[HN Gopher] More phony copyright claims for YouTube creators
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       More phony copyright claims for YouTube creators
        
       Author : relwin
       Score  : 57 points
       Date   : 2022-12-12 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (larryjordan.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (larryjordan.com)
        
       | placatedmayhem wrote:
       | YouTube's copyright controls have been a constant sore spot for
       | creators for years at this point. YouTube/Google seems
       | uninterested in addressing the problems. It seems that
       | improvement is either imperceptibly small or just outright
       | doesn't exist.
       | 
       | What will it actually take for this to improve? Copyright
       | legislation (e.g., DMCA) roll back or alteration? Content
       | creators and/or viewers leaving the platform over it? Something
       | else?
        
         | vezycash wrote:
         | >What will it actually take for this to improve?
         | 
         | Mass, coordinated DCMA takedown notices against disney and
         | other parties that designed DCMA.
         | 
         | For max impact, a mix of legit & fake DCMA notices should be
         | used.
        
         | lotsofpulp wrote:
         | >What will it actually take for this to improve?
         | 
         | People willing to pay for content.
         | 
         | One one extreme, you will have YouTube and it's user generated
         | content and ads and the huge moderation costs.
         | 
         | On the other is professionally produced content, like Comcast,
         | Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, etc.
         | 
         | It may or may not be economically viable to have an option in
         | the middle, or at least it has not been so far. Vimeo is the
         | only one that came close to making it work, as far as I know.
        
         | ninth_ant wrote:
         | As long as there is no viable alternative to YouTube, Google
         | has zero incentive of improving the situation. The current
         | system works for Google, with no downside for them thanks to
         | their monopolistic grasp on the market.
        
         | OkayPhysicist wrote:
         | It might be enough to just have a class action lawsuit against
         | Google requiring them to actually follow the actual DMCA
         | process.
        
         | jandrese wrote:
         | Many-trillion dollar lawsuits similar to what media cartels
         | threaten them with if they don't implement highly abusive mass
         | takedown systems with little to no oversight.
        
       | commandlinefan wrote:
       | I don't know what the solution is, but with every year it's
       | becoming more and more apparent that the entire concept of
       | copyright is incompatible with a global communications network.
        
       | nostromo wrote:
       | Twitter really needs to move into the longer form video space to
       | give YouTube some competition. YouTube has gotten very lazy with
       | their near monopoly on long form video and now only innovates by
       | increasing the number of ads every quarter to show revenue growth
       | and desperately copying TikTok.
        
         | atty wrote:
         | I don't see how Twitter could afford to compete with YouTube
         | financially. YouTube has the larger audience (3x MAU) so they
         | get the best advertising deals, and they STILL don't break out
         | YouTube's profit/loss individually, suggesting it's probably
         | either low margin or a loss leader for alphabet.
        
           | yamtaddle wrote:
           | Reads like an argument for breaking up Google, so they can't
           | dominate and suppress markets by funding unprofitable units
           | indefinitely.
        
         | GregWWalters wrote:
         | I'd welcome competition. Vimeo is the closest thing I can think
         | of and it differentiated itself. But I don't think Twitter is
         | the right one to do it. IMO, these services are best when
         | they're narrowly focused. YouTube branching into shorts,
         | Facebook and Instagram branching into... well, everything...
         | has made those services cluttered, and makes their once core
         | features worse.
        
         | kevingadd wrote:
         | To truly compete with YouTube, Twitter would need a video
         | discovery algorithm at least on the same level. Multiple large-
         | following (1m+ subs) YouTubers have said that as much as they
         | have grievances with YT, other platforms like Twitch and
         | Twitter don't have the kind of discovery tools they would need
         | to grow an audience there and make money. (Twitter would also
         | need really robust advertising infrastructure for this, IMO)
        
