
Explaining copyright broke the YouTube copyright system - pulisse
https://www.law.nyu.edu/centers/engelberg/news/2020-03-04-youtube-takedown
======
xster
Adam Neely (YouTube music educator) had an absolutely farcical run-in with
this situation
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8))
where he made a video defending Warner Music and Katy Perry's Dark Horse
against Flame's Joyful Noise plagiarism suit. He lost the claim from Warner
Music even though:

1- he was defending Warner Music

2- he didn't play any recordings, he just played 3 notes on a synthesizer
(which is his whole premise that it's un-copyrightable)

3- Warner Music lost the actual suit (which implies they don't have copyright
on those 3 notes?)

4- someone at Warner Music manually tagged the "infringing" part of the video,
except the person tagged not the Dark Horse part of the play through but the
Joyful Noise part of the play through (*^∀^)ノ彡┻━┻

changelog: improved ascii art

~~~
RandomTisk
It's pretty simple, Alphabet/Google make it far too easy for mistaken, false
or frivolous claims. It's obvious why, usually the claimant has the heavy bags
of money to use as a bludgeon, but it's not right.

~~~
LeoTinnitus
It's also because US law requires companies to excessively defend their
trademarks in order to enforce them as a rightholder otherwise they lose it.
So really US law has just been interpreted in a way that is absurdly annoying
for everyone. Companies have no choice but to defend and actively seek out
even minor things because it can all be used against them in court eventually
one day. As long as they actively suppress that stuff, it proves to a judge
they are protecting their IP. It's really a precedent set by the US government
to force companies to waste this time and annoy us.

~~~
rolls-reus
I've seen the point you make about trademarks often repeated but it is infact
not true. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-
not...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not-require-
companies-tirelessly-censor-internet)

~~~
Hnrobert42
I donate to EFF regularly, and I support the article’s premise.

However, I am not sure an argument by EFF, no matter how much I support it,
can be considered a factual counterpoint.

Also, I’m bummed to see the parent post downvoted. I thought on HN, downvotes
were supposed to be used on off topic/hostile/unproductive points, not just
ones with which we disagree.

~~~
wglb
Downvoting for disagreement has been a long-accepted practice, as noted by 'pg
and 'dang.

~~~
Hnrobert42
My bad. I reread the guidelines and FAQ. I must have been thinking of some
other forum.

------
thirteenfingers
Classical pianist here. I've been through youtube's broken copyright
enforcement system several times. I'll post a video of myself performing some
composition that is in the public domain and it'll get "identified" as a
copyrighted recording by someone else. Of course youtube doesn't give you an
option for "mistaken claim", you have to choose between "this content is
entirely my work" (which isn't quite true in my case, since I didn't write the
music) or "this video counts as fair use". I typically select "this video
counts as fair use" because it's the least untrue of the available options.
Nineteen times out of twenty the claim disappears immediately. (I don't even
monetize my videos. I just don't want ads on my videos at all, and I
especially don't want ads on my videos if the revenue is going to some
completely unrelated party.)

There was, however, one time when I had to deal with an escalated claim. The
piece in question was the slow movement of Dvorak's "New World" Symphony. The
Symphony has long been in the public domain. However, the slow movement was
adapted into the song "Goin' Home", which is still under copyright, and there
is a long-standing myth that the song was the inspiration for the Symphony
rather than the other way around. Thus when I challenged the copyright claim
on my New World video, the claimant came back and insisted their claim (on
"Goin' Home") was valid. This notice was of course accompanied by the scary
warnings about how if I persisted it could count as a strike against my
youtube account.

I called their bluff. I responded with links to every online source I could
find showing that Dvorak's work came first and was in the public domain.

I don't know what I would have done had they continued to dig in their heels.
Happily, they ended up releasing the claim - days before their claim would
have expired anyway - with no elaboration. I'd be curious to hear from anyone
else who stuck it through the scary youtube warnings and what the outcome was.

[EDIT: thanks for the clarifications on "own content" and "fair use". I never
thought of it that way, but now it seems obvious.]

~~~
true_religion
Actually a performance piece of a public domain work counts as its own
copyrighted work. So the least true option would be claiming that the song is
your work.

