YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

"Here's my favorite example, here: 1928, my hero, Walt Disney, created this extraordinary work, the birth of Mickey Mouse in the form of Steamboat Willie. But what you probably don't recognize about Steamboat Willie and his emergence into Mickey Mouse is that in 1928, Walt Disney, to use the language of the Disney Corporation today, "stole" Willie from Buster Keaton's "Steamboat Bill."

It was a parody, a take-off; it was built upon Steamboat Bill. Steamboat Bill was produced in 1928, no [waiting] 14 years--just take it, rip, mix, and burn, as he did [laughter] to produce the Disney empire. This was his character. Walt always parroted feature-length mainstream films to produce the Disney empire, and we see the product of this. This is the Disney Corporation: taking works in the public domain, and not even in the public domain, and turning them into vastly greater, new creativity. They took the works of this guy, these guys, the Brothers Grimm, who you think are probably great authors on their own. They produce these horrible stories, these fairy tales, which anybody should keep their children far from because they're utterly bloody and moralistic stories, and are not the sort of thing that children should see, but they were retold for us by the Disney Corporation. Now the Disney Corporation could do this because that culture lived in a commons, an intellectual commons, a cultural commons, where people could freely take and build. It was a lawyer-free zone."

-- Lawrence Lessig, "Free Culture", OSCON 2002 (https://youtu.be/uH4RskpUFiA?si=IHVC72F4oXpLHJVV&t=253)

Take what you can, give nothing back. Apparently.

That has been Disney's motto since forever. The "golden age if Disney" is all public domain works and fairy tales.

Public domain for thee, but not for me.

Hey come on they have original ideas, talking African animals, talking cars, talking fish, talking toys. Without intellectual property protection they wouldn't of made all these super original ideas.

I understand you are ’reworking’ a reductive history of Pixar’s canon meme except for one thing you added: “talking African animals”.

Which is a reference to the Lion King, one of the mouse’s 2d classics, which is also one of their most egregious derivative works.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimba_the_White_Lion

I enjoyed this comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5B1mIfQuo4 more than Kimba or Lion King (longer than both of them too!)

lion king 1 1/2 was fantastic tho

Fair point. I even remember that video releasing and here I am 3 years later spreading misinformation like exactly what it is ranting about.

I think the visual/contextual similarities with the original manga/anime run do in fact point more plainly to the reality of the mouses' relationship with their public domain reworks.

That is, what they did exactly exemplifies excellent use of the public domain. They did more than just updated reproductions of the original works. They used the public domain as a starting point, an inspiration, but told their own stories; often wildly different from their source, like, where I mention elsewhere, The Little Mermaid.

The problem focused on should be that while they benefited from having access to these works in the public domain they have spent time and resources to ensure others are unable to do the same with work they have financial control over that should have long been included in the public domain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5B1mIfQuo4

Here's a nearly 3 hour video from someone whose Special Interest is The Lion King where he researches the claims that it's ripping off Kimba.

If you don't want to watch it, the original kimba series was 52 episodes and only bears a superficial resemblance to The Lion King.

_MANY_ of the most egregious examples are actually from the 1997 Kimba movie released as Jungle Emperor Leo which came out after The Lion King.

The Lion King is more Hamlet than Kimba, I think. Royal family, brother of king kills king to get throne, queen not happy about this turn of events, the kid is elsewhere, ghost of king tells kid to sort it out, kid returns to royal court and after a fight ends up offing the usurper.

But in Hamlet Shakespeare kills everyone; while in The Lion King, Walt disnae.

I love watching 2 hour animated films with no dialogue personally

Any recommendations?

Fantasia is 2h 4m according to IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032455/

12 more years, I guess.

All that IP and the talent behind it became Disney's after the acquired Pixar from Steve Jobs.

Oh OK, I was wondering how they came up with so many original ideas but it makes sense now that they had to buy them.

Bahaha... oh man... I'm imagining this comment being read in the voice and cadence of standup comedy.

Arguably, the corruption here is not Disney, but the lawmakers agreeing to change the law. If lawmakers cannot handle the pressure from large lobbyists, they should forbid large lobbyists. Etc.

Disney should be allowed to protect their interests within the applicable laws.

Or maybe people and should have morals and standards beyond "whatever is legal."

Very piracy, but okay for the big guy.

