Summary for those that don’t want to watch the video :
- Pianist creates YouTube video demonstrating how to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
- part of this video includes her playing Moonlight Sonata (of course)
- YouTube has a new ‘feature’ that scans submitted videos prior to publication to identify potentially copyrighted material
- her video is found to include copyrighted material. She is certain this is a mistake that will be rectified by disputing the copyright claim
- she agrees the only person who’s content she is reproducing is Beethoven himself
- her copyright dispute is rejected. She is found to be violating the copyright of a piece called “Wicca Moonlight”
- she can appeal the dispute but the appeal process is limited, and she risks getting a feared “copyright strike” on her account, wherein three such strikes would mean permanent closure of the account
- she says nearly anyone can file copyright claims against published YouTube videos, including bots, and is worried about all the time she’s putting in to create content being usurped by a few bad actors
1) Feed a computer with MIDI files of public domain music and render it as audio
2) Upload to YouTube
3) File copyright dispute to YouTube for any (future?) uploaded video which contains the music which used to be in the public domain
4) Have Google reject the videos
5) Create a site or an app which allows you to license that public domain music for a fee.
6) Notify YouTube who has licensed this public domain music.
Ok. that's the way Google thinks is the way it should work. Or maybe they just recognize that their AI is causing more harm than good.
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Two days ago I uploaded a video which was a screen recording to demonstrate a bug in the Android app "Komoot". It was unlisted, the link was attached to the bug report I sent to the company. It was just a short video showing how the caching (or something in that direction) of uploaded images in the app seemed to be broken. The content in the video was 100% adhering to all the guidelines, specially to those of "for all ages". The content was nothing else but scrolling photos of an MTB-trail with a bit of UI. If your video is flagged or you mark it as "for 18+", then it can only be viewed by logged in persons.
After uploading the video I got an email that it was not complying with the "for all ages" requirements, which is kind of bad, because now the support team must log-in with a Google account to YouTube in order to see the harmless but useful video.
But then again, videos related to Instagram celebrities or Chinese ASMR-binge eating are totally ok for them.
You have YouTube's content rating system backwards.
It's not "racey content gets marked special" with "suitable for children" being a catch-all category.
YouTube's "content developed for children", is the special case. It's explicitly content meant for and marketed to children, or content that children would be particularly attracted to, like nature documentaries.
All other content should be marked "not intended for children", even if it's not "adult"--aka restricted to 18+--content.
This is stated pretty clearly in YouTube's documentation. They have a link to it in a contextual pop-up right next to the form field asking you to self-rate the video.
> Or maybe they just recognize that their AI is causing more harm than good.
Google recognizes that these flaws in their AI aren't worth caring about. Google doesn't have any mission or obligation to help the world share videos. Google cares about Google's profits. And they've found that the expedient way to do that is just let the AI be overzealous with rejecting, because the cost of a false positive is infinitesimally tiny and the cost of a false negative (real copyright violation) is so much higher.
How do we fix this? Competition. We need a Google/Youtube competitor so that users will choose the platform that does copyright recognition better.
What if someone exploited this to such an extent that Google could no longer ignore the issue? All someone needs to do is write an open source library that automates this. Almost like exposing a security flaw to the public to force the company to fix it. Sure it would enable bad actors but it would subvert them in the long run. I feel this may be the only way to force the company's hand as an individual.
TL;DR copyright becomes absurd surprisingly fast when you have a large population, widely-available authoring/recording tools, and a way to store/search all of them, indefinitely. Like, indefensible absurd.
> Ok. that's the way Google thinks is the way it should work. Or maybe they just recognize that their AI is causing more harm than good.
Let's be clear. It is not Google that wants it. Actually Google is on the side of calling all of this retarded. It is the state of copyright laws, of the DMCA, of the lobbying by the RIAA. The day the whole copyright ecosystem is updated to accept that computers exist and that people share files on internet easily, Youtube will be VERY happy to unplug all these terrible bots that are there to provide a bad solution to a problem we should not have.
I sympathise with her. I had a copyright claim on one of my YouTube videos (I’m totally small potatoes, handful of vids with dozens of views).
I made a video of myself playing my own unique interpretation of The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats on piano.
https://youtu.be/ZNfMZ6g9YWo
I got a copyright violation notice shortly after posting it, by some random Latin American music company. It wasn’t clear if it was legit or not, it could have been some holding company of song rights or some failure of the AI.
I disputed the claim, saying I used no recorded material, it was entirely my own styling on the song including ragtime and stride piano influences.
Frankly I’m not even sure how copyright works on covers, particularly if style is quite different.
The company never responded in the 30 day period so the copyright claim was removed.
My channel is so small that I probably would have just removed the video. I’m not even close to the levels that are required for monetisation (1000 subscribers and 4000 cumulative view hours).
But it was a bit surprising how quickly it was claimed that I violated someone’s copyright.
Not an expert, but I've been learning a lil about this lately. Royalties for performances of someone else's song are paid to the writers of the words and the music. The melody and words can be copyrighted, not the chords or style. So you can use the chords of an existing song and give it new melody and words, and it is your own song. Style has nothing to do it.
I love this quote from the classic The Manual: How To Have A Number 1 The Easy Way by KLF:
...the copyright laws that have grown over the past one hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line (sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in. If the copyright laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the remainder split between the lyrics and the melody. If perchance you are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for yourself. Right the wrongs.
i am a big fan of film music. i made a small piano reduction of a favorite piece and uploaded it to youtube. i wasn't even mad when i saw the copyright claim within hours, since i run no ads.
i was however baffled and somewhat proud that my efforts were not in vain, and that the algorithm thought my poor interpretation was close to the real thing.
A really great video (if you're willing to spend the better part of an hour watching it) about this is YouTube's Copyright System Isn't Broken. The World's Is.[1] by Tom Scott.
IMO the biggest issue with all this is the lack of a suitable appeals process, handled by humans.
Would such a process be expensive? Yes, but you can't have it both ways, enabling copyright holders to lodge spurious claims at will, and not allow content creators - who the entire platform is built on! - to disclaim them.
Would such a process be expensive? Yes, of course - but YouTube can very well afford it.
Step 1: Someone files a copyright claim (or perhaps this is done automatically). This is free.
Step 2: Someone disputes the claim. This is also free, and automatically restores the video.
Step 3: The filer can re-submit the claim but they have to post a bond for the price of a professional manual review by a trained copyright lawyer; maybe $1000.