       | pityJuke wrote:
       | > Actually, probably the majority of You Tubers don't use any
       | music
       | 
       | This just isn't true.
       | 
       | YouTube music falls into two camps: 1) Licensed music from paid
       | royalty sources. AudioJunkie, Epidemic, etc. 2) Video game music,
       | because that isn't in ContentID because otherwise you'd claim
       | people playing their games (it can absolutely be manually
       | claimed, but creators just take the risk here).
       | 
       | I suspect Pond5 here aren't a great service.
       | 
       | I also keep on re-parsing this article because of the English,
       | but
       | 
       | > and for many of those who do, the more ads the better as the
       | reason for uploading a video is to make money and they really
       | don't care about quality.
       | 
       | If you get copyright claimed for music, you don't get the money
       | from the video? More ads won't help? I'm so confused at to what
       | this person is getting at, as they've meddled a diatribe about
       | advertising with a diatribe about music copyright claims.
        
       | reaperducer wrote:
       | Considering how cheap bandwidth is, and how good compression is,
       | are we yet approaching point where it makes sense for content
       | creators to host their own videos?
       | 
       | 99% of what's on YT doesn't need to be in HD, anyway.
        
         | kevingadd wrote:
         | One of the main reasons creators put content on YouTube is the
         | discovery algorithm. It's much easier to grow an audience for
         | videos on YT compared to hosting it yourself.
        
         | yamtaddle wrote:
         | 1) People won't find the content if it's not on Youtube.
         | 
         | 2) You will struggle (even more) to monetize the views you _do_
         | get, if you 're not on YouTube.
         | 
         | 3) Bandwidth is _sorta_ cheap when you 're getting a little bit
         | of it bundled with other things that have high margins (say,
         | cloud VM hosting) but video hosting can exceed what you can get
         | with that kind of "free" bandwidth pretty quickly. It begins to
         | really add up, after that.
        
       | SoftTalker wrote:
       | Fair use is another one. I'm not a musician, but like listening
       | to music. I recently discovered Rick Beato's YouTube videos where
       | he breaks down "what makes this song great"
       | 
       | He plays snips of songs, analyzes them, talks about the chord
       | progressions, the key changes, melodies, drum fills, bass lines,
       | solos, and sometimes gets pretty deep into technical/music theory
       | analysis. Then he'll play a bit more and then talk about that
       | part of the song. It's clearly fair use, and if anything it
       | promotes interest in the artist and their music, but (according
       | to him) he's constantly getting videos blocked or copyright
       | claims.
        
       | Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
       | Wouldn't it be great if, for every false copyright claim, the
       | person/entity making the claim received strikes and had to
       | compensate the person subjected to the false claim? Make abusing
       | the system costly? Attempt to compensate victims of the copyright
       | claim system abuse? Maybe?
        
         | pifm_guy wrote:
         | Even $50 would probably be decent compensation for most
         | YouTubers. It would probably reign in false claims
         | dramatically, and reduce the numbers of appeals enough that
         | real humans can check each one.
        
           | cyberphobe wrote:
           | Yeah probably, but wouldn't really be sufficiently punitive
           | to really deal with the problem. It should be a % of the
           | abuser's revenue
        
         | endisneigh wrote:
         | This would only work if a successful claim resulted in the
         | YouTuber having to pay, otherwise such an asymmetric situation
         | would never be sustainable.
         | 
         | Given how many popular videos sit on the edge of copyright
         | abuse it's not really in Google's interest to do this anyway.
        
           | OkayPhysicist wrote:
           | This is how the DMCA, as written, is supposed to work.
           | 
           | Step 1: Alice uploads some media to Bob's website
           | 
           | Step 2: Charlie decides Alice's upload violates his copyright
           | 
           | Step 3: Charlie sends Bob a DMCA takedown notice.
           | 
           | Step 4: Bob takes down Alice's media, issues Alice a notice
           | that he's received a claim, and is now protected from being
           | sued by Charlie.
           | 
           | Step 5: Alice disagrees that her upload violates Charlie's
           | copyright, and issues a counter-claim to Bob.
           | 
           | Step 6: Bob reinstates Alice's upload, notifies Charlie that
           | Alice has contested his claim, and is now protected from
           | being sued by Alice.
           | 
           | Step 7: Charlie sues Alice, because he still believes the
           | content to be in violation of his copyright, or gives up
           | 
           | Step 8: Court case / counter suit decides damages between
           | Charlie and Alice
           | 
           | The problem is not the DMCA system, which if anything is too
           | generous to the media host. The problem is YouTube's added
           | bullshit layer, which goes something like "Charlie hints that
           | he might send a DMCA takedown, Bob takes down Alice's video
           | and threatens to ban her from the platform"
        
           | Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
           | I would agree with this. It should work both ways. There may
           | be a few edge cases where it really wasn't clear if it was or
           | was not copyright infringement; both cases were reasonable.
           | These would be the exception where neither party may be
           | fined.
        
         | GregWWalters wrote:
         | If a claimant makes a bad-faith claim or the claim is done by
         | undersupervised automation? Sure. But I think some of these
         | claims are false positives by YouTube's ContentID system. In
         | those cases, does YouTube pay? I agree there needs to be a
         | disincentive to over-claiming (including but not limited to
         | holding ad revenue in escrow and returning it to the video's
         | owner if the claims are false) but in practice, I don't know
         | how it needs to work.
        
           | Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
           | If its an automated system, then yes I think youtube should
           | have to compensate users when the system youtube created,
           | screws over an innocent user. If the government, who is
           | almost as powerful as google, similarly created a system
           | where they falsely arrest huge swaths of innocent people,
           | then they too should have to compensate their victims. The
           | goal here is to get youtube to do better, and the only way to
           | do that is economics.
        
         | cyanydeez wrote:
         | This system was setup to make the DMCA easy for copyright
         | holders. There's zero consideration about whose holding.
         | 
         | Before YouTube, I was getting takedown notices from Qwest
         | internet and when I wrote them demanding proof, they ignored me
         | and just flipped the switch back on.
         | 
         | Eventually they just automated the takedown system so you had
         | to go through some isolated dcma system.
         | 
         | They have no cares about consumers because consumers present
         | zero legal threat.
        
           | Tagbert wrote:
           | And remember that YouTube's system is not DMCA. DMCA rules do
           | not apply nor do any protections. The YouTube system is
           | designed to favor copyright holders and those who claim
           | copyright.
        
         | GuB-42 wrote:
         | > Attempt to compensate victims of the copyright claim system
         | abuse? Maybe?
         | 
         | It is called following the law! DMCA Section 512(f) basically
         | says that if you issue a false claim, you are liable for all
         | damage you caused, including attorney fees.
         | 
         | I don't know what lawyers have to say, but it looks like easy
         | money for a law firm if DMCA false claims are so common and so
         | obvious.
        
           | lesuorac wrote:
           | > (f)Misrepresentations.--Any person who knowingly materially
           | misrepresents under this section-- (1)that material or
           | activity is infringing, or (2)that material or activity was
           | removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, shall be
           | liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys' fees,
           | incurred by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or
           | copyright owner's authorized licensee, or by a service
           | provider, who is injured by such misrepresentation, as the
           | result of the service provider relying upon such
           | misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the
           | material or activity claimed to be infringing, or in
           | replacing the removed material or ceasing to disable access
           | to it.
           | 
           | 512f is currently unenforced by the courts. Judges are not
           | state machines, it matters not what the technically correct
           | decision may be, they are not required to make it.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenz_v._Universal_Music_Corp.
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | Reminder that the normal YouTube copyright process isn't the
           | DMCA process, but instead a process YouTube came up with as
           | part of a settlement with the record labels that gives those
           | making the claim nearly all of the power.
        
             | yummypaint wrote:
             | The youtube TOS does not shield people making false claims
             | from liability. It is extremely lopsided in every other
             | aspect, though.
        
           | kevingadd wrote:
           | YouTube circumvents the DMCA with a custom process, which is
           | why fraud is so rampant - they intentionally designed a
           | system to enable fraud (at the behest of media companies)
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-12-12 23:00 UTC)