YouTube Shuts Down Music Companies' Use of Manual Copyright Claims To Steal Creator Revenue (techcrunch.com) 41
YouTube is making a change to its copyright enforcement policies around music used in videos, which may result in an increased number of blocked videos in the shorter term -- but overall, a healthier ecosystem in the long-term. From a report: Going forward, copyright owners will no longer be able to monetize creator videos with very short or unintentional uses of music via YouTube's "Manual Claiming" tool. Instead, they can choose to prevent the other party from monetizing the video or they can block the content. However, YouTube expects that by removing the option to monetize these sorts of videos themselves, some copyright holders will instead just leave them alone. "One concerning trend we've seen is aggressive manual claiming of very short music clips used in monetized videos. These claims can feel particularly unfair, as they transfer all revenue from the creator to the claimant, regardless of the amount of music claimed," explained YouTube in a blog post.
To be clear, the changes only involve YouTube's Manual Claiming tool which is not how the majority of copyright violations are handled today. Instead, the majority of claims are created through YouTube's Content ID match system. This system scans videos uploaded to YouTube against a database of files submitted to the site by copyright owners. Then, when a match is found, the copyright holder owner can choose to block the video or monetize it themselves, and track the video's viewership stats.
To be clear, the changes only involve YouTube's Manual Claiming tool which is not how the majority of copyright violations are handled today. Instead, the majority of claims are created through YouTube's Content ID match system. This system scans videos uploaded to YouTube against a database of files submitted to the site by copyright owners. Then, when a match is found, the copyright holder owner can choose to block the video or monetize it themselves, and track the video's viewership stats.
Re:No Chance (Score:4, Informative)
This requires effort. Which means costs. Before this, costs were recouped through gained income. With this change, it's a net loss.
noo (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if it is on youtube, it isn't personal anymore, and usually they want that ad revenue, which makes it for-profit...
Re: noo (Score:5, Informative)
It's pretty much always existed for commercial use - parody and commentary (news), for example.
The test for Fair use is nuanced, and being commercial is one part of the test. Other factors include whether the use is transformative, the effect on the market, and the percentage of the work used. One picture from a painting is much less likely to be fair use than one picture from hundreds of thousands of frames in a movie.
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"never really applied to ... public activites" is beyond just ignoring them, it's disavowing them, which is incorrect.
For profit is covered by fair use (Score:4, Informative)
But on the other hand fair use isn't at play here. YouTube is free to pay anyone they want anything they want. YouTube doesn't have to protect your fair use rights. They can demonetize you or outright kick you off the platform at will. It's their site.
If you want a video site where free speech and fair use are fully protected you're gonna have to get the government to make one. Sort of a national public access. I think it'd be a good idea.
Re: (Score:2)
A few years ago I had a short period of game streaming. I was curious if I could make any money out of it. What I was doing was playing a game with commentary and music in the background. the music was commercial, from my owned music, in a playlist. I quickly realized that if I stopped talking for 15-20 seconds, the music running in the background (at low volume) triggered some algorithm which monetized the video to copyright holders instead. I had a problem with it because the background music was not loud
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But fair use never really applied to for-profit or public activities, it was always for personal use.
FALSE The Purpose and Character of use is only one of several factors that the law balances [stanford.edu] to determine fair use.
Private use for one's own personal purpose is almost always fair use, BUT there are public and commercial uses that
are also commonly a Fair Use --- Specifically criticism and commentary is a protected fair yes - yes, even when a profit is made off the commentary including clips of someo
Isn't the solution simple? (Score:5, Insightful)
You let copyright holders enter a CLAIM to block or demonetize... then you have someone watch the offending video... and if the claim isn't valid, you bill the claimant.
Re: (Score:2)
That can't be done. That would be sensible.
Re:Isn't the solution simple? (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, if they only claim a piece from 1:03-1.09 in a 6 minute video, they only get 1/60th of the money, and only if people actually watched that part.
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Now, that would be awesome.
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Also, if they only claim a piece from 1:03-1.09 in a 6 minute video, they only get 1/60th of the money, and only if people actually watched that part.
Yeah, Joe Rogan was complaining about just this the other day. He couldn't play a clip because they'd get all the revenue from a 3-hour podcast.
And his desired use was 100% Fair Use Doctrine acceptable so they should get zero.
I kind wish he'd let it happen and then sue the fuck out of the claimant and Google. Joe has FU money and he knows the status quo is h
Re: (Score:2)
Why 1/60th? Surely the audio is a small part of a video, so they should get only some fraction of that proportion.
Re: (Score:2)
FTFY. If correcting the error is zero sum, there is no downside for the copyright owner to file false claims, and they will continue doing it as a fishing expedition. The penalty when they err has to outweigh the benefit for filing false claims, otherwise the behavior does not stop.