Step 4: If the video owner can re-dispute the claim; to do so they also have to post a bond for the price of a professional manual review. The trained copyright lawyer comes to a conclusion; whoever "wins" the ruling gets their money back, and the other person pays for the whole thing.
If the video owner doesn't go on to step 4, obviously the copyright claimant gets their money back.
Perhaps the copyright holder should have to pay for a human review, where the content creator agrees to pay the cost if it turns out to indeed be a true copyright infringement.
This would get rid of all bots and most false claims
I think the biggest issue is that the burden of proof and all the risk is on the person who's video is being claimed. False DMCA claims are free, practically riskless, and require no evidence.
Copyright enforcement should be on the copyright holders. YouTube shouldn’t have to build AI to scan for copyrighted material. Copyright holders need to a person verify all copyright claims and be liable for the opposite exact same amount of damages that would be rewarded for legitimate copyright claim.
There is actually one more step available, even after the copyright strike: you submit your contact details and YT clears the strike and it’s up to the claimant to then issue proceeding against you outside of YT.
This exact thing has happened to most YT creators at this point. It's just part of doing business on YT. Some small section (<10%?) get three "copyright" strikes (nothing to do with actual copyright, of course, as Google isn't the judge of that), and get taken down, and need to start a new channel from scratch. It's what we all get for using a free video streaming service to distribute our content.
One could argue that the DMCA was largely written by bad actors. Everything else flows downhill from there.
The “western” world lost a once-in-a-thousand-years chance to change how copyright works at a fundamental level, when the internet started getting traction. We’re now forever beholden to the whims of parasitical “industries”.
Not sure about the others, but basically these are the people with whom a composer registers their work.
These organisations work together by forwarding royalties collected within each territory to their rightful owners.
I am a member of APRA and very much doubt that someone got away with registering a Beethoven work as their own.
Very curious indeed. I have no explanation.
[Edit]
You are only meant to register your work in one territory, so it is odd that this 'work' would be registered in four of them.
I went digging.
APRA = Australasian Performing Right Association Limited
ECAD = Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição
SOCAN = Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
VCPMC = Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright
CS stands for collections society. In another age CS would stand for the Mafia.
Wow. So if a public domain piece of music (which does not have a copyright) is played by someone and recorded (which does have a copyright) the Google AI has no way to know if you're reproducing the the public domain music (which you are allowed to do) or reproducing the reproduction of someone playing a piece of public domain music (which you're not allowed to do).
Potentially, yes. There are different types of licences [0] and depending on your use of copyrighted material, it may require a license to publish it legally.
It seems that this entire fiasco can be fixed by simply having a media streaming platform which is hosted in a jurisdiction which doesn't recognize 'intellectual' property.
ISIL? I guess when you have a culture that totally shuns the existing international framework they're unlikely to be able to or interested in competing with youtube.
I've already stated this many times, I'll state it again.
Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product.
Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automated company only interested in extracting as much data as possible from its users, force them to swallow as many ads as possible, all without caring about listening to them (both consumers and creators), under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them. They simply don't deserve anybody using their shitty products anymore.
The error in this case is quite obvious. YouTube's scanner incorrectly identified the teacher's recording of Moonlight Sonata as a copyrighted reinterpretation of the same piece of music originally written by a guy who actually died 200 years ago. And I can't completely put the blame on Google's AI: the notes are technically the same, the beat might also be the same, if you calculate an FFT of the audio you'll probably also come up with similar spectral signatures. But a human listener will IMMEDIATELY notice that was played by the teacher IS NOT the the same as the copyrighted piece of music.
The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors?
Until Google can provide an answer to these questions, I repeat: keep your ass away from anything that has their name on it. They are not reliable, the risk of losing your data, your account or your followers because of random automated decision is very high, and the probability of getting a real human to assist you is very low.
I agree with your assessment of Google; however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? You kinda have to go where the audience will be if you don't already have one and I'm not aware of any video discovery platforms with anywhere near the reach of YouTube. I've managed to get out of Google products almost entirely--YouTube remains the exception.
Moreover, let's say a new site comes along and dethrones YouTube. Remember that this whole mess started because of lawsuits that were ultimately ruled (or settled) in favor of copyright holders. Any player in this space will need a method for handling vast quantities of copyrighted material scanning and, like Google, will be heavily incentivized by legal precedent to have that system "err on the side of caution."
I'm not a fan of Google; but, the villain of this story is the horribly outdated and corporate-lobbied copyright system that will push any player in the video space to this kind of draconian approach.
> however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience?
I think it's more instructive to look at it from the other side. What's the reasonable alternative for a video hosting service to doing this kind of policing? Remember it's not really an option to just throw video over the fence, DMCA requirements mean you have to be responsive. And thus there's a built-in incentive to cut a deal with the content owners to preemptively prevent the DMCA claims (which are expensive!) by doing this sort of automated policing.
It's true that not every host does this, but every host that doesn't do this either does it in violation of the law or eats significant overhead that needs to be recouped in some other way (i.e. by paying their content creators less! Check the author's channel, this is someone who's clearly on youtube for revenue. Would even she jump ship given that it would probably cost her money?)
Really, this isn't something Google can fix. It's a problem with the legal regime that imagines that all infringement is a bright line definition and that preemptive takedowns are the best solution.
> what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator..?
Insurance? I'm only half kidding. No individual youtuber has the deep pockets to stir the slumbering Googlebeast enough to get it to notice and correct its mistake, but all youtubers certainly do. Conversely, perhaps there's a market for a we-only-get-paid-if-we-win lawyers to spring up here, as they have with workplace injuries and such. Youtube's resolution process may not be friendly to creators, but juries probably will be, if the creator bypasses Google and sues the party making the claim. "Sues for what?" I dunno - emotional damages? Tortious claims? They'll figure something out, I imagine.
Maybe those are silly ideas, but they're certainly less silly than waiting for Google to fix things...
I'd disagree slightly with the parent post here: the conclusion shouldn't be "get away from Google" so much as "If you have to use Google, understand what you're getting into." If you deal with unsavory people, things will go south eventually. If you deal with Google, sooner or later things like this will happen. Expect it, build it into your strategy, but don't be surprised by it.
If I was a creator I’d use YouTube, but also have backed up local copies of videos. Preferably hosted elsewhere in case the channel gets in trouble too.
You have to be where the users are and YouTube is by far the best video streaming service (with the largest audience).
> what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience?
