
tsunamifury
Several companies have falsely filed claims on the stock sounds in Final Cut
Pro and GarageBand as well. It irritates me to no end.

More importantly though, it illustrates how Google likes to make sweeping
solutions based on generalizations. They created a system which allows content
owners to claim they own any and all content, regardless of the veracity of
their claim.

~~~
revelation
Certainly Google doesn't "like" to make any kind of solutions to help a dying
industry. The content recognition system likely cost in the tens of millions
in development and is probably eating up lots and lots of processing power
just to operate it.

~~~
gergles
Which makes one wonder why they pandered to the content industry with it at
all. There's no requirement they make such a system, and it makes their
service less desirable and usable.

Google's responsibility is to respond to DMCA notices; that's it. They have no
requirement to create a Draconian copyright monitor.

(The standard response is "so the content industry would work with us!!!" Who
gives a shit? Oh no, we wouldn't have any of the shitty "Vevo" channels laced
with advertising without Content ID. What a terrible loss that would be.)

~~~
jdietrich
If the record industry is dying, how much do you imagine they're willing to
spend on lobbying to delay their fate? Any regulation of the internet places a
disproportionate burden on Google, simply because of their size. They know
this, the RIAA/MPAA know this. The RIAA would happily spend billions and kill
Google in the process if it bought them another few years of the good old
days.

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billybob
TL;DR - "They flagged my video as containing their content, even though it
doesn't, which means they get my ad revenue."

~~~
billybob
Is there no penalty for incorrectly claiming others' content?

Perhaps the "guilty until proven innocent" mentality is justified by saying
that there is so much infringement, that due process would always be 3 steps
behind the uploaders.

Even if that's true, is there no financial penalty for incorrectly flagging
others' content? What incentive does the RIAA currently have for not flagging
every video on YouTube simultaneously, other than public opinion?

~~~
icebraining
Who says they are claiming it? For all we know, the videos were flagged by
Youtube's content matching system, and of course they are free to take down
any video they want or share part of their ad profits with whoever they want -
it's their website.

~~~
nitrogen
YouTube is not free to do whatever it wants with the videos of legitimate
creators. The true content owners don't waive all their rights when they
upload their videos.

~~~
icebraining
Thankfully, I never said they could do "whatever they want" with them, I said
they could take them down and share the profits of the ads on the same pages
as the videos. And they can.

~~~
nitrogen
The TOS section quoted by simonbrown doesn't say anything about letting third
parties lay claim to others' content.

If it's a DMCA claim being filed by the third party, the third party is
committing perjury. If it's via an extralegal agreement set up between YouTube
and the third party, then the third party is at the least defaming the
legitimate uploader, and the third party taking direct action to receive
royalties for a video they did not create is fraud.

Furthermore, the current copyright laws which apply the synchronization and
public performance rights of music owners to home videos of dancing babies
uploaded by amateurs need to be revisited. The present situation is entirely
unfair and unproductive to society at large.

~~~
icebraining
Like I said in the first post, Youtube has an automatic content recognition
system[1], which was probably what caused this, which means that there
probably was no DMCA claim, defamation or fraud. The third party probably
doesn't even know the video exists.

[1]: <https://www.youtube.com/t/contentid>

~~~
nitrogen
Companies can be held responsible for their automated systems running amok. If
this is the case, then either YT's ContentID system is overly sensitive, the
third party uploaded something like a sample of white noise or silence that
ContentID matched to the silence or jet engines in the video, or the third
party uploaded the original author's video to ContentID.

If Google can be accused of defamation for automatically suggesting "sucks" as
an additional search term after a company name, then they can be accused of
defamation for automatically indicating that an original author's video
contains another's content. If the third party deliberately uploaded ambiguous
content, hoping to trigger spurious ContentID matches, that is fraud.

At the end of the original article, the author says the situation has been
rectified, but this is not an isolated incident. The article links to another
example of a third party uploading someone else's _royalty-free_ audio tracks
to ContentID, giving them ad revenue from any video that includes those audio
tracks.

No third party should have this kind of unchecked power over others'
creations, and YouTube's ContentID system has been upheld as an example of how
all sites with user-generated content should operate.

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alan_cx
Its likely I have missed something, if this guy's video matched another video,
why is it his one which is the offender and not the other video? Does this
mean that the videos uploaded by the record companies are flagged as being
legitimate by default ? If so, who decides that one then? Must every "legit"
publisher register are some how legitimate?

If it were me, I would want to find out which video was supposed to be the
original of which the IP was allegedly stolen, and accuse them of taking my
material. Surely by these standards one of r them must be illegal, right?

Or does this lark only work one way for the benefit of the dear old mega-
corps?

~~~
biot
His video isn't identical to another video. Rather, something within the video
(it might have been a five second sample) triggered a false positive match
against something else that someone thinks they own the rights to.

~~~
alan_cx
I understand that. But then surely that match works both ways. Something in
the other video must also match with his, right? So, why is it this guys
getting accused and not the other video? If his video came out first, then the
newer video can be said to be copying his video.

See what I'm getting at?

~~~
jellicle
The samples provided by companies who have a deal with Google - the recording
industry - are the only "master" samples, not your uploaded stuff.

------
bengl3rt
Interesting to hear about the company pursuing royalties for the use of the
default sounds that ship with Sony Vegas. I've always wondered what the legal
specifics of using the included loops and samples in Logic, Reason etc are,
since I hear them in pop songs and commercials and so on - definitely could
trigger a pattern match.