You realize that the folks at Disney put in thousands of hours to create their own version of the story. Yeah, they borrowed a bit, but they put in plenty of their own work.

But go ahead and pretend that this is the same as the cheap-ass behavior of some stoned pirate who can't bring himself to pay for content and uses Lessig as a justification for his thievery.

Yeah, they borrowed a bit, but they put in plenty of their own work.

And "Steamboat Bill" didn't?

I fail to see the difference outside of the fact that Grimm et. Al didn't have a small army OF lawyers to say otherwise.

I'm not sure your point? I admitted that they borrowed a bit. And then your point is that "Steamboat Bill" borrowed? Okay. I guess. But I'm not denying that the filmmakers and artists grab ideas and plots from the collective idea well. I'm saying that they also put in thousands if not millions of hours of work creating the new version.

It's just wrong for the pro piracy crowd to use this as an excuse to justify their theft.

Please don't troll on HN.

Theft is taking something away from someone. Copying by definition doesn't. Pretending it's equivalent to, or even similar to, "theft" is ridiculous.

That’s not true. There’s a whole history of legislation and publications, e.g. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/intellectual-proper...

and

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-105publ147

If the terminology is good enough for the DoJ and Congress, it’s good enough for an internet forum.

I don’t like this movement to memoryhole the debate we had in the ‘90s through wordsmithing.

There is a lot of middle ground between swallowing lobbyists language wholesale because it was adopted by legislators in their pocket and revisionism.

It's just wrong for the pro piracy crowd to use this as an excuse to justify their theft.

My main point wasn't really about modern pirates. The internet cabal will define however they want to fit their own notions.

It was more about artists treated as "thieves" by companies like Disney that themselves have done "copyright infringement" to get themselves off the ground (by the definition they defined over the past century).

Yeah, they borrowed a bit, but they put in plenty of their own work.

Maybe you should take a second read of the original, Grimm's version.

Keep huffing that corporate propaganda.

It's only piracy when the law isn't on your side

Everybody should keep their children far from morals? What?

Lessig isn't saying we should keep children away from morals. He's criticizing how Disney adapted the Brothers Grimm's stories, which often preached heavy-handed and regressive moral lessons in a moralizing manner.

No, he's referring to the Grimm stories. They are indeed violent. They simply are a product of their time. The Disney version is easier to digest. All of this should not detract from his main point, tho.

They were actually a product of a time earlier than the Grimms. They were acting as proto-anthropologists, collecting oral tales from illiterate peasants because they feared that these were about to be lost with modernization. This is different from later people like Hans Christian Andersen, who really did create new fairy tales.

All of this should not detract from the fact that Al Bundy scored four touchdowns in a single game while playing for the Polk High School Panthers in the 1966 city championship game versus Andrew Johnson High School, including the game-winning touchdown in the final seconds against his old nemesis, "Spare Tire" Dixon.

This is an almost impressive misinterpretation.

What lessig is likely referring to is the violent and grotesque consequences of the original Grimm stories as well as their brazen antisemitism.

https://www.history.com/news/the-dark-side-of-the-grimm-fair...

Everyone was antisemitic back then, even semites –against other semites. Not unlike current events.

"once upon a time a beautiful but poor girl married a rich dude and everything was great"

Why not "once upon a time a beautiful but poor dude married a rich girl and everything was great"? Oh. Right.

Aladdin?

We naïvely bought a book of classic German fairy tales and somehow no such stories appear

Heh if by “once upon a time “ you mean all day every day since forever.

In the original stories the bad guys are punished in a cruel and horrible way. Like forced to dance with red-hot iron shoes.

The Girl Who Sold Matches is my personal favorite.

The modern version is The Guy Who Sold Loose Cigarettes, and Was Choked To Death.

Moral of the story: Don't sell matches without a permit -corporations would starve. R.I.P. Eric Garner

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goose_Girl

Similar grim

The moral of the story for quite a lot of these stories is... a bit effed up. Like, try getting a coherent one out of The Little Mermaid.

try getting a coherent one out of The Little Mermaid.

It is possible to do just this, and to make a terrific and nurturing film out of it. See Ponyo.

The little mermaid is Hans Christian Andersen rather than brothers grimmm.

The messaging is about curiosity and exploration.

The moral is about accepting when things fail to go as you want, and choosing to avoid harm to others for your own benefit.