I've noticed several tech-related content producers copying their videos over to LBRY/Odysee as a backup in case the YT algorithm decides to cancel them.
There are ways to avoid these copyright guys going after you with a truly decentralized system where node stores only a fraction of the content and there is no central place to ban content. Just like the concept of internet was DODs answer to a threat nuking communication there must be an answer to the threat of copyright trolling. I am very much waiting to a decentralized content platform to show up that is immune to content filtering abuse and much easier on the ISPs bandwidth wise than the current YT or similar sites.
> under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them
It is, unfortunately, not a faulty assumption. I'm a piano teacher on YouTube, and I'm able to make money there. My entire audience was developed through the platform. I put videos on platforms like Vimeo or even Peertube, and I've had more views in one day on YouTube than their entire lifetime on those other platforms combined.
The network effect is a cruel mistress, but short of some kind of global exodus no one has the ability to change that. I hate it as much as anyone.
Any creator with established audience can bring those people to alternative platform, e.g., Peertube. Start from posting videos on both platforms and advertise the other one. Then post videos on Peertube earlier.
More and more, ordinary people are not citizens in a nation, with a balance of rights and responsibilities afforded to them, but simply cattle: a resource to be cultivated, controlled, and harvested. This is true online, but also increasingly off. People are still operating under the outdated notion that corporations, banks and government institutions can be held to account because they are in some way vulnerable to the displeasure of ordinary people. They cannot, and are not.
Youtube does not care about your happiness. Their business model is unrelated to it. Youtube, like Google, is in the business of gathering up a bunch of delicious users and bolt-gunning and butchering them so they can be served up to ad partners for a tidy sum. In this arrangement, the happiness of the livestock hardly matters.
I hate copyright law and agree it's broken, but it's not at fault here. Compositions can be copyrighted, but obviously Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is in the public domain and has been for a long time. Performances can be copyrighted, but obviously a performance isn't the same thing as a composition.
There's no legal grey area here. This is completely on Google/Youtube. Why isn't there a way to assert the copyright status when uploading, beyond saying you ownt he copyright or not? The answer would seem to be that it would take some work on the company's part, and they don't want to put it in because it's unlikely to yield any additional revenue and the occasional bit of bad publicity doesn't hurt them enough.
Many, many creators who's content is not youtube friendly are hosting their videos off platform (no shortage of options there) and only posting previews on youtube to direct their subscribers and anyone who happens upon their videos to an external site.
Google makes this moderately difficult of course, but it seems to be a viable option when coupled with patreon (where you usually get more content/early access/more creator engagement) or some other external subscription where the same is offered.
To answer your question succinctly, no, you don't want "other youtube" you want something sufficiently different to avoid youtube's pitfalls.
Google's extension to copyright and lack of accountability is the only thing broken here. That, and the fact that they have multiple monopolies.
Boycotting Google is the only way to go. One can also advocate for regulation in this are.
As for your question: They can put the video in Nebula or Patreon, for instance. Maybe there can be more of those, perhaps for music teachers. Maybe that's also an opportunity for someone new to jump into the streaming game and provide some competition.
People are using this system intentionally as a scam. Recently, I tried uploading a video which had video game music in the background, and youtube flagged a copyright claim on behalf of someone who made a remix of the original song. I did not have a license to use the song, so that's fair, but my choices were either to drop my video or run ads that give money to someone who wasn't even the owner of the song I was trying to use.
There was no avenue for recourse, or to report the person who was fraudulently making claims.
Can you reach out to the original composer of the game music? They would likely care about the bogus claims. Particularly if it is a smaller studio. It’s not a great solution, but it might work.
Im not excusing what happened, but was the remix author actually making claims? Or did they just add a song to ContentID’s database? If it’s the former, that’s despicable and (almost certainly) illegal. If it’s the latter, it’s not their fault, but Google’s for having an overzealous system.
When I was at Google they had a mission statement that went something like "Organize the worlds data and make it available." But the reality seems to be it was "Seize the world's data and hold it for ransom." The latter of course being the better business model.
In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either.
The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"
> The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors?
Given that we've had to endure this nonsense for more years than I can count now, and Google and other companies refuse to budge, it sounds like a great opportunity for legislation to enumerate users' rights in situations like this, and to enumerate penalties should companies like Google violate them.
I just want to emphasize that Google are not the only ones,
I had my Sony Play Station account banned for 2 months with no exact reason and no way to appeal, on short the Sony message was like "you did something wrong, something about our policy on sex and violence, our moderators are perfect so there is no mistake and there is nothing you can do".
I think we need something that addresses all such issues and not a Google only workaround, the solution is regulations.
> Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product.
Any video hosting service that you will move to will behave in a very similar ways, in order to avoid getting sued out of existence by the media lobby.
If you want to solve this problem, the solution can only come from dismantling the parasitic parts of the media industry. That requires political action.
Everyone uses youtube. Local businesses use youtube. I took driving lessons and they use it. Small tech companies use it to host their promo videos, and so on. So people use it without even needing the "reach" that youtube can provide - it's just being used for hosting.
Again and again the same basic "but it's free" refrain.
Sure, building on quicksand is free. No one wants to pay for a service that is as undependable, and impossible to appeal in case of fraudulent or just mistaken bans.
So go ahead and build on that quicksand... but do it knowing so, and stop complaining when the quicksand swallows you.
There might not be much land around the edge of the quicksand patch, but it's solid ground.
Genuine question, what should I replace Firebase with? I have a responsibility to my customers there, not just myself. I want to fulfill that responsibility by migrating off of Google while continuing to provide the product performance they expect.
All that is true of course but I think the bigger issue is that the copyright system has to go or at least change dramatically. People walk around with video cameras now 24/7, they want to add music to their video. We should facilitate this.
Without a viable and better alternative this wouldnt make sense. But what would be a viable alternative? Well, it could use only non-copyrighted material, which is feasible nowadays, there is tons of CC0 music to dress any video
You can escape Google's algorithms, but you can't escape these sorts of dumb algorithms generally. People get all sorts of bogus DMCA notices, spit out by some application that scours the web.
There is no viable alternative and there won't be without changing the law. And the law won't be changed due to lobbying (any success would be temporary)
The more stories like this crop up, the more I wonder what the source is. Google's pervasively horrible treatment of both free users and paying customers reflects its extraordinary fetish for using computers to do a person's job. The worse it gets the more I start to think this is coming from someone in particular. How could they be so incapable of improvement unless someone powerful is stomping on it? Who is it? Who in the top twenty Alphabet/Google executives has this godawful obsession?