~~~
jcranmer
He says he's posting videos of _himself_ playing the piece, which means he
owns the copyright of his performance.

~~~
0xffff2
Yes, so the "work" as far as copyright is concerned is the performance. The
"work" is entirely his own.

~~~
jcranmer
And how does that make "this is my work" the least true option?

~~~
Supermancho
> Actually a performance piece of a public domain work counts as its own
> copyrighted work. So the least true option would be claiming that the song
> is your work. reply

Since this was the reply, which explains how "this is my work" is the most
true option, I'm not sure why you feel the need to post your question. Both
sides have been explained and you can decide on your own.

~~~
FeepingCreature
> > So the least true option

> "this is my work" is the most true option

Obviously this was a typo, probably meant to be "least untrue".

~~~
true_religion
Yes, I meant to write “least untrue” just the same as the original poster.

------
css
The "solution" they arrived at boggles my mind:

> We reached out to YouTube through private channels to try to get clarity
> around the copyright strike rules. While we never got that clarity, some
> weeks later we were informed that the claims against our video had been
> removed.

We need competition in this space.

~~~
crescentfresh
This is the most concerning part. What do "regular" content creators (read: no
legal team) do to remove these kinds of invalid copyright strikes?

~~~
undreren
They give up. Literally. A lot of content creators even joke about it during
their videos.

“Gotta hurry past this café so the music won’t get my video copyright striked,
lol!”

~~~
geerlingguy
This morning I got a copyright claim for a video I published in 2015 which had
a brief bit of background music, using a royalty-free song I got as a perk for
being an iTools user from FreePlay in _2003_.

I can choose to combat the copyright claim (and during this process you check
a box that says "you agree that you could have your account deleted if you
don't win this claim" (something like that)), or I can give the $1/year
revenue I got from that video to the scummy company that files these claims.

To me that's $1/year lost revenue (no big deal, right?) but that company now
gets the revenue from this video—and millions of other videos... so they're
making mint and gambling that most users won't even try to appeal.

~~~
hinkley
Doesn't that mean they need to be sending a hundred of these out per hour, 40
hours a week, just to make payroll?

~~~
crankylinuxuser
A machine (script) can send out a lot more than a hundred/hr.

Remember, they don't have to be true.

~~~
velosol
The person clicking the button just needs to think it's true.

------
notRobot
_> While our colleagues in the communications department were highly
supportive of our efforts, they were concerned that one misstep could wipe NYU
Law’s entire YouTube presence off the internet._

The copyright system on YouTube is broken and stuff like this allows
rightsholders to abuse the DMCA and bully small creators. It's a shame.

 _> Since we are the center at NYU Law focused on technology and innovation,
it was not a dead end for us. We reached out to YouTube through private
channels to try to get clarity around the copyright strike rules. While we
never got that clarity, some weeks later we were informed that the claims
against our video had been removed._

It is so with all Google products. Your content will be taken down or account
will be randomly locked or your apps will be removed and unless you have lots
of "clout" and/or can build up an outrage about the incident on Twitter/HN,
you're screwed.

------
partiallypro
Slightly off topic...but I recently had a Facebook page removed from Facebook
for copyright violations. Though I had an agreement with the copyright holder
to use their content/logo, etc. I reached out to that copyright holder...and
they didn't file the complaint. So I made an appeal to Facebook, with the
paperwork showing I had an agreement (in this case with a German soccer club)
to use their logo, etc and they (Facebook) didn't even reply to me at all.
Incredibly frustrating experience. I've reached out multiple times, through
the appeal process, and through emails. No one even cares, and worse I created
a new page similar to that page...and Facebook unpublished it. So, now I am
stuck in limbo or can likely never have that page back or similar pages...all
because Facebook is black hole and doesn't care even slightly. I get that they
have billions of users, but so do a lot of companies, and they will at least
reach back out to you and give you a status...even if the answer is "too bad."
This happened almost 3 weeks ago now. Nothing.

BTW, the page is non-commercial and doesn't profit from anything.