There is an anime adaptation that is faithful to the original story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen%27s_...

Walt Disney was repeatedly accused of racism during his lifetime, mostly because he kept putting dreadful racist stereotypes in his films. The defence given by his supporters is that he was essentially naive and conformist, that he just reflected the values of his time, that he viewed his work as harmless fun, that he wasn't really thinking about the message he sent when he made a film like Song of the South.

That defence is quite reasonable as a defence of the man, but it's also an indictment of his work. Do you really want your kids taking heavy-handed morality lessons from someone who didn't actually have a clear sense of morality?

Morality changes and is imposed by the times, what is moral today will not be tomorrow, To your great grandchildren you'd probably be the same as a "boomer" today and will be looked at in the same vein (an ageist word used as an insult). It is the way of human culture.

Do you really want your kids taking heavy-handed morality lessons from someone who didn't actually have a clear sense of morality?

Gotta take the good and leave the bad. You can find those in every single piece of media at the time, but it's not like I want to cast all of Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Donald, etc. As such.

Moralistic has a completely different connotation, as I'm sure you are aware.

Moralizing can have the meaning of "inculcating morality", but it's more commonly used nowadays as "relating to a narrow-minded concern [for] the morals of others".

This looks false, the Buster Keaton film was released the same year, not 14 years earlier, according to wikipedia. And both were inspired by an 18 year old song, Steamboat Bill, which Mickey whistles at the start.

You have misread the post: it explicitly says that Steamboat Bill was released the same year, "no waiting 14 years"—as in, they didn't wait for the copyright to expire.

Thanks for clarification.

The Wikipedia entry implies they're both riffing on the song, not that the cartoon is riffing on the Keaton film.

I guess I'm surprised if it wasn't coincident given only 6 months between releases!

It's also a little confusing how the Lessig refers to the Keaton film as "Steamboat Bill" when it's "Steamboat Bill, Jr." - the song that appears in both is "Steamboat Bill."

You're right that I read it wrong; I'm still not sure if it's correct though.

edit: Having watched them both, they both of course are steamboat themed. Early on, Bill Jr is referred to once as "Willie", and Bill Jr appears to be a musician while Willie is almost entirely musical (using animals as instruments). Those do feel like references. The contents mostly feel unrelated though.

No one seems to mention that Walt didn't really animate, nor create Mickey Mouse.

Walts friend of the time: Ub Iwerk did. Credit for Disney early successes should really go to him.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ub_Iwerks

It’s right there in the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Credits did go to him. The film was produced by Walt Disney Studios.

Both the Steamboat Bill[1] and the Steamboat Willie[2] wikipedia pages state that this was about parodying the title. Note that there was also a 1910 song "Steamboat Bill"[3].

The film inspired the title of Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), which was released six months later and is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse.

The title of the film may be a parody of the Buster Keaton film Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928), itself a reference to the song by Collins.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Bill,_Jr.

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Willie

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Bill

From a moral philosophy perspective, corporations like Google display a concerning ethical imbalance when they fail to proactively uphold the common good in scenarios where there's no direct financial benefit. A question to HN, since there are a ton of Googlers on here, what are the justifications of those who work within such organizations, particularly when there are other companies that seem to manage a better balance between profit and public responsibility? Is it really just about money, status and working on "cool tech"? I see a lot of submissions about FAANG companies "doing wrong" on here but I rarely see a discussion about us software developers being active participants in this sort of behavior.

Google has two options here:

1) Accept all take down notices at face value and let the courts handle disputes

2) Become a mediator and open themselves up for liability

It's no surprise Google chooses option 1 given the scale they must operate at. It's a consequence of the legal system which makes Google liable for not taking action immediately on valid claims, but also making it such validity not determined until after claims have been reviewed by the courts.

This is a false dichotomy that lets Google off the hook for irresponsibility and amorality.

If Google’s management is not responsible for Google’s pathological behavior, then nobody is.

Who's going to take them to court for being too strict? That's the issue.

Also, I'll admit it feels strange to monetized what is now public domain works to begin with. That's the least of the issues here but still one to consider with such works going forth.

No, this is a result of how the DMCA is written. If a content distributor is notified of infringing content, they must take immediate action or else face penalties. The problem is, there's no definitely way for a content distributor to know if content is truly infringing until a court has made it's decision.