~~~
leviathant
It's probably mentioned in the documents that come with the software. I know
that when I bought my Korg ER-1 way too long ago, I pored over the manual and
the bit about the presets definitely stuck out to me - you were apparently not
allowed to use any of the preset beats in any commercial music. Is that ever
enforced? I can't possibly see the legal department of a musical instrument
company going after a musician for using presets. That's especially true for
music software companies, which (I presume) operate on much smaller budgets.

~~~
jlogsdon
I know Native Instruments doesn't pursue anything if they have the same
clause; dance music producers love Massive and it's presets, you here them all
over the place.

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ck2
Can non-US-citizens sue US corporations in small-claims court?

Because at $5k or $10k a pop, you might find them stop this behavior.

They do it now because there is no downside for them for false DMCA claims.

$10k a pop might become a downside.

~~~
pavelkaroukin
Nobody sent DMCA claims in this case (at least, this was not covered in the
story). It is Youtube's automagic copyright-infringement-detector falsely
labeled one of author's genuine clips as something using copyrighted material.

Author need contact Youtube in this case to fix this.

~~~
TheCapn
DMCA or not Google's negligent algorithm is causing people with a legitimate
income to lose out. Maybe they should be at the end of the lawsuit to have
them drop their automated system?

~~~
icebraining
Lawsuit for what? Google has every _legal_ right of rejecting any video they
feel like it. That's defined in their ToS and there's no law that overrules
it.

~~~
nitrogen
Sure, Google can ostensibly reject any video they want. But this video wasn't
rejected, it was erroneously given to a third party.

~~~
icebraining
Google didn't "give" the video to anyone. They gave part of the income of the
ads they happen to show alongside the video.

Legally, they're their ads and they can give its income to whoever they want.
And they'd never be given to the video author unless he registered in
Youtube's Content-ID, anyway.

~~~
TheCapn
Now I'll concede and say you may be right so long as the contract or ToS reads
that way. My intuition would tell me that when a user agrees to allow youtube
to use their content as a revenue stream in exchange for a cut of the revenue
then that is what the uploader/owner is entitled to.

Contract law is extremely clear on what is necessary for what's called
"consideration" and allowing one party of the contract to willfully provide
that consideration to an unauthorized 3rd party without the contractual
party's consent opens themselves to lawsuit.

Again, I'm going to go on the record here and admit you're probably right.
Contracts by youtube and the like will be as vague as possible providing the
maximum power to themselves in order to run the system. I would fully expect
terms of the contract to provide the uploader with next to 0 rights regarding
their content once its handed over.

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showkhill
Just on youtube's copy checking, I got a FB message from a friend who stumbled
on a vid that uses one of my songs, it has 280k + views and advertises a
motorcycle shop. No mention of the song or my band. Normally we license stuff
through jamendo pro (all our music is cc). Anyone know how youtube polices
this kind of thing? It's obviously a commercial usage but we got ne'er a penny
nor even an attribution.

~~~
nitrogen
Maybe you can fill out an application for ContentID:
<https://www.youtube.com/t/contentid>, or try contacting the video uploader
first.

~~~
showkhill
Thanks, just looking at that link now I'll get on it. We did have a licensing
issue before with a video blogger who asked my permission to use one of our
songs as his theme. Youtube were fairly sticky about it, that's why I was
surprised something like this slipped through.

I did contact the uploader nothing back from them yet.

I'm a massive advocate of CC and I'm old school in that I believe the number
one consideration for an artist is to be heard (as opposed to being paid) but
being open and with so many platforms holding your work it's hard to keep
track of things.

I wonder is there a way to use a Shazam like system to index audio usages on
the web? Then scale could come into play and perhaps help to get cc artists
paid on a fair and rational basis.

------
ecounysis
Is there a viable alternative to YouTube that isn't as persuaded by the powers
that be? If so, and if this problem were pervasive enough, wouldn't the
independent content providers prefer that service over YouTube. Then most
independent content would eventually be on the other service which would
drastically reduce the value of YouTube.

~~~
jmaygarden
Well, there is <http://megavideo.com/>

Oh yeah, the FBI seized that domain didn't they? ;)

~~~
ecounysis
That's probably why YT is being so aggressive then: to keep the FBI off them.
It is truly a depressing world when film/recording industry lobbies and law
enforcement agencies get away with stifling free market competition in order
to maintain the status quo distribution of wealth.

------
amatus
I'd be interested to know what the YouTube ToS says about this. It's likely
that they can take away your ad revenue for no reason at all. Instead of
complaining that someone stole your ad revenue, you should be thanking the all
mighty Google every time they are gracious enough to give you a single cent of
_their_ ad revenue.

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da_n
Wow, all I can say is fuck Google, three passes in as many weeks is to much
for me. The golden child has surely now turned to rust.

------
maeon3
The only language riaa understands is money, to fight back, it will take far
more than whining about morality or fairness or justice. They need to be
destroyed, and the only way this will be possible is to starve the corruption
engine of its fuel: money.

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TazeTSchnitzel
Oh, the solution's simple: YouTube should just not check for _rap_ music!