~~~
miohtama
Sounds like the EU bureaucrats should sharpen their knives again, otherwise
there is no justice for the little guy.

~~~
sampo
> Sounds like the EU bureaucrats should sharpen their knives again, otherwise
> there is no justice for the little guy.

Au contraire, the EU is demanding automatic copyright filters (also known as
censorship machines). Don't mistake EU doing one good thing – GDPR – for EU
always taking the side of the little guy.

[https://edri.org/censorship-machine-takes-over-eu-
internet/](https://edri.org/censorship-machine-takes-over-eu-internet/)

~~~
kevingadd
My hot take: Automatic copyright filters help the little guy if implemented
correctly, because then independent and established content creators both have
the ability to shove stuff into Content ID and other filtering systems. Right
now you need to be in the Big Boys Club to get access to Content ID, and once
you have it you can do whatever you want. This bias is possible in part
because it isn't a regulated program, it's just the result of back-door deals
between Google and other companies.

Of course, automatic copyright filters are a complete disaster for _multiple_
reasons, but establishing them universally via regulation in a way that
doesn't favor big corporate players is a lot better than the ones we have
right now. The ideal is to abolish them entirely.

One of the biggest problems with Content ID is that Google seems to make no
effort to verify actual ownership before allowing claims to be made, so you
can trivially steal other people's content without being penalized. If
filtering happens at a regulatory level, it could be tied in with the system
for registering copyrights, at which point anyone can utilize the system by
registering their work and you have an easier way to resolve disputes over
claims (is this copyright registration valid or not? is the match correct?) vs
the current YouTube mess.

~~~
tastroder
Your "if implemented correctly" is but one of the big non-starters in the
argument for upload filters, that's plain and simple not going to happen. And
not only from a technical perspective...

In legislations like ours in Germany copyright registration isn't really a
thing for most arms of copyright related topics, rights on creative works are
rather complicated in general and even with the EU subject to local laws. So
there's hardly anything to tie into really.

And from the viewpoint of "helping the little guy/gal" it seems that all
recent legislation worked against that, e.g. here most of these issues were
delegated to commercial interest groups that just flat out deny smaller
content creators like YouTubers or bloggers.

Even if they could upload content, then you have the same content in there
twice and need to bake on another layer that's likely broken.

To me it honestly seems that no amount of good will legislation in this space
that mandates anything close to upload filters will ever turn out benefitial
to smaller players in the space.

~~~
kevingadd
"it seems that all recent legislation worked against that" is blatantly
untrue. The DMCA functions for individuals and Content ID does not, which is
part of why big players wanted Content ID: it favors them.

I agree that it's very hard for legislation to fix this problem, but I think
people are too eager to claim that legislation is unable to help small players
when the situation is far more nuanced. Well-crafted legislation in this area
could help a lot, but content filters aren't it.

~~~
tastroder
I was referring to legislative changes that are currently either in the works
or being discussed in Germany as a response to the upload filter proposals
based on EU requirements.

Only have a German link at hand but it's definitely not helping the little
folks, e.g. this breakdown was cited with the remark "bloggers don't even make
the cut to appear in the statistics".
[https://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-so-viel-
geld-...](https://www.golem.de/news/leistungsschutzrecht-so-viel-geld-wuerden-
die-verlage-von-google-bekommen-1809-136436.html)

I'm by no means arguing that legislation wouldn't help, I'm honestly of the
opposite opinion. I just see content/upload filters as a bad idea and broken
by design, apologies if I didn't get that across in the previous comment.

------
blunte
Once again, this illustrates how modern tech companies (primarily Google) are
failing in terms of overall correctness of following or apply rules -
apparently primarily because they choose not to employ enough humans in the
process.

In most of these cases of unreasonable takedowns or account closures, there is
no way to reach a human to have the case reviewed reasonably. It seems to
(almost?) always depend on somehow finding an employee, such as often happens
when someone posts their story here on HN.

I haven't read the annual report of Alphabet lately, but I can safely assume
they are making enough profit that they could afford to make improvements in
these systems (by employing more humans in key positions and by slowing or
limiting the chances of automated processes reaching terminal decisions).

------
bavell
There are many potential technical solutions to solving the problems of
identifying copyright infringement and mediating the dispute between parties
in a way that is fair to all involved. But why is the current system a
dumpster fire? It seems Google/YT doesn't care because the companies sending
out fraudulent disputes are many times the the same companies spending $$$ on
ads. Without any real penalties for fraudulent claims (correct me if I'm
wrong) they have every incentive to send out disputes by the truckload just to
see what sticks.

The only real damage done to Google/YT as a result of fraudulent disputes like
these are to it's reputation of not being friendly to creators - a view I
think is already firmly rooted. We desperately need alternatives but it's an
uphill battle the whole way with huge barriers to entry...