Share (Score:3)
How about sharing by ratio.
Have 30 seconds of your music in a 10 minute video? Get 5% share.
That way, music companies have an incentive to not outright block those videos altogether as they will very likely do with this new setup (because they're shortsighted assholes).
Re: Share (Score:1)
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What if you have the same 2 second clip of a song on repeat for 20 seconds with corresponding visuals. Does the copyright holder get 100% because their music was playing, or do they get 10% because that's the amount of content used?
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Make it similar to commercial licensing rates.
Leek Spin (Score:1)
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Better idea, the YouTubers should bill the Copyright Holder for advertising the song/movie/game the clip is in....
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An easier way is mandatory licensing. This is already done for restaurants and public venues - they purchase an annual license [restaurant.org] which lets them play music copyrighte
Why the special status anyway? (Score:3)
What makes them special that they can dictate what is and what is not infringing on their rights? Nobody is asking me or you, so why them?
Re: (Score:2)
Scale. The idea was automation. Getting people to manually review all of these would be a massive effort and very expensive. Youtube short cut it and created a special class based on trust. That trust is now broken, and honestly has been a long time, so the rules are now changing.
It's their site (Score:2)
And no, we probably don't want laws mandating YouTube monetize every video. That would essentially be nationalizing YouTube.
On the other hand I could get behind a sort of National Public Access.
Thanks Corridor Digital (Score:1)
This sounds a lot like the argument they made in a Corridor Crew video where they described using copyrighted material, but their own performance, etc... very interesting video people should check out. Regardless of that, this is excellent news.
Apparently Google needs (more) money (Score:2)
Instead, they can choose to prevent the other party from monetizing the video or they can block the content. However, YouTube expects
The correct way to finish that sentence is "YouTube EXPECTS to collect a boatload more money for itself from ad revenue that now no longer goes to video producer nor the music studio that cannot without legal exposure stop submitting claims".
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...nor the music studio that cannot without legal exposure stop submitting claims".
Nonsense. Copyright is not like a trademark. Not seeking to enforce against one infringer in no way affects the copyright holder's right to enforce against a different infringer. Nor can copyright be lost if it's not defended at all. The only way copyright ends is expiration.
RIAA companies are dicks because they LIKE to be dicks, not because they're legally required to be dicks. This has been true for 70 years.
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RIAA companies are dicks because they LIKE to be dicks, not because they're legally required to be dicks. This has been true for 70 years.
That is why we have The Pirate Bay et al. So we can be dicks back.
Ha ha.
The Solution: 3-Way Split (Score:1)
So 1/3 goes to YouTube, 1/3 to the copyright holder, 1/3 to the content creator. This profits all three, but more significantly, it profits the content creator to create even more. Allowing ALL three to gain further profits.
The fact that the record labels do not fathom this win-win-win scenario, is proof they are dumb dumb dinosaurs.
Re: (Score:2)
So 1/3 goes to YouTube, 1/3 to the copyright holder, 1/3 to the content creator.
The content holder IS the main copyright holder, generally.
Some videos will contain works from one or multiple other copyright holders.
The music publishers require significant revenue to appease them sufficiently for them to decide to not make a takedown; however.
Technically what they should do is assign a number of cents royalty to each play of a song and find the percentage of song actually watched by viewers of video play
Re: (Score:2)
a number of cents royalty to each play of a song
Most videos on Youtube don't make 'a number of cents' per 1000 views. The music cartels have claimed copyright on around 1400 of my videos (because they include incidental music) and their income from monetisation is less than the money they have to spend responding to my contacts telling them to stop being such idiots.
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Most videos on Youtube don't make 'a number of cents' per 1000 views.
Well... I don't know what the royalties to play a song are, but the publishers have those rates that they use when
a TV program wants to license one of their shows, and my understanding is some fees get collected later based on how many people were estimated to
have watched; they might not be cents per view, but they would be something per view.
Also, if something is being monetized appropriately, then not making nearly $1 would be
Re: (Score:1)
Unless the music is free, for attribution, a unique new work for the "content creator"... or allowed by some other method.
The music was a work for hire and the "content creator" is the "copyright holder"...
Learn to compose (Score:1)
Cant/don't have time? Pay for unique music.
Get music that only needs a line of text attribution/a link.
Find "free" music that can be used for free...
Have skilled people send music to get their band/name mentioned.
Automated claims are worse (Score:2)
At least in my experience... Most claims against my videos are automated and would probably have not been made by a real person who watched the video. The problem is that, while I can and do successfully dispute automated claims, the process takes weeks. By that time the video is old news.
BTW the worst offender I've had the is BBC. Recently, during an hour-long livestream, I played a couple of shots from a BBC trailer in order to promote their program. They thanked me by blocking my entire video. As a resul