As a content creator, you want the platform to protect your copyright and at YouTube's scale, copyright scanners are the only way to implement this.
Will they produce false positives? Of course. Do the benefits to content creators outweigh the costs of these false positives? Yes if you believe creative content should be protected.
The only other viable model for content creators are subscription based services like Patreon and they have/will also be pressured by the entertainment industry or even the content creators themselves to flag copyright infringement once the platform gets large enough.
> As a content creator, you want the platform to protect your copyright and at YouTube's scale, copyright scanners are the only way to implement this.
Is this really true, though?
Google certainly doesn’t want to pay for people, but automated systems can be used as a first-pass filter, before human are brought-in to make a second-pass judgement.
So what is the rate of false-positives? And how many automated flags are triggered per day?
As it stands, someone can make a remix of your song and make claims against anyone using your original song. It all happens through youtube's automated system, and you won't see a penny for your work.
Like some have suggested, the automated system should only be an input for a team of humans to then review and consider. They should then contact the potentially breaching party and get some feedback as well as doing some due diligence to check if the complaint came from a proper right holder.
Yes this costs money but it is the only way to do the job without being a scumbag and a general burden on the world.
Furthermore it should cost the person sending a complaint somethings to file it, which then is refunded if the complaint is found to have merit.
Lastly, some of these steps could and should be skipped if a particular account or multiple accounts determined by some other means to be the same person are repeatedly found to be in violation.
Similarly if a person keeps making unfounded accusations the refundable fee might increase in steps.
But the difference between composition and performance is well delineated in copyright law. What technical barrier is preventing Google from setting up scanners to detect similarity, get a hit, and then identify a video as a performance of 'Moonlight Sonata', look that up, and OK it on the basis that everything written by Beethoven is long out of copyright?
>Will they produce false positives? Of course. Do the benefits to content creators outweigh the costs of these false positives? Yes if you believe creative content should be protected.
False positives are absolutely unacceptable when it comes to anything dealing money. I sure wouldn't stick with a bank if they said "oh well, false positives happen. you'll get your money next week... maybe".
but there are several banks that help ensure that security. There are no checks to google allowing for such false positives.
Along the same lines, I was publishing church services each Sunday between May and December of last year, with three English hymns in each, mostly old ones well-known across denominations. In total, I got 23 Content ID claims (about 20% of the hymns), claiming ownership of the melody. Every single one was for a work in the public domain. I disputed each, providing the name and date of death of the composer.
Two were released (one after three days, the other after 27), the rest were allowed to lapse in my favour (which happens after 30 days).
A few of these claims were duplicates (same claimer, same hymn). This showed that even though I had successfully disputed their claim in the past in the grounds of the work being in the public domain, YouTube had not revoked their ability to claim the melody in question.
If any of the liars claiming they owned these works had rejected my dispute, it could have become a strike, &c. and there would of course be no recourse, because Google generally refuses to arbitrate.
Also, an insidious aspect of the claims system was that YouTube basically didn’t tell you about the copyright claim at all when publishing; you had to close the edit page for the video and return to the list, and see if the Restrictions column for the video said “Copyright claim”. If you didn’t do that, the video would probably be being monetised by the claimer in at least some of the world (and if you disputed it, I guess Google would happily take the lot for the period while they had monetised it—though now that they’re putting ads on everything, this lot isn’t so different from the usual situation; depends on whether you hate the balance of the ad money going to the copyright liars or Google more).
(There was also one amusing case where some music being played at a nearby temple was audible during a quiet time in the service, and so I found out the name of the music being played. I claimed fair use on that one, because I didn’t even want that music in it, and it was quiet. That claim was released after ten days.)
I don't think I'm ever going to approve of any sort of automated copyright claim system but if Google wanted to make it one bit fair, they should use the same concept of three strikes against the accounts that make false claims and ban them.
Too easy for bad actors to create multiple accounts or game this system. I think this would end up hurting genuine claimants of actual pirated works more that it would help the wrongly accused.
> Every single one was for a work in the public domain.
While the sheet music is, the performance by other artists - as your own performance - is not. That's the issue the algorithm is having here (not defending).
The automated system would need to "understand" that this is indeed a new performance of a public domain piece of sheet music and not a reproduction of a copyrighted performance by somebody else. Even if you were note for note playing exactly the same (tempo and whatnot) with the same instrument tuned the same way. I think this would be an argument against automated systems. Whether a human could know that my bike-ride was scored by myself and not somebody else is doubtful though.
On the other hand, I do understand that people do not want their individual performances to be used without licence and there may be many such performances.
I've had the same experience (although I don't remember if it was specifically the melody being claimed). I don't always bother to dispute them (in my understanding, most of them just claim ad revenue, and we don't run ads), but sometimes it annoys me enough that I do. (The organist and people singing are pretty clearly pictured, and I get especially annoyed when it's a capella.)
Historically Google only put ads when requested by the channel, which required a fairly significant threshold of views and subscribers and supposedly manual review by Google. Some time last year they started a switch towards serving ads on all videos, regardless of the preferences of the channel (whether you’re big or small, whether you want ads or not), which I hear has been progressing steadily further and further. (I wouldn’t know. The internet’s too dangerous to view without an ad blocker. I also just generally hate ads and only see any at all when I leave my peaceful rural environs and go to the big city.)
Actually, they're hurting an independent content creator over something she has every right to do using works in the public domain. Youtube is doing that, not the fraudster making the false claim. They have no power other than what Youtube gives them, and Youtube gives them 100% of the power.
Have you ever tried to report fraud to authorities? Even if you show overwhelming evidence, details of perpetrator, chances are LE will laugh you out and say it is a civil matter.
I can't understand why Youtube has no procedure to flag companies as "Wicca Moonlight” like scammer / troll so, after a certain number of infractions like that one ( pretending to be the rightful owner of the rights on BEETHOVEN music !), they are sanctioned in some way or banned. That to add some symmetry to the procedure to fight trolls trying to steal other peoples hard job.
"Wikka Moonlight" seems to be the name of the audio the copyright claim is originating from rather than the organisation claiming the copyright. [1] The audio contains a recording of Moonlight Sonata with a load of added reverb. The uploading channel is "Alice Violet Molland - Topic".
The "Topic" bit generally gets added to a channel name when a music distributer (like DistroKid [2]) publishes music to youtube on behalf of a musician (in this case Alive Violet Molland), typically at the same time adding it to other streaming services.