~~~
bostik
The solution is to go nuclear and enshrine adversarial balance in law.

If a company, _or an agent acting in their name_ , makes a fraudulent
copyright claim, then have the wronged party name one item in the offending
company's catalog that becomes public domain. Any contractual losses for
entities who were benefiting from royalties in the said work are the
offender's problem. Not only do the copyfraudsters lose a (possibly much more
valuable) item from their catalog, they'd also have to compensate those whose
incomes they have affected with their fraudulent acts.

Align the incentives and make the stick painful enough. People being people
will take care of the rest.

~~~
jbay808
What's to stop me, jbay808, from sending fraudulent copyright claims in
Disney's name, against you, bostik, as part of a coordinated plan to make Star
Wars public domain?

~~~
kevingadd
No law anyone passes will ever push a Disney property like Star Wars into the
public domain, no matter what was written into it

But on the other hand, nothing's going to stop you from filing fraudulent DMCA
claims. The few measures in the law designed to discourage it don't work.

~~~
etrabroline
Not with that attitude.

------
matheusmoreira
You know the law is broken when even _legal experts_ can't exercise their
right to the fair use of copyrighted works for the purpose of educating others
about copyright litigation.

~~~
jagged-chisel
Ah, but they _did_ exercise those rights. Oh, it was expensive; too expensive
for the average creator to have exercised those rights. I think that's the
message: the _cost_ of making sure you and your content are treated correctly.

~~~
stubish
I don't think they got to exercise their rights. They only succeeded by using
private back channels, and they only succeeded in making the problem
disappear. If they had been able to exercise their rights, they would be able
to sue for costs. They demonstrated that the processes provided by Youtube to
exercise their rights do not work, and for people not in the inner circle your
only recourse would be to sue for damages.

------
joelg
I think a lots of people end up having a reaction like "well they're trying
their best! what else are they going to do!? it's basically an impossible
problem!" to things like this and other recent youtube headlines.

That reaction betrays an assumption that YouTube _must_ exist at its current
scale in its current form, just because... it does already. And I think that
assumption is dead wrong: we're bumping up on all kinds of emergent phenomenon
(conspiracies, runaway recommendations) and issues (copyright, borderline
child porn) that cannot be solved, and we shouldn't let Google give us their
best-effort compromise. If you can't address these kinds of problems in your
product, _don 't fucking build it_.

~~~
aabhay
There’s an interesting meta-phenomenon here. I call it _automation handcuffs_.
A platform grows massively due to radically eliminating the policy and
bureaucracy infrastructure that others have (YouTube vs typical content distro
channels). That same platform is now so big that it has to add back in that
bureaucracy and policy that it lacked. However, it’s now so big that it _must_
use automation to solve these problems or else go bankrupt hiring people. In
the end, society gets a half-measure. The platform is too big to legalize. The
existing players are too small to compete. Users are forced to accept
substandard experiences.

~~~
_bxg1
> it’s now so big that it must use automation to solve these problems or else
> go bankrupt hiring people

This is what Google and Facebook would like us to believe, but I'm not
convinced. What it really comes down to is that they'd _very much like_ to
stay in the realm of automation, especially Google who are notorious for
keeping humans out of the loop at any cost. See the long history of problems
with their automated "developer relations" on Android. And the problem is that
the disincentives for continuing to fail at these halfway-automated tasks are
simply not strong enough to force their hand.

So they can just keep "doing their best" with automation, even though
automation itself is far from the best they could do.