This puts content distributors in a precarious position. The only way to ensure liability is minimized is to to assume any complaint is valid and take immediate then arbitrate on the back-end.

Exactly. It's not like it would be that difficult to provide a single shred of support for users that isn't hidden at the center of a labyrinth that most people cannot find their way through, but excusing that by saying the larger labyrinth is even more difficult overlooks the fact that labyrinths are inherently designed to contain evil and we shouldn't ever have to navigate them.

Labyrinths are designed to trap monsters. The only reason to put humans into them is to feed those monsters.

And a consequence of their choice to operate at a certain scale.

Exactly this. Nobody is holding a gun to their heads and demanding they operate at an untenable scale. Unbridled capitalism forces that.

To be fair to Google even if Youtube shrunk overnight to Vimeo size they would still likely follow the same policy, due to how the law is written.

In fact that might be Vimeo's current policy too, though I'm not sure on their end.

Your supposition that they fail to uphold the common good is unsubstantiated (and arguably must be, because it is arguably wrong.).

And arguably a corporation can neither be moral nor immoral, as only its individual stakeholders are moral actors.

A corporation is a collection of people. If these people are doing immoral actions, so is the corporation. Everything that happens by human action is moral or immoral.

How do you suppose one should aggregate the contributions from all the different stakeholders?

I don’t think you can.

It seems you might be arguing a that it's untenable to account for individual actions. While a precise measurement is certainly infeasible, there are numerous philosophical frameworks that look to aggregate morality on a scale that can be compared, e.g. Utilitarianism and Consequentialism.

As far as I am aware many people have tried to prove so under those 'philosophical frameworks', but they've never succeeded so far.

If you know of one, can you link a proof?

Are other companies really any better? Where can you work that is definitively "morally pure" and have such reliable income and comfortable lifestyle? (Or even in the same ballpark?)

It's pretty much the same question as asking why everyone doesn't go work for non profits or NGOs. Or move away from the US and stop supporting bad US government behavior with our taxes...

Or move away from the US and stop supporting bad US government behavior with our taxes...

Why would you need to move away? There's a grand tradition in some communities (Quakers, for example) of paying taxes _except_ for the portion (based on national budget) that would be going to support the military. Sure there may be "consequences", but would they not be worth it?

Or move away from the US and stop supporting bad US government behavior with our taxes...

As long as you're a US citizen or green card holder, moving away from the US won't stop the US from taxing all of the money you make anywhere in the world. Giving up citizenship for tax reasons is also illegal and can get you a lifetime ban on re-entering the US.

Edit: with the very important caveat of Puerto Rico. I'm not a lawyer or accountant, but my understanding is that residents of Puerto Rico don't have to pay federal income tax.

I'll give Microsoft props for open-sourcing a lot of their proprietary products (e.g. DOS, major components of Windows 3.11, etc) - though it's a shame that a lot of their stuff can't be re-released because it includes source licensed from other companies (e.g. Internet Explorer)..

Don't forget id Software too (granted, they open-source their game engines, while their game content remains paywalled - but it's the spirit that counts)

there are other companies that seem to manage a better balance between profit and public responsibility

How's the comp and WLB? Can you list these companies?

Indeed has been very good on all counts.

It's about the money.

I have a pet peeve when people use the phrase "begging the question" when they really mean "raising the question". Begging the question is kind of technical and it's sometimes hard to think of examples. You have provided one here.

I see a lot of submissions about FAANG companies "doing wrong" on here but I rarely see a discussion about us software developers being active participants in this sort of behavior.

That's because i) there are better venues for that sort of discussions than the HN, ii) there is no reason that everyone (or even a fraction of them) should talk actively about their employer, and iii) that line of thought can be recursively applied to any other group, giving rise to common behaviors described in i) and ii).

There is a direct financial benefit. Their pseudo-DMCA automated takedown process, biased toward big media interests, has protected them from massive lawsuits.

It's a mix of what you just said, and many more.

But besides that, I work there because I actually believe that the company still does a lot of good. And from what I can tell, most people around me do too.

Any for profit company does not act with 100% pure morale moves. Some do less some do more good, where do you draw the line? Google does a lot of good too, educating, bringing Internet to people who never had it before, being a diverse employer etc.

So because they have some morally questionable choices every developer should quit? There is no black and white.