Distrokid will let you publish an unlimited number of albums in this way for about $20 a year and then collects the revenue from any streaming on your behalf. I'm guessing the distributer may also register the audio with music rights organisations, which are presumably the source of the copyright claims.
> The uploading channel is "Alice Violet Molland - Topic"
I went searching around using that info and came across a (similarly outraged) thread on google's support forums about this video, in which someone named longzijun seemed to make a reasonably sound counter-argument:
> Then she files a counter-notification. The appeals process has not been completed. She is only part-way through it.
> Once she files that and if she does it properly, the claimant has 14 days to initiate a court action against her or the claim is released, the strike removed and the video goes back online.
> Obviously, the claimant will not pursue legal action in this case.
> False claims can cause inconvenience for sure, but with the counter-notification system, they don't do long-term damage.
> Both the takedown system and the counternotification system are mandated by US law (specifically the DMCA).
> YouTube is not supposed to intervene in copyright cases. If they do so, they will lose their safe harbor status (again under the DMCA) that protects YouTube from being sued for hosting copyright infringing content.
> To sum up
> 1) the dispute process has not been completed in this case
> 2) your beef should be with US legislators, not YouTube
I think the problem is that the whole system they have is to appease copyright holders so that they don’t get sued for individual videos. They’ve productized it and made it all look very official, but the underlying fact that this is about appeasement puts them on a bad footing for banning trolls. If they ban someone, they’re basically saying “sue us instead”, which is exactly what they don’t want.
Maybe "Wicca Moonlight" has previously been flagged as a scammer/troll and are now on their tenth account they've been doing this with? It could be whack-a-mole on all ends. It's not particularly hard to spin up another LLC, register, and start filing claims.
There are non-expired mechanical reproduction copyrights for Beethoven music. (Basically any time someone plays from Beethoven's score, or a modernized but public domain version of it a new creative work is created with the corresponding copyrights.)
So for this reason YT might have some minimal justification for handling "old classical music" (but it is not based on copyright of a long dead composer, but on the "mechanical reproduction" copyright of some orchestra/artist).
Now, that said. If they can't distinguish between performances, then it should not be left to them.
And, anyway, the real problem is the fucked up bias in favoring the claimers.
How is it the fault of that youtube channel? They may genuinely want to protect their reverb'd rendition of the Moonlight Sonata, which is technically their right even if it's stupid.
Then it's purely google's fault that their AI contentid scanner can't distinguish between Wicca Moonlight and some other arbitrary performance of the sonata. It's google's fault that their AI doesn't understand that the sonata itself is in the public domain so they have to only match against exact reproductions rather than "kinda sounds the same because same notes and instruments" reproductions.
It seems like the claimers have little invested into the persuit compared to the people making videos and could relatively easily make a new scam account. It certainly wouldn't hurt to add a little more friction to someone making frivolous claims as it would likely kill off a number of them that are low effort.
I used the YouTube studio editor to add a piece from YouTube's library of music in the public domain to a small video of no real consequence, and then, ten years later, received a copyright claim on that audio. The system is really truly fucked.
I feel like the fundamental issue here with these giant tech companies is their scale has outgrown the capabilities of their AI. They've all basically bowed down to the mantra of "AI will solve everything", and indeed they are so big that getting human customer support at the scale they need would be a huge financial hit, even for them.
But here is a situation where any rational human can say "this is crazy, anyone with sense knows that Moonlight Sonata is in the public domain", but Google has created a Kafkaesque nightmare because (as has been lamented a million times on HN) it takes an act of God (or Twitter outrage) to actually connect with a human support person is you're not a paying customer.
This entire episode is a great example of how the SV crowd really is full of groupthink and ideology despite their veneer of being rational. Everyone who isn't in the SV RDF can see the limits of AI today for example youtube copyright strikes, failures of AVs to take over the streets, and so on and so on. AI is useful but it clearly has limitations but the industry can't recognize it because they're high on their own supply.
the ai is built to deal with the peasant class. the ai occassionaly abuses them, because the peasants have no power. but nobody cares about the peasants except other peasants. the peasants are fed enough (you tube mostly works for them) just enough to keep them content and any sort of uprising is quelled. content enough in their toil (creating content), the ai grows stronger.
This sort of thing happens way too often on Youtube, and it's far worse than merely violating copyright; here artists get denied ownership of their own expression of public domain music. Unlike mere copyright violation, this is actual copyright theft that Youtube is enabling here.
It should be punished harder than merely copying someone else's work usually is, but instead this sort of direct theft seems to be allowed by governments and copyright institutes.
> here artists get denied ownership of their own expression of public domain music
Hell why stop there, music artists get their own original music stolen by Youtube who then proceeds to hand it to someone else, for anyone interested in a popular example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw
YouTube's automatic system exists to keep the company from getting sued and it's going to work like anything else at Google and be as automated as possible. The necessary result is a black box ML system to score content, and biasing ambiguous output in favor of the side more likely to have lawyers on retainer.
Readit News
- Pianist creates YouTube video demonstrating how to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
- part of this video includes her playing Moonlight Sonata (of course)
- YouTube has a new ‘feature’ that scans submitted videos prior to publication to identify potentially copyrighted material
- her video is found to include copyrighted material. She is certain this is a mistake that will be rectified by disputing the copyright claim
- she agrees the only person who’s content she is reproducing is Beethoven himself
- her copyright dispute is rejected. She is found to be violating the copyright of a piece called “Wicca Moonlight”
- she can appeal the dispute but the appeal process is limited, and she risks getting a feared “copyright strike” on her account, wherein three such strikes would mean permanent closure of the account
- she says nearly anyone can file copyright claims against published YouTube videos, including bots, and is worried about all the time she’s putting in to create content being usurped by a few bad actors
2) Upload to YouTube
3) File copyright dispute to YouTube for any (future?) uploaded video which contains the music which used to be in the public domain
4) Have Google reject the videos
5) Create a site or an app which allows you to license that public domain music for a fee.
6) Notify YouTube who has licensed this public domain music.
Ok. that's the way Google thinks is the way it should work. Or maybe they just recognize that their AI is causing more harm than good.
--
Two days ago I uploaded a video which was a screen recording to demonstrate a bug in the Android app "Komoot". It was unlisted, the link was attached to the bug report I sent to the company. It was just a short video showing how the caching (or something in that direction) of uploaded images in the app seemed to be broken. The content in the video was 100% adhering to all the guidelines, specially to those of "for all ages". The content was nothing else but scrolling photos of an MTB-trail with a bit of UI. If your video is flagged or you mark it as "for 18+", then it can only be viewed by logged in persons.