~~~
minhazm
How else can they actually operate the platform without automation? Android
app store submissions weren't even within several orders of magnitude to the
scale of YouTube & Facebook videos.

I think something like 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute to
YouTube. How do you propose people review that in real time? Just to keep up
in real time you need (300*60) 18000 people watching the videos and not
falling behind, which means you likely need at least 5x that number.

~~~
_bxg1
I didn't say _without_ any automation. I'm saying that when these unreasonable
cases come up, and people appeal, there often isn't even a human brought in at
that stage (or at least, not one who's given enough bandwidth to legitimately
investigate the situation). Example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19124324)

Cases like this, and the OP, are common-sense to any human being. Google
doesn't especially _want_ them to be resolved in this nonsensical way, they
just don't care enough to direct the necessary resources to make sure a human
touch is applied to them.

~~~
Aunche
This doesn't apply to your example, but for copyright, what is there to
prevent a content stealer from spamming the appeals? You can ban or demonetize
their account, but that's basically the status quo.

Also, YouTube doesn't want to settle disputes because that makes them liable
to be sued if they happen to be wrong.

------
zadokshi
The problem is the legislative framework in the US. The definition of fair use
is not clear enough. You need to get together and amend the laws to make it
much clearer what is fair use. If the law stated (for example) "a song playing
in the background in a coffee shop for less than 10 seconds is fair use" then
youtubers wouldn't be joking "Better hurry past this coffee shop so I don't
get a copyright strike".

Less whining about the problem and more work on a legally helpful definition
of Fair use would help everyone.

(Consider other countries which have clearer fair use policies where they
clearly indicate "how many pages of a book can be copied" etc. This needs to
be updated to include video, i.e. "How many seconds of a video can be
shown/sampled" with no subjective test of "if deemed in the public interest,
or newsworthy etc". Just a simple blanket rule. "People can clip up to 10
seconds of video" or something like that.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Even with a clear definition, private entities don't have to honor fair use
privileges. Their server, their rules.

~~~
a1369209993
The (well, a) problem here is that the legal system is misclassifying youtube
as a private entity, rather than as the public common carrier that it in
practice actually is.

------
user9429450
I'm a hobbyist musician. I put some of my work on SoundCloud and license it CC
no-commercial. A fan made a video to my work using public domain footage of
various DNA processes. It happens to resemble the background of an old Bjork
video. It was auto-striked as containing content belonging to her label due to
the similarities in the video content. In reality they are violating MY
copyright if the video happened to ever generate any revenue. I made an
account just to post this. It's a sad situation.

~~~
gnopgnip
Generating revenue alone does not make it commercial use in the context of
copyright

~~~
user9429450
Correct, perhaps that is arguable, especially given the grey area this is all
taking place in. I was speaking to the reality that if you're a popular
YouTuber, and your content gets striked in this way, all revenues from that
video go to them instead of you. This is especially terrible for music related
content creators, fair use essentially does not exist for them.

------
norswap
The situation is now so silly that some people are circumventing the system by
copyright claiming their own videos:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo)

This enable them to at least get some of the revenue of their video (by
sharing with other (often bogus) claimants), and to monetize re-uploads
(something normally available only to big channels).

Why Google doesn't do anything about this mess is beyond me.

------
kensai
This unfortunately is not the case for most poor users. No such muscle and
resources.

“This would have been a dead end for most users. Unable to understand how the
already opaque dispute resolution process might impact the status of their
account, they would have to decide if it was worth gambling their entire
YouTube account on the chances that their some combination of YouTube and the
rightsholder would recognize their fair use claim.

Since we are the center at NYU Law focused on technology and innovation, it
was not a dead end for us. We reached out to YouTube through private channels
to try to get clarity around the copyright strike rules. While we never got
that clarity, some weeks later we were informed that the claims against our
video had been removed.“

------
ikeboy
>We discovered that if we continued to challenge the accusation of
infringement and lost, our video would be subject to copyright strikes. If the
account was subject to multiple strikes its ability to live stream could be
restricted or the account could be terminated. While our colleagues in the
communications department were highly supportive of our efforts, they were
concerned that one misstep could wipe NYU Law’s entire YouTube presence off
the internet.

To be clear, if you dispute and counternotice everything, then the only way
this would happen is if the other side actually sues you, which is incredibly
unlikely here.