For me, it boils down to the question of participation in a flawed but powerful system in a hope of leading to better outcomes, or its avoidance in the hope of its downfall. This is the same line of reasoning you can apply to political elections in almost any country.

I have no illusion of being irreplacable, or of the FAANG companies going down. Even if my departure would create a ripple, hiring is not, and will not ever be a problem. There is an endless supply of purely financially motivated and reasonably talented people. To leave would be to let a worse person fill my seat. Conversly, I get to work with a lot of honest people towards better things, in the scope we have control over. You can't fix everything, but often you can really make a difference on what's right in front of you.

Bluntly, no one gives a flying fig about moral philosophy or upholding what internet denizens think is "proactively upholding the common good" for much, much less money than what Google pays, even when said denizens happen to be right. Almost no one walks away from Omelas.

Once you reach FAANG levels of compensation, lulling oneself into complacency by internalizing marketing like "don't be evil" or "our products are loved by billions of customers" becomes even easier.

A positive take on this is that this is a clear pass/fail unit test on YouTube's copyright system.

It’s only a valid positive take if it were in any way novel. But there are already loads of such cases. The Content ID system is just broken by design, and they’ve clearly demonstrated no interest in fixing it. The system is designed for abuse.

Most notably here, even a successful dispute on the grounds of the work being in the public domain doesn’t stop the claimer from claiming new videos that match, which it very obviously should.

My experience on public domain English hymns: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27004892.

I wouldn't say it's broken by design - it's just a matter of incentives that heavily favor taking content down over allowing it to stay.

- If Youtube issues a copyright strike that wasn't warranted, a single creator will be pissed of. And apart from Mr. Beast and a handful of others, youtube's relies on large numbers of small creators, so is quite resilient on that front. Apart from that - where are these creators going to go instead? There is no video platform, long form or otherwise, that even remotely offers the level of revenue sharing that Youtube offers.

- If Youtube, on the other hand, allows copy right infringing content to stay up , they risk multi million lawsuits by companies that make a living of selling and defending their rights, such as major labels or publishers.

So, it's sort of a no-brainer for Youtube. If there's any non-zero chance of copyright infringement - take it down.

Youtube has to follow the DMCA, yes. And much of the problem is the fault of the law, not of Youtube.

But nothing in law requires them to implement Content ID at all, let alone to allow big corporations to claim any content they want, or for users who dispute Content ID claims to have their claims adjudicated by the corporation who made the claim, or to allow those corporations to retain their access to the system after repeatedly making wrong claims.

But there's the law and then there's a company's ability to make another's life miserable by way of lawsuit. So even if you're right, getting sued by Disney, Warner Brothers, Universal and every other player in the media world on a regular basis will cost you a staggering amount of time and money and will generate a lot of bad press. Just taking content down on the other hand costs you very little.

And since copyright and fair use law is very much decided on a case-by-case basis, there wouldn't be the one big victory which ensures they're being left alone - just an endless string of costly litigation.

Youtube isn't a public interest group or a civil rights movement that's in it for a legal or ideological goal. They're a business looking to make money. I know it sucks for the creators, but I think that's what it comes down to.

On what grounds would they file suit? If YouTube complies with the DMCA §512 requirements, it’s a safe harbour, granted immunity from copyright liability.

Even if the takedown process is followed, the DMCA §512 safe harbor doesn't apply if the service provider has "actual knowledge" of specific infringing content. Content ID was (probably) first developed in response to lawsuit by Viacom on those grounds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._Y....), although it's not clear if their arguments would have ultimately been successful.

Thanks for this valuable information! Didn’t know about that suit.

Hmm. I can see a sort of a connection there. I wish there was some way for the Little Man (collectively) to object to Content ID’s undue process. DMCA takedowns say that in the case of a counternotice, platform must reinstate the content “within 10–14 business days” unless the copyright owner files suit. Content ID, on the other hand, gives no recourse—all you can do is file a dispute which is adjudicated exclusively by the claimer, who by your action initiating a dispute is granted power to Strike you with fire and brimstone (where the third strike will probably cause the termination of your Google account).

The criticisms against Content ID aren't that it can't predict fair use judgements. The worst instances of copyright abuse involve people claiming copyright that they don't own. Either against the original source material in or against works in the public domain.

By following the DMCA, and adhering to the rules, Google would be protected. Instead Google has implemented a system that is even more broken to than the DMCA and somehow has even fewer consequences to incorrect or bad faith claims.