After uploading the video I got an email that it was not complying with the "for all ages" requirements, which is kind of bad, because now the support team must log-in with a Google account to YouTube in order to see the harmless but useful video.
But then again, videos related to Instagram celebrities or Chinese ASMR-binge eating are totally ok for them.
Not only this, but in the EU* it requires verifying your age with a credit card or ID photo: https://i.imgur.com/gP20dXi.png
It's not "racey content gets marked special" with "suitable for children" being a catch-all category.
YouTube's "content developed for children", is the special case. It's explicitly content meant for and marketed to children, or content that children would be particularly attracted to, like nature documentaries.
All other content should be marked "not intended for children", even if it's not "adult"--aka restricted to 18+--content.
This is stated pretty clearly in YouTube's documentation. They have a link to it in a contextual pop-up right next to the form field asking you to self-rate the video.
Google recognizes that these flaws in their AI aren't worth caring about. Google doesn't have any mission or obligation to help the world share videos. Google cares about Google's profits. And they've found that the expedient way to do that is just let the AI be overzealous with rejecting, because the cost of a false positive is infinitesimally tiny and the cost of a false negative (real copyright violation) is so much higher.
How do we fix this? Competition. We need a Google/Youtube competitor so that users will choose the platform that does copyright recognition better.
TL;DR copyright becomes absurd surprisingly fast when you have a large population, widely-available authoring/recording tools, and a way to store/search all of them, indefinitely. Like, indefensible absurd.
Let's be clear. It is not Google that wants it. Actually Google is on the side of calling all of this retarded. It is the state of copyright laws, of the DMCA, of the lobbying by the RIAA. The day the whole copyright ecosystem is updated to accept that computers exist and that people share files on internet easily, Youtube will be VERY happy to unplug all these terrible bots that are there to provide a bad solution to a problem we should not have.
I made a video of myself playing my own unique interpretation of The Safety Dance by Men Without Hats on piano. https://youtu.be/ZNfMZ6g9YWo
I got a copyright violation notice shortly after posting it, by some random Latin American music company. It wasn’t clear if it was legit or not, it could have been some holding company of song rights or some failure of the AI.
I disputed the claim, saying I used no recorded material, it was entirely my own styling on the song including ragtime and stride piano influences.
Frankly I’m not even sure how copyright works on covers, particularly if style is quite different.
The company never responded in the 30 day period so the copyright claim was removed.
My channel is so small that I probably would have just removed the video. I’m not even close to the levels that are required for monetisation (1000 subscribers and 4000 cumulative view hours).
But it was a bit surprising how quickly it was claimed that I violated someone’s copyright.
https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/posting-cover-songs-on-yo...
I love this quote from the classic The Manual: How To Have A Number 1 The Easy Way by KLF:
...the copyright laws that have grown over the past one hundred years have all been developed by whites of European descent and these laws state that fifty per cent of the copyright of any song should be for the lyrics, the other fifty per cent for the top line (sung) melody; groove doesn’t even get a look in. If the copyright laws had been in the hands of blacks of African descent, at least eighty per cent would have gone to the creators of the groove, the remainder split between the lyrics and the melody. If perchance you are reading this and you are both black and a lawyer, make a name for yourself. Right the wrongs.
Deleted Comment
i am a big fan of film music. i made a small piano reduction of a favorite piece and uploaded it to youtube. i wasn't even mad when i saw the copyright claim within hours, since i run no ads.
i was however baffled and somewhat proud that my efforts were not in vain, and that the algorithm thought my poor interpretation was close to the real thing.
i do not defend the algorithm though.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU
Would such a process be expensive? Yes, but you can't have it both ways, enabling copyright holders to lodge spurious claims at will, and not allow content creators - who the entire platform is built on! - to disclaim them.
Would such a process be expensive? Yes, of course - but YouTube can very well afford it.
Step 1: Someone files a copyright claim (or perhaps this is done automatically). This is free.
Step 2: Someone disputes the claim. This is also free, and automatically restores the video.
Step 3: The filer can re-submit the claim but they have to post a bond for the price of a professional manual review by a trained copyright lawyer; maybe $1000.
Step 4: If the video owner can re-dispute the claim; to do so they also have to post a bond for the price of a professional manual review. The trained copyright lawyer comes to a conclusion; whoever "wins" the ruling gets their money back, and the other person pays for the whole thing.
If the video owner doesn't go on to step 4, obviously the copyright claimant gets their money back.
This would get rid of all bots and most false claims
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684
I have used it in the past and it works.
there's the rub .. in the OP's example, the strike wasn't cleared
Look at Peertube or other free as in freedom options.
Is this where we must point out that the entire ContentID system was designed to protect bad actors, because it was written by them?
The “western” world lost a once-in-a-thousand-years chance to change how copyright works at a fundamental level, when the internet started getting traction. We’re now forever beholden to the whims of parasitical “industries”.
- APRA_CS
- ECAD_CS
- SOCAN
- VCPMC_CS
APRA is the Australian music copyright organisation (https://www.apraamcos.com.au/)
ECAD is the Brazillian version.
VCPMC is the Vietnamese equivalent.
Not sure about the others, but basically these are the people with whom a composer registers their work. These organisations work together by forwarding royalties collected within each territory to their rightful owners.
I am a member of APRA and very much doubt that someone got away with registering a Beethoven work as their own.
Very curious indeed. I have no explanation.
[Edit] You are only meant to register your work in one territory, so it is odd that this 'work' would be registered in four of them.
APRA: Australasian Performing Right Association
ECAD: Escritório Central de Arrecadação e Distribuição
SOCAN: Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada
VCPMC: Vietnam Center for Protection of Music Copyright
CS stands for collections society. In another age CS would stand for the Mafia.
All but ECAD were found from here: https://www.cisac.org/
I think the three copyright strikes have to take place within 90 days. Unless I am confusing community guidelines strikes with copyright strikes.
1. Print rights protect sheet music etc. from being copied.
2. Performance rights control whether your composed music can be performed.
3. Mechanical rights control whether your performance can be copied (onto mp3 say). Also related to these are "synchronization" issues and licenses.
[0] https://www.bmi.com/licensing/entry/types_of_copyrights
Dead Comment
Why has no such thing emerged?
Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product.
Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automated company only interested in extracting as much data as possible from its users, force them to swallow as many ads as possible, all without caring about listening to them (both consumers and creators), under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them. They simply don't deserve anybody using their shitty products anymore.
The error in this case is quite obvious. YouTube's scanner incorrectly identified the teacher's recording of Moonlight Sonata as a copyrighted reinterpretation of the same piece of music originally written by a guy who actually died 200 years ago. And I can't completely put the blame on Google's AI: the notes are technically the same, the beat might also be the same, if you calculate an FFT of the audio you'll probably also come up with similar spectral signatures. But a human listener will IMMEDIATELY notice that was played by the teacher IS NOT the the same as the copyrighted piece of music.
The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors?
Until Google can provide an answer to these questions, I repeat: keep your ass away from anything that has their name on it. They are not reliable, the risk of losing your data, your account or your followers because of random automated decision is very high, and the probability of getting a real human to assist you is very low.
Moreover, let's say a new site comes along and dethrones YouTube. Remember that this whole mess started because of lawsuits that were ultimately ruled (or settled) in favor of copyright holders. Any player in this space will need a method for handling vast quantities of copyrighted material scanning and, like Google, will be heavily incentivized by legal precedent to have that system "err on the side of caution."
I'm not a fan of Google; but, the villain of this story is the horribly outdated and corporate-lobbied copyright system that will push any player in the video space to this kind of draconian approach.
I think it's more instructive to look at it from the other side. What's the reasonable alternative for a video hosting service to doing this kind of policing? Remember it's not really an option to just throw video over the fence, DMCA requirements mean you have to be responsive. And thus there's a built-in incentive to cut a deal with the content owners to preemptively prevent the DMCA claims (which are expensive!) by doing this sort of automated policing.
It's true that not every host does this, but every host that doesn't do this either does it in violation of the law or eats significant overhead that needs to be recouped in some other way (i.e. by paying their content creators less! Check the author's channel, this is someone who's clearly on youtube for revenue. Would even she jump ship given that it would probably cost her money?)
Really, this isn't something Google can fix. It's a problem with the legal regime that imagines that all infringement is a bright line definition and that preemptive takedowns are the best solution.
Insurance? I'm only half kidding. No individual youtuber has the deep pockets to stir the slumbering Googlebeast enough to get it to notice and correct its mistake, but all youtubers certainly do. Conversely, perhaps there's a market for a we-only-get-paid-if-we-win lawyers to spring up here, as they have with workplace injuries and such. Youtube's resolution process may not be friendly to creators, but juries probably will be, if the creator bypasses Google and sues the party making the claim. "Sues for what?" I dunno - emotional damages? Tortious claims? They'll figure something out, I imagine.
Maybe those are silly ideas, but they're certainly less silly than waiting for Google to fix things...
If I was a creator I’d use YouTube, but also have backed up local copies of videos. Preferably hosted elsewhere in case the channel gets in trouble too.
You have to be where the users are and YouTube is by far the best video streaming service (with the largest audience).
I've noticed several tech-related content producers copying their videos over to LBRY/Odysee as a backup in case the YT algorithm decides to cancel them.
Put your videos on Youtube and PeerTube.
It is, unfortunately, not a faulty assumption. I'm a piano teacher on YouTube, and I'm able to make money there. My entire audience was developed through the platform. I put videos on platforms like Vimeo or even Peertube, and I've had more views in one day on YouTube than their entire lifetime on those other platforms combined.
The network effect is a cruel mistress, but short of some kind of global exodus no one has the ability to change that. I hate it as much as anyone.
Youtube does not care about your happiness. Their business model is unrelated to it. Youtube, like Google, is in the business of gathering up a bunch of delicious users and bolt-gunning and butchering them so they can be served up to ad partners for a tidy sum. In this arrangement, the happiness of the livestock hardly matters.
This is partially the fault of YouTube/Google, but also copyright law in general. It's broken.
This community, right here, could collaborate and force changes upon the powers that be. Boycotting Google and YouTube isn't going to do it though.
There's no legal grey area here. This is completely on Google/Youtube. Why isn't there a way to assert the copyright status when uploading, beyond saying you ownt he copyright or not? The answer would seem to be that it would take some work on the company's part, and they don't want to put it in because it's unlikely to yield any additional revenue and the occasional bit of bad publicity doesn't hurt them enough.
Google makes this moderately difficult of course, but it seems to be a viable option when coupled with patreon (where you usually get more content/early access/more creator engagement) or some other external subscription where the same is offered.
To answer your question succinctly, no, you don't want "other youtube" you want something sufficiently different to avoid youtube's pitfalls.
Boycotting Google is the only way to go. One can also advocate for regulation in this are.
As for your question: They can put the video in Nebula or Patreon, for instance. Maybe there can be more of those, perhaps for music teachers. Maybe that's also an opportunity for someone new to jump into the streaming game and provide some competition.
Vimeo? Peertube? Facebook? Self hosted website? Anywhere?
There was no avenue for recourse, or to report the person who was fraudulently making claims.
The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"
My thoughts exactly 5 years ago. So I did exactly as you say back then. So , did you notice? Did it help? I do not think so.
May be the problem is more complicated and leaving YouTube would not help ?
Given that we've had to endure this nonsense for more years than I can count now, and Google and other companies refuse to budge, it sounds like a great opportunity for legislation to enumerate users' rights in situations like this, and to enumerate penalties should companies like Google violate them.
I had my Sony Play Station account banned for 2 months with no exact reason and no way to appeal, on short the Sony message was like "you did something wrong, something about our policy on sex and violence, our moderators are perfect so there is no mistake and there is nothing you can do".
I think we need something that addresses all such issues and not a Google only workaround, the solution is regulations.
Content cannot be safe if the tech necessary to deliver it is out of reach for independent creators.
Note that in the Roku thread Google is (IMHO) the good guy, for reasons unrelated to this thread's concern.
Any video hosting service that you will move to will behave in a very similar ways, in order to avoid getting sued out of existence by the media lobby.
If you want to solve this problem, the solution can only come from dismantling the parasitic parts of the media industry. That requires political action.
Step 1 is walk away from the biggest, most obscure and capricious banning system around, to pull the biggest teeth of that copyright industry.
That was the symptom. The cause of the error was Google allowing another Publisher to stake claims on public domain music.
Sure, building on quicksand is free. No one wants to pay for a service that is as undependable, and impossible to appeal in case of fraudulent or just mistaken bans.