~~~
crescentfresh
That's not how I read that. "lost" in this context simply means the so-called
copyright holder clicks the button that says "nah, still can't use my stuff"
that's considered a strike.

~~~
wtallis
The "Resolve a copyright strike" section of [1] includes:

> There are three ways to resolve a copyright strike:

> [...]

> 3\. Submit a counter notification: If your video was mistakenly removed
> because it was misidentified as infringing, or qualifies as a potential fair
> use, you may wish to submit a counter notification.

That's not entirely clear whether the copyright strike is removed when you
_submit_ a counter notification, or whether the status of the copyright strike
is resolved after further proceedings.

I _think_ the strike is removed immediately upon submission of the counter
notification, because I think this is the action that moves the dispute fully
into the formally defined DMCA takedown legal procedure and out of YouTube's
own content ID procedures. But Google's documentation is obviously avoiding
any clear statement of user's rights and what's required by law vs by Google
policy. Google and the big copyright cartels want the system to continue to
function largely on intimidation, and don't want it to be too easy for users
to find and exercise the "sue me or fuck off" option they are legally entitled
to.

[1]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000)

~~~
ikeboy
The strike isn't removed until after ten days, but the effects are paused
during that period. The content will stay down during that period but the
account is fine.

I don't want to ascribe particular motivations to Google here, but I agree
that more people should be aware that they can dispute and counternotice and
won't be harmed except in the very unlikely case that they actually get sued.

~~~
jandrese
This also assumes that the entity that made the original claim doesn't just
come back and say that your counter-notice is invalid. Google doesn't actually
check that they are telling the truth and will just suspend your account
permanently instead.

If you involve some lawyers and media pressure they might reverse the
decision, but if you are just a random person without a legal team on call
24/7 you're SOL.

~~~
ikeboy
>This also assumes that the entity that made the original claim doesn't just
come back and say that your counter-notice is invalid. Google doesn't actually
check that they are telling the truth and will just suspend your account
permanently instead.

Not how it works. They need to actually file a lawsuit.

------
rickety-gherkin
A couple things I'm confused about here. Was NYU monetizing this video? Is
that where the grounds for dispute are? If that's true, would demonetizing the
video clear out the disputes? Even though this clearly falls under fair use,
it's still something that was unclear to me.

I'm surprised there's not a serious case against Youtube/Google for denying
people the right to Fair Use. Is this because people don't have to use
Youtube? Is this in the Youtube contract somewhere? Is it because Fair Use
doesn't work like that? If you provide a platform like Youtube for people to
use, are you not held legally responsible for protecting Fair Use laws the
same way you'd be held liable for copyright infringement if you didn't give
corporations/people the ability to dispute?

If Youtube allowed all videos to exist regardless of copyright infringement,
and didn't lay out any paths for claims, would they be in legal trouble? Is
this not the same as automatically removing obvious Fair Use content?

~~~
deckar01
A copyright violation does not just remove your right to monetize the content,
it also removes your right to determine if the content is monetized. The
copyright holders who claimed infringement can decide to allow the content and
force it to be monetized for their profit.

~~~
lathiat
It's worth noting that while this is the most common mechanism employed by
youtube.. it is possible with the same system to just remove the right to have
the video (or at least that segment) published at all.

But the general business youtube has pursued, which in fairness, is partly to
make it possible for people to publish videos with such works in the first
place, is that most copyright holders will allow the work to be use but
instead the entire video (regardless of how significant that small copyright
portion was) is monetized to the 100% benefit of the copyright holder.

There are some plusses to this, in that it's easy (and free) to actually
publish a video containing copyrighted works. And that in general by working
with all the publishers to do this, it has in theory prevented them from
chasing YouTube harder to disallow any such content.