Being a "business looking to make money" is not a moral or ethical justification for any kind of bad behavior.

The DMCA states that YouTube must respond immediately to claims. They have no option but to take action. This puts them in a precarious situation. They can either a) initially assume all claims are valid and handle arbitration while the video is unavailable or b) attempt to become experts at evaluating claims from the onset and open themselves up for liability. Given that the law is NEVER black and white, it's no surprise they chose option 1.

Design is driven by incentives.

Content ID’s problem is that it’s unbalanced: the power to terminate your Google account (not just your YouTube channel!) is given to any unscrupulous actor. (I dunno, maybe they have some checks in place, but I’ve heard enough of nobodies managing completely fraudulent claims that I’m confident that if they intend such checks, they’re fallible.)

There’s already a system in place for removing infringing content: DMCA takedown notices.

The only argument in favour of what Google has implemented is that it’s more gradual, allowing things like claimers to get ad money out of it instead of the poster, should claimers choose to. But you know what? They could have applied that extra logic to their DMCA process (and leave it all manual! That’s all the law requires!) or applied DMCA’s counternotice technique¹ to Content ID (still favouring claimers, but not so unfairly).

And so I maintain: Content ID is broken by design, being designed for abuse.

—⁂—

¹ Roughly, and from memory (exact numbers may not be correct): notice means take the content down and notify the user it was taken down; they can then file a counternotice, which will be passed to the taker-down, who then have two weeks to file suit in a court and notify the service provider to keep the thing down, or else after that two week period the provider must reinstate the content. Note that even a fraudulent notice will still result in the content being removed for two weeks.

This isn't really an issue with YouTube's copyright system but in copyright laws.

No, there's a problem with both. This was a Content ID complaint, not a DMCA takedown.

Why is the content id system there? Oh right to make sure they don't get sued to shit.

Content ID is not required for YouTube to be protected by Safe Harbor.

So you think they built it for the sake of it? No. They literally built it because of all the legal shit they were dealing with. They were literally getting sued and this was their response. Copyright laws requires you put in reasonable efforts and if you're making billions and have thousands of engineers reasonable is not the same as what is reasonable for a company with 40 engineers.

I always find it gobsmacking that people seem so unaware of why YouTube's copyright system exists in the way it exists. Especially in communities like this where everyone is really full of themselves thinking this is an intellectual space yet here we are. Thinking ContentID wasn't created to sheild YouTube from legal claims.

I always find it gobsmacking that people seem so unaware of why YouTube's copyright system exists in the way it exists. Especially in communities like this where everyone is really full of themselves thinking this is an intellectual space yet here we are.

Gobsmacked that people don't take Eric Schmidt's justifications as face value? Can I be flabbergasted that you don't even try engage critically with statements from a man who is already known to engage in illegal conspiracy with other companies to make more money?

So Google is spending millions on a program that makes them no money and in fact probably costs them and is hated by users and creators a like because of a former CEO? I think you need to wake up and smell the coffee. A company like Google does things because it either makes them money or it saves them money. It's not rocket science. But sure, the boys club is so strong the folks at Google are willing to take home less money to protect a former CEO. Have a word with yourself.

Are you replying to another comment? I didn't say any of the things you are arguing against. If not, please reread my comment and respond to things I'm actually claiming rather than whatever weird stuff you are projecting.

YouTube could choose to continue to honour Disney's copyright forever. Yet another reason to get away from centralised platforms.

YouTube could have been good. It could have spurred a copyright revolution. But instead it just bowed down to the copyright industry so that a few execs could be in the top 1% of humanity during their short existence.

But instead it just bowed down to the copyright industry

you mean youtube tried to obey the law?

You cannot just unilaterally decide not to obey copyright laws.

It could have spurred a copyright revolution.

I am not in favour of vigilantism - the right way to change the law is to participate in the public civil procedures. For example, if enough people joined the Pirate Party (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Pirate_Party), such laws could be changed.

It's just that most people dont give a shit about copyright, and this is the democratic outcome.

you mean youtube tried to obey the law?

To be clear, YouTube's goal is not to obey the law, but to minimize their loss. This is why they entirely disregard key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke.

Their implementation harms creators and redirects their earnings to companies that were never legally, contractually or morally entitled to it.

the right way to change the law is to participate in the public civil procedures.