So go ahead and build on that quicksand... but do it knowing so, and stop complaining when the quicksand swallows you.
There might not be much land around the edge of the quicksand patch, but it's solid ground.
Will they produce false positives? Of course. Do the benefits to content creators outweigh the costs of these false positives? Yes if you believe creative content should be protected.
The only other viable model for content creators are subscription based services like Patreon and they have/will also be pressured by the entertainment industry or even the content creators themselves to flag copyright infringement once the platform gets large enough.
Is this really true, though?
Google certainly doesn’t want to pay for people, but automated systems can be used as a first-pass filter, before human are brought-in to make a second-pass judgement.
So what is the rate of false-positives? And how many automated flags are triggered per day?
Yes this costs money but it is the only way to do the job without being a scumbag and a general burden on the world.
Furthermore it should cost the person sending a complaint somethings to file it, which then is refunded if the complaint is found to have merit.
Lastly, some of these steps could and should be skipped if a particular account or multiple accounts determined by some other means to be the same person are repeatedly found to be in violation.
Similarly if a person keeps making unfounded accusations the refundable fee might increase in steps.
False positives are absolutely unacceptable when it comes to anything dealing money. I sure wouldn't stick with a bank if they said "oh well, false positives happen. you'll get your money next week... maybe".
but there are several banks that help ensure that security. There are no checks to google allowing for such false positives.
Two were released (one after three days, the other after 27), the rest were allowed to lapse in my favour (which happens after 30 days).
A few of these claims were duplicates (same claimer, same hymn). This showed that even though I had successfully disputed their claim in the past in the grounds of the work being in the public domain, YouTube had not revoked their ability to claim the melody in question.
If any of the liars claiming they owned these works had rejected my dispute, it could have become a strike, &c. and there would of course be no recourse, because Google generally refuses to arbitrate.
Also, an insidious aspect of the claims system was that YouTube basically didn’t tell you about the copyright claim at all when publishing; you had to close the edit page for the video and return to the list, and see if the Restrictions column for the video said “Copyright claim”. If you didn’t do that, the video would probably be being monetised by the claimer in at least some of the world (and if you disputed it, I guess Google would happily take the lot for the period while they had monetised it—though now that they’re putting ads on everything, this lot isn’t so different from the usual situation; depends on whether you hate the balance of the ad money going to the copyright liars or Google more).
(There was also one amusing case where some music being played at a nearby temple was audible during a quiet time in the service, and so I found out the name of the music being played. I claimed fair use on that one, because I didn’t even want that music in it, and it was quiet. That claim was released after ten days.)
While the sheet music is, the performance by other artists - as your own performance - is not. That's the issue the algorithm is having here (not defending).
The automated system would need to "understand" that this is indeed a new performance of a public domain piece of sheet music and not a reproduction of a copyrighted performance by somebody else. Even if you were note for note playing exactly the same (tempo and whatnot) with the same instrument tuned the same way. I think this would be an argument against automated systems. Whether a human could know that my bike-ride was scored by myself and not somebody else is doubtful though.
On the other hand, I do understand that people do not want their individual performances to be used without licence and there may be many such performances.
Historically Google only put ads when requested by the channel, which required a fairly significant threshold of views and subscribers and supposedly manual review by Google. Some time last year they started a switch towards serving ads on all videos, regardless of the preferences of the channel (whether you’re big or small, whether you want ads or not), which I hear has been progressing steadily further and further. (I wouldn’t know. The internet’s too dangerous to view without an ad blocker. I also just generally hate ads and only see any at all when I leave my peaceful rural environs and go to the big city.)
As you don't want to risk 3 strike, you agree to share revenue.
Basically Youtube doing nothing.
Actually, they're hurting an independent content creator over something she has every right to do using works in the public domain. Youtube is doing that, not the fraudster making the false claim. They have no power other than what Youtube gives them, and Youtube gives them 100% of the power.
The "Topic" bit generally gets added to a channel name when a music distributer (like DistroKid [2]) publishes music to youtube on behalf of a musician (in this case Alive Violet Molland), typically at the same time adding it to other streaming services.
Distrokid will let you publish an unlimited number of albums in this way for about $20 a year and then collects the revenue from any streaming on your behalf. I'm guessing the distributer may also register the audio with music rights organisations, which are presumably the source of the copyright claims.
The Wicca Moonlight video now has 4.4k downvotes.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ThyLB6bakk [2] https://distrokid.com/
I went searching around using that info and came across a (similarly outraged) thread on google's support forums about this video, in which someone named longzijun seemed to make a reasonably sound counter-argument:
https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/108213944/a-posted...
> Then she files a counter-notification. The appeals process has not been completed. She is only part-way through it.
> Once she files that and if she does it properly, the claimant has 14 days to initiate a court action against her or the claim is released, the strike removed and the video goes back online.
> Obviously, the claimant will not pursue legal action in this case.
> False claims can cause inconvenience for sure, but with the counter-notification system, they don't do long-term damage.
> Both the takedown system and the counternotification system are mandated by US law (specifically the DMCA).
> YouTube is not supposed to intervene in copyright cases. If they do so, they will lose their safe harbor status (again under the DMCA) that protects YouTube from being sued for hosting copyright infringing content.
> To sum up
> 1) the dispute process has not been completed in this case
> 2) your beef should be with US legislators, not YouTube
So for this reason YT might have some minimal justification for handling "old classical music" (but it is not based on copyright of a long dead composer, but on the "mechanical reproduction" copyright of some orchestra/artist).
Now, that said. If they can't distinguish between performances, then it should not be left to them.
And, anyway, the real problem is the fucked up bias in favoring the claimers.
Then it's purely google's fault that their AI contentid scanner can't distinguish between Wicca Moonlight and some other arbitrary performance of the sonata. It's google's fault that their AI doesn't understand that the sonata itself is in the public domain so they have to only match against exact reproductions rather than "kinda sounds the same because same notes and instruments" reproductions.
But here is a situation where any rational human can say "this is crazy, anyone with sense knows that Moonlight Sonata is in the public domain", but Google has created a Kafkaesque nightmare because (as has been lamented a million times on HN) it takes an act of God (or Twitter outrage) to actually connect with a human support person is you're not a paying customer.
It should be punished harder than merely copying someone else's work usually is, but instead this sort of direct theft seems to be allowed by governments and copyright institutes.
Hell why stop there, music artists get their own original music stolen by Youtube who then proceeds to hand it to someone else, for anyone interested in a popular example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw