YouTube Issued Copyright Claims Against Miracle of Sound

[Agayek]

I dont really see the problem though, isnt he payed by The Escapist? The videos are still up, right? He just doesnt get money out of them, isnt that what it was like at the start except now he is working for The Escapist therefore getting paid by The Escapist?

Its not that I dont wish him to get payed (more well payed at least) but I dont think that just because the content is also uploaded on Youtube then it should get a cut out of it where in any other case that wouldnt happen (I dont know of any other place like Youtube that pays money for content creators).

Im not fond of Lets Players (they think that they should be payed for playing a game and talking at the same time while a shitload of people already did that free for fun) but this certainly isnt that case as he does sell his albums (content he created from scratch) and he does work for a particular website for that content.

EDIT: At least my understanding of how The Escapist used Youtube was to gather more viewers/fans for their own site (and get the money out of the ads on the site), not exactly to make money directly from Youtube

Not quite.

I don't pretend to know the agreement Gavin and the Escapist have hammered out, but that's completely irrelevant to the issue at hand. What happened is that Gavin posted videos and music that he owned on his YouTube channel, and they were flagged as copyright infringement.

For a more tangible example, this is kinda like being arrested for driving your own car.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

He isn't the only person who got a copyright strike against their own content.

VVVVVV's official trailer also got hit with the new system.

 

[MorganL4]

So let me get this straight...

Gav's publisher issued a copyright claim on Gav's music, in order to prevent people from taking advantage of Gav's work. But they forgot to tell Gav, and so he got accused of copyright infringement for posting his own work online.... Did I read the story correctly?

 

[Idlemessiah]

I always figured Gav would get affected, took longer than I expected though.

This actually reminds me of the content checking app my university used for essay submission. The first time we used it everybody failed their essay due to plagiarism of book titles, author names and non-common but subject specific words. After this debacle they added a rating system where anything scoring 10% or less was clear.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I dont really see the problem though, isnt he payed by The Escapist? The videos are still up, right? He just doesnt get money out of them, isnt that what it was like at the start except now he is working for The Escapist therefore getting paid by The Escapist?

I am partnered with Machinima on Youtube and a large part of my livelihood is ad revenue from my Youtube videos. The same ad revenue which Indmusic claimed 20% of as it's 'fee' for sending the money back to me as the copyright owner through Tunecore - without my consent, effectively making me lose money.

They also claim ad rev from OTHER peoples' videos for using my songs, again taking 20% for themselves. I have yet to see a penny of it and when I do I don't know if it will tell me how much was taken from each person's channel. Needless to say I find this practice disgusting.

Whether or not I even lost money (which i undoubtedly did), the basic principle is that they should not be doing this without my consent.

Your attitude in that post equates to: 'If I work two jobs and one boss steals part of my wage, who cares because my other job still pays me fully. No harm done, right!'

 

[Mabster]

I don't think Google realizes yet that, even though it might be expensive, actual people would have better judgement and common sense in situations like this regardless how complex a content scanner can be coded.

According to Google's statistics "100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute" and "Content ID scans over 400 years of video every day."

Content ID needs to be an automated system and Google needs to protect itself from another Viacom situation, but the current state of things is obviously unfair and hostile to the content creators. Let's hope that something positive comes our of this whole mess.

 

[rofltehcat]

Seriously, the very least Youtube could do is turn that shit off asap. If you think it is bad now already, wait until everyone in every company goes home for the holidays.

Other than that it is pretty ridiculous and stupid how that system gets used. I think it really isn't youtube's fault that every company anywhere is just bulk-uploading everything to the system they have without even checking themselves what they are actually doing. Trailers should never be on that service. Why upload your own trailers and b-reels?
There are even reports of that stuff happening with software specifically created for using it to create videos. Why? Because some idiot somewhere (doesn't even need to be that software's developer or publisher) just uploaded everything they had!

However, it is youtube's fault for keeping the system turned on.
If anything, it needs to be less binary: Right now there is just "good/okay" (didn't find anything... yet) and "we get EVERYTHING" (all the revenue from the video).
There needs to be a policy that protects clips shorter than 15 seconds as well as a policy that gives everyone a part of the revenue rather than everything for one side. For example it should be that if more than 5% of the video's length shows content from another source, that other source gets that percentage of the revenue. To protect movie and music piracy, everything over 50% or so should either get taken offline or 100% go to the original content's owner (depends on the original content owner's policies).

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Franz Kafka couldn't have written something this ridiculous. Youtube is utterly broken.