Unless there is going to be fines for not allowing copyright unencumbered content to be displayed and monetized, no change of law is going to help here. Copyright law is twisted because of companies like Disney, but the underlying problem is that YouTube will only ever care about avoiding expensive litigation.

[YouTube] entirely disregard[s] key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke.

I make my living from YouTube, and I am very familiar with their policies surrounding copyright. I think your characterization of YouTube in relation to copyright is totally off base.

YouTube is covered by the DMCA, and YouTube responds to DMCA takedowns because if they don’t, they could be liable for contributory copyright infringement.

The DMCA provides safe harbor to online service providers (OSPs) who follow its notice-and-takedown procedures. Those procedures don’t allow OSPs to make subjective decisions about whether fair use might apply in relation to a copyright claim.

Nevertheless, YouTube sometimes does exactly that. YouTube responds to some DMCA takedowns by, instead of promptly taking the video down, requesting additional information from the claimant in support of their claim. As I understand the DMCA, that is YouTube going well-beyond their legal obligations - to their potential (albeit unlikely) detriment.

So that’s the DMCA takedown process.

Now let’s talk about Content ID.

When a creator receives a Content ID claim, that’s the beginning of a process, not the end. Content ID claims can be disputed, and during the dispute, all revenue from the video is held in escrow, eventually going to whomever prevails in the dispute.

The first level of the dispute process is essentially the uploader asking the claimant to reconsider, with the option to provide a brief explanation of why the uploader believes the claim is invalid.

If the dispute is rejected, that’s still not the end of the story. The uploader can press the dispute further. Doing so forces the claimant to either abandon their claim, or ‘upgrade’ it to a formal DMCA takedown. If a takedown is issued and the uploader believes their work is not infringing, they can respond with a counter-notification, which forces the claimant to either (a) sue the uploader within ten days, or (b) lose the dispute. In the latter case, the video goes back up and any escrow revenue - along with all future revenue - goes to the uploader instead of the copyright claimant.

I am making two main points here:

(1) I believe that YouTube does try to comply with the law. Whether they do so out of civic duty or “to avoid expensive litigation” is irrelevant.

(2) Although the DMCA’s safe harbor provisions don’t allow OSPs to make subjective evaluations regarding fair use (while retaining their safe harbor), YouTube often does exactly that, when they feel it may be relevant.

In fairness, I think part of that is because of they were emboldened by the recent-ish decision in Business Casual v. YouTube, but whatever the reason, it happens. And YouTube was doing that long before the decision in Business Casual. (Which held, in part, that YouTube can’t be liable for infringing the copyright of any content that is uploaded on YouTube, since their TOS include a provision that essentially grants YouTube a license to do whatever they want with the work. Crazy stuff.)

There is more to copyright on YouTube, and I like to think that I am very familiar with how it all works. If you think I’m wrong about anything I wrote above, I am interested in hearing why. Similarly, if you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them.

Your positive opinion on their copyright stance does not seem to align with other YouTube creators - in particular, their complaints about aggressive automatic content ID application, that successful appeal often lead to the video being up but with redirected monitization to the claimant, the poor appeal process for the blind legal requests made using it, and the associated "copyright strike" system where third parties can basically terminate your source of income as a result of a few blind, incorrect takedown requests.

Perhaps your type of content is less likely to get incorrect matches, or does not use fair-use or expired works often, or maybe you have access to better YouTube representatives than the average (semi-succesful or better) YouTuber.

I appreciate your reply. A few things:

1. Controversy sells. Content that riles people up attracts views. I have firsthand personal knowledge of a famous YouTuber, on one occasion, complaining publicly - to enormous audience response - about a Content ID claim that I know - with certainty - had already been resolved in his favor. I know that because I helped him through the process.

2. A successful appeal can never lead to the video being up, but with revenue redirected to the claimant. That is not possible.

3. The copyright strike system exists because of an act of Congress, not because of YouTube. The DMCA only shields online service providers from liability if they implement policies for terminating users who are “repeat infringers.” That’s the reason for the existence of “copyright strikes” and YouTube’s three strikes policy.

I am not saying that I love Content ID or that it doesn’t have problems - even abuses. It does. But it’s also wildly misunderstood, and its faults are often overstated, even made up.

You do realize “copyright law” and “DMCA” are distinct concepts, right? Related for sure, but also very distinct.

