
Game Critic Uses Workaround for YouTube's Copyright System (2016) - CraneWorm
https://kotaku.com/game-critic-uses-brilliant-workaround-for-youtubes-copy-1773452452
======
tomashubelbauer
This video blew up a few days ago on Youtube:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w)
The author shows how to sort of turn the tables on the copyright abusers by
producing an original song (if you could call it that), distributing it
through a distributor (1) and then using it in your own video to be able to
claim your own video for a 50/50 revenue split with the abuser. Seems slightly
related to this one as well. In the end stuff like this goes to show that
Youtube's systems are a complete and utter joke, but since Youtube has zero
competition, it won't change.

1: The creator used CD Baby, if you're going to do this, I recommend
DistroKid, it is about a zillion times better than CD Baby. Even the CD Baby
creator endorses DistroKid.

~~~
netsharc
Interesting info but what an annoying video. A good intro, and then an over-
the-top montage. Skip to 2:00, ah wait at 2:29 he thanks about his sponsor. At
3:08 the content starts. Of course he rambles too much because I guess he
needs to fill 10 minutes for more $$$?

~~~
TAForObvReasons
.. or to conform to Wadsworth Law:

> For EVERY youtube video, I always open the video and then immediately punch
> the slider bar to about 30 percent.

> For example, in this video [referenced video of length 1:42], it should have
> just started at :40. Everything before :40 was a waste. This holds true for
> nearly every video in the universe.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/kxfxy/and_so_ends_20_years_of_frustration/c2o1cyy/?context=3)

~~~
richdougherty
Tip: use the keyboard shortcut '3' to jump to 30%

------
scohesc
This kind of "gaming" (ha!) the system has been around for a while now -
another channel (Internet Comment Ettiquette) had a video called the
"Copyright Claim Olympics" which featured a whole bunch of different types of
content from many different copyright holders (olympic footage, movie footage,
music videos, distorted audio/video, etc. etc. even mixed and dubbed over each
other in order to make it even more difficult for content ID) to the tune of
"if I can't have my ad revenue for my other videos that were clearly fair
use/parody, nobody can have any ad revenue, fuck you Youtube content ID claim
abusers!"

Unfortunately it was taken down (probably 20+ copyright holders complaining
about a single video forced Youtube to do something about it) but can still be
found on Vimeo with a simple Google search.

~~~
forgotmypwd123
Yes, that's the exact same trick as Jim Sterling's "Copyright Deadlock".

------
shadowgovt
Note: story is from 2016. It's been three years, so it's unclear how relevant
this story is to the current status of ContentID, copyright identification,
and monetization on YouTube.

~~~
Slippery_John
I regularly follow the relevant creator, he definitely still does this and
still occasionally talks about it. From the handful of YouTube creators I
follow it seems like the problem has only become worse in intervening years.

------
tomc1985
Content ID is such bullshit. Here we are years later and it _still_ doesn't
permit fair-use like critique; one of the shown matches is barely _21 seconds_
in length. How is that a substantial copyright infringement?

~~~
unlinked_dll
The DMCA is the issue, not Content ID. There’s no presumption of innocence if
accused of a copyright infringement and it costs nothing to make an
accusation. On the other hand, a service provider has to accept the accusation
or they can leave the content untouched but then open themselves up to
secondary liability. All the while the accused has to certify under penalty of
perjury that their content is not infringing (there’s no equivalent for the
accuser).

Content ID is a bandaid on the tumor of IP law. Yell at your government not
Google for this.

~~~
tomc1985
I don't agree that companies should be absolved of blame simply because
they're acting in fear of a lawsuit. You are right, the DMCA is the culprit
here but equally disgraceful is the sheer cowardice on Google's part. They can
afford to fight for their users and techno-utopian ideals but it's far cheaper
to employ half-baked technological solutions instead.

------
jldugger
So if I understand correctly:

1\. Youtube makes money from ads.

2\. Jimquisition is funded from Patreon, and despises ads on his content.

3\. To resolve this paradox, Jim has found a way to (allegedly) infringe on
multiple parties' copyright

4\. Youtube's technology doesn't allow multiple monetizers, and therefore in
this situation allows none.

If Jim disagrees with the funding stategy of YouTube, why bother with YouTube
at all? Is free riding on youtube video distribution that valuable?

~~~
delfinom
His use of others copyrighted content falls under fair use since he's doing
reviews. It's YouTube and mega corporations fucking over and taking country
the laws. Fair use does not mandate the original copyright owner be paid in
anyway.

~~~
jldugger
> It's YouTube and mega corporations fucking over and taking country the laws.

But it's precisely because YouTube is a megacorp attached to another megacorp
that Jim can even upload videos without paying for distribution.