 

[Entitled]

Aaaaand, appreciating the absolute irony of the situation, I dedicate this song to youtube.


Seriously. Even if they have absolutely no way to check every video with human resources, and the copyright industry absolutely pressured them into putting up an overtly broad automated system, at least they could have spent some effort developing one that is slightly less buggy than THAT.

 

[Barbas]

Well, this just makes me wanna go...

Spoiler

So we've established that robots just can't do the job. Can we please stop pretending that they can, now?

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, this just makes me wanna go...

Spoiler

So we've established that robots just can't do the job. Can we please stop pretending that they can, now?

This is why I laugh at the robot apocalypse.

 

[cojo965]

Wait, what? No, WHAT!?

and so does this story. YouTube what are you on?

 

[Roxas1359]

Indeed, other content creators are speaking out against it, like Angry Joe, this new automated system is not working as it should and its punishing people for nothing.

The thing is, this system is not new. No, this system has been in place since 2009. The only thing is that before people would join MCNs and the MCNs would protect them against this kind of shit. Now they don't, and basically people are now paying these MCNs just to be treated as regular members of YouTube again. It's really annoying and is why I really am trying to move to only Game Anyone. Nintendo is being one of the worst offenders with this shit, waiting 30 days so then people can't monetize for those 30 days, then reinstating the claim again and getting them in a forever loop.

 

[Neta]

INDMUSIC was taking 20% of my ad revenue from those videos without my consent for even claiming them.

Well isn't that... suspicious.

"Legitimate" scamming at its finest.

 

[Gezzer]

Youtube copyright bullshit strikes again. God I wish they'd figure that shit out already.

It's not YouTube's fault entirely. It's actually ancient copyright law that makes this such as clusterfuck. I know that not everyone who posts on YouTube has knowledge of international copyright law, which means the most harsh laws must apply to any international corporation, and Google is one.

Google handled it wrong, but it needs to be fixed before it can go back to being good.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The whole copyright and patent system isn't working. It was meant to protect IP so the originator of said IP could expect a reasonable return on their creative efforts. But thanks to extremely short sighted changes to the laws involved, IP has become a hot property worth a lot to those that hold it, often even more then the use of that IP to create a product is worth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act is just one example.

As far as I'm concerned copyrights should only cover the life of the originator so they can see return for their efforts. As it stands now corporations buy up IP and then charge a arm and a leg for said IP so it's in their best interests to vigorously defend any infringement.
The whole problem is that major IP holders threaten to get Youtube shut down for copyright infringement and Google set up the current take down system as a cost effective method to protect IP for them. But with any system they're are unintended loopholes which produce undesirable results. Google has to rework it's take down system to account for those loopholes, even if it means that it will cost them more to implement. If they don't Youtube will fall prey to another more user friendly site. That's just how the internet works, and Google of all people should know that.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

And that's why I buy my music from bandcamp.

 

[Agayek]

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The whole copyright and patent system isn't working. It was meant to protect IP so the originator of said IP could expect a reasonable return on their creative efforts. But thanks to extremely short sighted changes to the laws involved, IP has become a hot property worth a lot to those that hold it, often even more then the use of that IP to create a product is worth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act is just one example.

As far as I'm concerned copyrights should only cover the life of the originator so they can see return for their efforts. As it stands now corporations buy up IP and then charge a arm and a leg for said IP so it's in their best interests to vigorously defend any infringement.
The whole problem is that major IP holders threaten to get Youtube shut down for copyright infringement and Google set up the current take down system as a cost effective method to protect IP for them. But with any system they're are unintended loopholes which produce undesirable results. Google has to rework it's take down system to account for those loopholes, even if it means that it will cost them more to implement. If they don't Youtube will fall prey to another more user friendly site. That's just how the internet works, and Google of all people should know that.

It's not so much the existence of copyright that's the problem (though personally, and speaking as someone who doesn't actually own any copyrights, I think we should go back to the original form which only lasted until 25 years after first publication and could not be renewed). The problem is that fair use is hyper restrictive and the default assumption when the question arises is that something has violated copyright. We need to revise the laws to expand the application if not the letter of fair use to include more and broader categories, and the law should really shift the burden of proof onto the copyright holders.

 

[Roxas1359]

So basically the system was tweaked and now its punishing everyone?

More or less yes, and those who just so happen to be partnered with MCNs are screwed even more because they are often times locked in with that MCN. Mainly because they have to sign legal contracts to work for them and a contract is automatically renewed unless the MCN decides not to or unless you submit that you wish to not renew it a certain number of days, weeks, or months before you contract is up for renewal.