The downside is the entire system is one sided and the review and oversight
process is clearly lacking. I could understand a little how this happens with
small channels... but I frequently see channels with hundreds of thousands of
subscribers (who are typically full time youtubers) and sometimes even
millions.. get the same lack of oversight to their claims.

To me it's crazy that the "3 strikes" rule applies just as equally to
accidental and incorrect violations on an otherwise very active and largely
original channel (that posts 1 video a day making it very easy to accidentally
or incorrectly get recognised as having a violation) as it does to a 1 video
channel with no subscribers that is actually violating copyright. It boggles
the mind that there is no scale applied.

And time and time again I witness channels I watch have this same process of
having to somehow reach out to someone at youtube by yelling on twitter or
hacker news and then problems just "go away". Even those with millions of
subscribers that have internal youtube partner managers.. often those channels
still can't solve these problems. It's madness.

------
lemax
The automated copyright filter isn't going to pass revenue onto the artists
YouTube and the rights holding giants want to claim that it will. This is a
system that Youtube essentially poured $100M into building to keep the big
licensors on its side (and avoid any surprise bills from them) and, with
Article 13 in the EU under proposal, ensure any new entrants struggle to meet
the technical demands and costs of more misguided regulation. Of course,
Youtube would prefer to avoid the burden of this sort of moderation
altogether, but it will be convenient when it costs around 9 figures to build
anything close to what they have just to avoid the copyright regulation
landmines. Pricing power will be further concentrated among the few big
platforms and the share going to creators will continue to dwindle.

~~~
doh
Well, not really. For instance our Attribution Engine [0], which is much more
advanced than YouTube's Content ID is free to all rightsholders and platforms.
We make money from taking % from all licensed content, but that also means
both platforms and rightsholders generated revenue in the first place.

[0] [https://blog.pex.com/introducing-the-attribution-
engine-19ec...](https://blog.pex.com/introducing-the-attribution-
engine-19eccd3441a9)

------
masswerk
A point could be made, given that a false claim is a vioalation of the DMCA,
that an automatic system must recognize fair use context, erring in favor of
the accused. If it fails to do so, it's not ready for production.*

(A possible salvation by the party inflicting the harm onto the falsely
accused by allowing a disfunctional system to raise these claims, may be
providing funds required for taking the case to court. Else, the entire
situation is essentially disproportionate, since, to all probability, the
accused party may lack the means to rectify the situation.)

* ) Read: I know, detecting this kind of context is prohibitively complex and probably not in the practical scope of the state of the art. Meaning, the technology is not ready for production.

------
xg15
> _After reviewing your dispute, IMG has decided their copyright claim is
> still valid_ (response to a dispute)

> _The claimant can request that your video be removed ... if they believe
> their claim is still valid_ (response to an appeal)

Question: Does it seem strange that YouTube has the copyright claimant decide
on disputes and appeals of their own copyright claims?

This seems like a court in which the plaintiff is also the judge. How can this
possibly work?

If I were a troll and just wanted to make life for people needlessly hard,
could I submit claims for random videos and simply reject all disputes and
appeals - and if someone tried to sue me, say I was just playing by the
Content ID rules and didn't invoke actual copyright law at all? What would
happen?

~~~
rurounijones
> Question: Does it seem strange that YouTube has the copyright claimant
> decide on disputes and appeals of their own copyright claims?

From a very cynical perspective: Not really, it makes perfect sense as it is
the cheapest option that also empowers the people who can make youtube's life
a misery. (The big corporations that file these claims).

Hiring third party people to decide these or whatever mechanism you can think
of would be more expensive for youtube than what they have now.

------
ehnto
That was disappointing, I was expecting more insights into the law and
YouTube's system, rather than someone at YouTube thought it pertinent not to
help scam NYU Law school.

------
bane
The correct answer of course is for a mass protest where a great many people
flag Google's own content as violating copyright...and keep doing it month
after month after month until this nonsense ends.

Here's the channel, get to flagging.
[https://www.youtube.com/user/Google](https://www.youtube.com/user/Google)

------
mamborambo
Reading through the article the appeal process was shown to be highly fuzzy
and uncertain even for a group of highly trained legal experts.