~~~
jessaustin
Is this relevant? The bastards are constantly changing the terms of our
interactions with them, while banking billions and destroying the fabric of
human life. They can't also complain that we're not "honoring the spirit" of
those terms.

~~~
MichaelEstes
Video hosting is expensive, like really expensive. I started a site (scrim.tv)
to try and disrupt YouTube for the reasons that are often expressed in posts
like these and I'm pretty convinced at this point that YouTube basically
breaks even in terms of profit.

~~~
derivagral
Youtube isn't broken out from Google in their quarterlies/annuals, so
outsiders can't easily know. I think the common belief is that YouTube the
video service operates at some amount of a loss, supported by other parts of
Google. This is justified (by Google the business) on the basis of market
share, free video test data, ads, etc. This does make it particularly
difficult to compete with in isolation, of course...

~~~
throwaway2048
Every analysis I have ever seen that says that Youtube is losing money relies
on paying commercial T1 provider rates for internet traffic, considering that
Google is peered directly with pretty much every single ISP on earth, this
titanicly overestimates costs.

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hoptank
Interesting but note the article is from 2016.

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Plasmoid2000ad
Great for making your video ad-free. But things have moved on since then, you
can now guarantee 50% of the ad revenue.

[https://youtu.be/Mz14Ul-r63w](https://youtu.be/Mz14Ul-r63w)

~~~
deckar01
The point is to prevent ads. If you can set the monetization preference to
"not allowed" on your own song, then the new trick might work. It seems rather
bazaar for 50% ads + no ads = no ads rather than just being taken down. I
wouldn't be surprised if this edge case was fixed already and the system just
leaned towards take downs. When people used to add copyrighted music to videos
at one of my previous companies (2016), YouTube would immediately take the
video down. Rarely did they allow it to stay up with monetization.

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fortyseven
Saw the headline and knew it'd be Jim. But yeah, this is ancient. Last I'd
heard, the old tricks were starting to fall.

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throwawayffffas
IANAL, But doesn't monetizing the video and giving the proceeds to the
claimant of the original copyright (nintendo) consitute infringement against
the derivatives work author(Jim), assuming that the derivative work falls
under fair use? Shouldn't Jim be able to sue both nintendo and youtube?

~~~
pjc50
This falls apart as soon as it encounters the Terms of Service.
[https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms](https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms)

> the Content you submit must not include third-party intellectual property
> (such as copyrighted material) unless you have permission from that party or
> are otherwise legally entitled to do so. You are legally responsible for the
> Content you submit to the Service

> By providing Content to the Service, you grant to YouTube a worldwide, non-
> exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable licence to use that
> Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display and perform it)
> for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Service.

> You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive,
> royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use
> that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display, and
> perform it) only as enabled by a feature of the Service.

Once you upload something of yours to Youtube, your only recourse is to take
it down again.

~~~
delfinom
A company claiming copyright over fair use would be a violation of the
derivatives legal rights and could easily be a lawsuit, YouTube would not be a
party to it and it requires the content owner to have the money for a multi-
year court case.

~~~
throwawayffffas
Given the terms pcj50 quotes, I wouldn't think you have any grounds to sue
anyone. To me it reads you give them a license to do whatever they please with
the uploaded content, that would include monetizing the content and giving the
proceeds to someone else.

~~~
zamalek
You wouldn't be able to sue _YouTube_ (but you can sue abusers). Abusing DMCA
takedowns allows for civil liability (Online Policy Group v. Diebold,
Incorporated). The problem is that nobody has bothered suing YouTube DMCA
plunderers, because it could get expensive. It wouldn't surprise me if there
were a class, so it's surprising that it hasn't happened yet.

~~~
kej
My understanding is that copyright holders aren't typically filing DMCA
complaints against YouTube. They're using YouTube's internal resolution
mechanisms which lack the DMCA's disincentives for abuse.

~~~
SAI_Peregrinus
This is correct.

Additionally (possibly off-topic) people often misunderstand what sort of
abuse the DMCA penalizes.

The DMCA prohibits claiming you own the copyright on some work that you don't.
It does NOT prohibit claiming that anything infringes that copyright.

For example, pretend I'm Nintendo. I own the copyright on Mario. Someone posts
a video of Mario. I claim that they infringe my copyright on Mario. Valid
claim. No perjury penalty.

Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on
Mario. Invalid claim. No perjury penalty! (This is the scenario people think
is prohibited.)

Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on
Doom. Invalid claim. Perjury penalty! I don't own any copyright to Doom!