This Kafkaesque situation is similar to the way the legal process works inside
a totalitarian state like China, where the citizen caught in a sticky legal
situation, could not use the appeal and defence mechanisms, because nobody
knows what is the actual mechanism.

And similarly the Youtube user has no natural rights or protection, even if
the entire misconduct lies with the Youtube copyright strike process.

It is times like this that I start to agree with the way governments have
begun to scrutinize Facebook and Google.

Clearly they do have a responsibility beyond a commercial term of service, to
provide not just a utility but also to ensure that some degree of fair play,
truthfulness, and consistency is applied.

------
mullingitover
Fun fact: Youtube's revenue in 2019[1] was just slightly less than the
combined revenue of all box office ticket sales[2] for the same year.

They should be under severe antitrust scrutiny.

[1] [https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/alphabet-youtube-ad-
re...](https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/alphabet-youtube-ad-revenue-
first-time-15-billion-2019-1203491155/)

[2]
[https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/](https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2019/)

------
moron4hire
YouTube has a feature where you can add a soundtrack to a video from a list of
free-to-use songs. These are supposed to be songs that are in the clear. I got
a copyright infringement strike on my account from it.

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
Proof?

~~~
moron4hire
You're either going to have to take what I say for what it is, or call me a
liar to my face.

------
jhallenworld
I remember when Youtube was created, and then bought by Google I thought how
can these people make so much money on what is basically a file server. But
this right here is it- they did not solve any kind of technical problem, they
solved a legal one. The automated copyright system is the main value add of
Youtube, do not doubt it. It allows Youtube to make more ad revenue than it
loses from lawsuits or from having to hire an army of people to deal with
copyright claims.

------
grecy
There is a monetized YouTube video with thousands of views made entirely of my
hi-res photos and the captions I wrote on those photos.

I've tried to file a takedown request, and the process is so onerous, and they
require all kinds of proof they're my photos I've never been able to actually
complete it.

<sigh>

~~~
SpelingBeeChamp
That is not true. They have to honor a proper takedown request, which does not
have to include any explanation of why you feel your takedown request is
valid, Elise they risk their safe harbor. I don’t know what you tried to do,
but it wasn’t ‘file a DMCA takedown request’.

------
type0
And, in the end NYU Law don't learn their lesson, at the very least they
could've pointed their visitors to watch said videos somewhere else and not on
yt. So long yt doesn't loose users this will just continue and likely will get
much worse.

------
29athrowaway
If you upload a white noise video you will get many random copyright claims.

------
jMyles
Why hasn't anyone just started a YouTube competitor in a jurisdiction with no
copyright law whatsoever?

It seems like such jurisdictions can quickly become havens for innovation.

~~~
jwilk
What are those jurisdictions?

~~~
jMyles
I don't know - do none exist? If not, why not? Can't some small state gain a
huge advantage by adopting an IP-free legal framework?

------
annadane
But I thought all that was required is a cartoon video explaining copyright to
YT's users because they're just stupid and don't understand?!

------
chx
The situation is all the more interesting because these are not DMCA claims.
This is an internal YouTube system and you have zero neutral avenues to fight
it.

------
ineedasername
TLDR: You need to be a world-class legal research center in order to ensure IP
rights holders don't squash your right to free speech by overly aggressive
flagging of fair use material. And even then, it's an uphill battle.

------
raverbashing
Another recent copyright abuse was this one
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8)
and this was even manually stricken.

Basically this was a critique of aggressive copyright lawsuits that was
manually copyright claimed... for the wrong song.

------
MikeGale
Why isn't there a successful distributed alternative to YouTube and the like?

~~~
krapp
They solve problems that the mainstream doesn't care about, are more
complicated to use than Youtube, and hosted alternatives to Youtube already
exist.

------
korethr
If current copyright laws and the processes built around enforcing them
prevent educating people about those laws and processes, then, IMO, said laws
have become overgrown, and need to be cut back.

------
greendestiny_re
YouPorn is a great Youtube alternative.

------
justlexi93
And this is why humans can’t and won’t ever have anything nice