It's the latter (rarely seen) case that the DMCA prohibits. AFAIK YouTube also
prohibits that in their ToS.

~~~
jcranmer
> Someone posts a video of Doom. I claim that they infringe my copyright on
> Doom. Invalid claim. Perjury penalty! I don't own any copyright to Doom!

Nor is this necessarily perjury. The actual statement you make under penalty
of perjury is "that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of
the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." If you believe
the statement that you own the copyright on Doom to be true, then it is not
perjury, even if you do not actually own it. A case where this would matter a
great deal would be the Happy Birthday song--Warner/Chappell believed they
owned a copyright that they did not, and thus they could send DMCA takedown
notices for people singing that song without fear of perjury (at least, until
the courts ruled that they did not own the copyright).

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greatscott404
I'd like to hear if anyone has a better solution than ContentID considering
the scale, laws, and stakeholders involved.

Everybody likes shitting on it but it's the best solution to the problem.

------
fullstopslash
I particularly love hacks like this. Use the system against itself. Open
source exemplifies this, but this is yet another example of the technique.

------
iamaelephant
I can't get past this guy's Nazi aesthetic. I know gamers love Nazis but damn
at least be subtle about it.

~~~
cableshaft
It's played up in jest. He's acting like he's some great authority that
everyone worships but in reality he isn't (and he knows it, that's the joke).
Jim Sterling is big on showmanship, so much so that he eventually got into
being a wrestler on the side despite having terrible back problems.

It's like Jack Black's band Tenacious D claiming to be the greatest band that
ever lived, knowing full well that they aren't, but pretending they are is
part of their shtick.

~~~
fyrabanks
Just to play devil's advocate, Tenacious D doesn't use imagery that, say,
evokes ISIS.

------
abbadadda
What a garbage website. Please autoplay video advertisements for me. That is
so helpful. Oh wait, who owns it?

p.s. Jim Spanfeller is an herb: Slate Web results The Media-Sensational Rise
and Fall of “Jim Spanfeller Is a Herb”: [https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2019/11/jim-spanfeller-i...](https://slate.com/news-and-
politics/2019/11/jim-spanfeller-is-a-herb-rise-fall-blog-post-deadspin.html)

------
ikeboy
Most articles I've seen about the YouTube system are wildly misinformed.

Here's the facts: in almost all cases [0], anyone can easily get rid of any
abusive claim by simply disputing it, and filing a counternotice if and when
it is elevated to a DMCA notice (copyright strike). The only way for the
copyright holder to prevent this is by actually filing a lawsuit, and being as
this requires a lawyer to sign off on, is extremely unlikely to happen for
frivolous cases. Any article that claims that this can't be easily disputed,
or that the burden of proof is on the YouTuber who uploaded the video (outside
of the exception discussed below) is wrong, full stop.

[0] there is an exception for a small number of content owners. See
[https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-
yo...](https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-youtube-
removals#contractual-obligations) and
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-
cont...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-contractual-
obligations-users-free-speech). As far as I can tell, the only company known
to be part of this is UMG.

~~~
winkeltripel
There are 2 different ways Copyright-Owners can interact with Content Creators
via Youtube:

1\. manually file copyright strikes. If a Content creator has 3 of these at
once, their entire channel gets taken offline. The dispute resolution
mechanism leaves the video in whatever state the copyright owner chose (for
possibly 2 months), and they get to keep the revenue from the dispute period,
even if they lose (its possible that youtube has changed this).

2\. ContentID. Copyright-Owners just give Youtube a copy of your copyrighted
works, and tell it if you'd like videos containing your content to be left
alone, monetized for your adsense account, or have the video taken down until
the offending content is removed. This can be manual, or automatic. Contesting
these is basically impossible (its possible that youtube has changed this).

~~~
ikeboy
It's possible it worked that way in the past, but it's certainly not the case
now.

If disputed within five days, all revenue is escrowed until resolution. And
content ID claims can be easily disputed and must be turned into a DMCA claim
if not withdrawn. See my post at
[https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/h...](https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/how_youtube_copyright_claims_work_from_beginning)
which goes into extensive detail on the process with sources. See also the eff
links in my above comment which has the same information.

~~~
falcolas
This doesn't go into the "three strikes and you're shutdown" which has been
used extensively against small creators. For example (and notwithstanding the
rest of the issue) how 2k Games knocked the Borderlands 3 leaker (SupMatto)
off YouTube, permanently, by making dozens of copyright notices against their
channel. There's also the case of Alex Mauer (a song writer) who took several
channels offline as a side effect of her legal battle with a videogame
creator.

Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if
you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline.

As a side note, the revenue escrow is very new. It took YouTube over a decade
(Content ID was introduced in 2007) to come to this fairly reasonable middle
ground. Just... don't take a vacation, OK?

~~~
ikeboy
3 _unopposed_ strikes and you're shutdown.

>Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if
you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline.

Note that per
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en)

>If your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, you are eligible for a 7
day courtesy period after 3 copyright strikes before your channel is disabled.
During this period, your copyright strikes won’t expire and you won’t be able
to upload new videos. Your channel will remain live and you will be able to
access it to seek a resolution for your strikes. If your strikes are resolved
through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and they are
ultimately successful, your channel will not be disabled.

The Youtube Partner Program is the system that allows for monetization, so
everyone that's making money off Youtube ads is in it. I.e., everyone who's
making money off Youtube ads has 7 days from receiving the strikes to file
counternotices, and by my reading their account will remain active until those
are resolved one way or the other. It says the channel won't be disabled if
the notices are successful, implying that it isn't disabled even temporarily.

Regarding your examples, yes, if there's actual legal action then the creator
will be in trouble. But that's true regardless of whether they got strikes or
filed a counternotice. I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious
fair use cases is "astonishingly rare".

~~~
falcolas
Once again, I would point out that most of these creator friendly policies and
programs are quite new. Angry Joe has a video that covers when they were put
in place, and most of those occurred in the last year, after a decade of
creator-hostile policies.

> you are eligible for a 7 day courtesy

Seven whole days until your channel is closed forever. How generous. See:
Vacation, holidays, natural disasters (or PG&E disasters)

Also, why doesn't the copyright claimants also only have a maximum of 7 days
to respond? We're talking about Content ID claims here, as a reminder, not
DMCA.

> resolved through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and
> they are ultimately successful

Which can take upwards of 30 days per step in the process, no matter how
quickly the creator moves. So, your channel is in hiatus for more 30 days.
This is an eternity in a business which relies on consistent and frequent
content output to remain soluble.

> there's actual legal action then the creator will be in trouble

Which was _not_ the case in either of the situations I posted. The actions
only involved YouTube.

> I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious fair use cases is
> "astonishingly rare".

Does that really matter, if Content ID claims alone have devastated the
channel's viewerbase?

Jim Sterling from the article has many a horror story of spending between 6
months and 2 years fighting copyright claims and associated from corporations
and CEO's. So does sidalpha and Angry Joe. Can we really claim in good faith
that they're lying by pointing at Google FAQs?

~~~
ikeboy
Most of the policies I'm referencing are a few years old. My reddit post I
linked is from around a year ago and talks about all these policies except for
the 7 day courtesy period, so I don't know exactly when that went into effect.

Anyway, if people are linking articles from 2016 I'm going to point out the
current state of the policies.

>Seven whole days until your channel is closed forever. How generous. See:
Vacation, holidays, natural disasters (or PG&E disasters)

It's not forever, you can always file a counternotice after it's been taken
down. But yes, you should be prepared to defend your business. You want
passive income, you can be prepared to check your email at least once a week.

> >Also, why doesn't the copyright claimants also only have a maximum of 7
> days to respond? We're talking about Content ID claims here, as a reminder,
> not DMCA.

That's a fair criticism. Presumably Youtube feels that they need a longer time
to satisfy claimants and avoid DMCA filings. Remember, content ID claims do
not harm the channel at all, so there's no real rush to get them removed
except for getting the ad revenue out of escrow.

>So, your channel is in hiatus for more 30 days.

On my reading you can keep uploading while the counternotice process
continues.

>Which was not the case in either of the situations I posted. The actions only
involved YouTube.

Looks like Alex Mauer was involved in legal action
[https://leonardjfrench.com/2017/06/30/imagos-softworks-v-
ale...](https://leonardjfrench.com/2017/06/30/imagos-softworks-v-alex-mauer/).
Not familiar with the other case but looks like it's not obviously fair use to
share leaked content, could be wrong.

>Jim Sterling from the article has many a horror story of spending between 6
months and 2 years fighting copyright claims and associated from corporations
and CEO's. So does sidalpha and Angry Joe. Can we really claim in good faith
that they're lying by pointing at Google FAQs?

What are they claiming? Have they claimed to have submitted a counternotice
that was rejected? Can you link me to someone going through a timeline, with
dates on what was disputed when, showing that Google FAQs are wrong? Because
I've not seen that. I have seen someone posting about getting a counternotice
rejected mistakenly and getting it overturned by tweeting at Youtube. And then
there's the UMG exception as my first comment noted.

But most horror stories I've seen are people who get a bunch of claims and
don't even seem to consider filing a counterclaim, or think it's too risky
based in bad info. Or, very very rarely, people who actually get sued.