YouTube themselves built Content ID for companies to allow registering their "works" to aid them in automatically detecting copyright infringements. If YouTube's content ID entries doesn't include their creation date, which is one of the most basic pieces of metadata you could attach to a work, which not only is required information to determine when the copyright is valid, but would also make automatic copyright expiration trivial to implement and avoid sending false infringement notices to copyright holders, then it's fair to call YouTube Content ID a joke.

This is why they entirely disregard key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke.

This isn't a key aspect of the law and you misunderstand it.

Fair use is a defence, not a right. Nobody is obligated to facilitate it for you and never has been.

A "defense" is a right that a litigator attempted to violate. That is what all legal defenses are: proof that you are in your right.

Legal defenses are however entirely useless against private companies with arbitrary terms of service.

No, it literally isn't.

They are two separate and unrelated legal concepts. I'm sorry but you are literally wrong.

A "right" is something a state body (and usually third parties) must actively facilitate. I am required to get a fair trial, and if that needs the stare to wait to try me or build more courthouses they must proactively do that.

A defense is not. A defense is literally just "we will not find you guilty or liable in court due to this." But nobody is required to go out of the way to help you achieve it. You just can't be sued or suffer a criminal penalty for it.

YouTube goes beyond what the law requires. If YouTube followed the law, they'd accept a DMCA notice from a purported copyright holder and take a video down, then accept a counter-notice from the video poster and put the video back up, without question, and then the recourse the purported copyright holder has at that point if they still think the video is infringing is to sue the video poster and not YouTube. And if they don't sue, the video stays up.

What YouTube does instead, which is absolutely unacceptable and far beyond what the law requires, is put the purported copyright holder in charge of judging the video poster's appeal, and naturally they tend to say "no". No counter-notice mechanism, video doesn't go back up.

Your description of how Content ID works on YouTube is wrong.

The first level of the dispute process is essentially the uploader asking the claimant to reconsider, with the option to provide a brief explanation of why the uploader believes the claim is invalid.

His description is not wrong. You are conflating the two things.

In the Content ID system, as he said, the claimant is the only arbiter of the claim, and the appeal.

If it's not resolved, by the claimant, then it exits the Content ID system and then, and only then, can be handled by the DMCA process.

Isn’t that I what I wrote?

Yes, the claimant is the only arbiter of the Content ID appeal, but if the uploader wants to take things further, they can force the matter from a Content ID claim to a DMCA takedown, which can ultimately be decided by a court - if a takedown is filed, a counter-notification is filed, and the rightsholder decides to sue.

It is not permanently in the hands of the claimant. If the uploader believes they are not infringing with enough conviction that they are willing to potentially be sued over it, they can turn a Content ID claim into a legal matter. And if the rightsholder backs down, the uploader wins.

The person I was responding to claimed that YouTube doesn’t follow the law because they don’t follow the DMCA process in relation to Content ID.

This is what they wrote:

What YouTube does instead, which is absolutely unacceptable and far beyond what the law requires, is put the purported copyright holder in charge of judging the video poster's appeal, and naturally they tend to say "no". No counter-notice mechanism, video doesn't go back up.

While that is, of course, technically true, in reality it’s not, since nearly [0] all Content ID claims can be turned into DMCA takedowns if the uploader is dissatisfied with the result of their Content ID appeal. And when that happens, there is the counter-notice mechanism that the parent comment claimed does not exist.

[0] A very small minority of takedowns can’t be appealed due to YouTube’s contractual obligations with some major studios. I don’t know for sure, but I believe those contracts are intended to make it so people can’t upload copies, let’s say, of obviously infringing feature films, and then force Sony Pictures to go through the DMCA takedown process with what may be an eleven year old kid in Vietnam, who would be all-but-impossible to sue.

A very small minority of takedowns can’t be appealed due to YouTube’s contractual obligations with some major studios.

I think you may be underestimating the number of takedowns that are impossible to appeal.

Also:

I don’t know for sure, but I believe those contracts are intended to make it so people can’t upload copies, let’s say, of obviously infringing feature films, and then force Sony Pictures to go through the DMCA takedown process with what may be an eleven year old kid in Vietnam, who would be all-but-impossible to sue.

That description seems slanted to the most favorable possible case for Sony and YouTube, there. A very common case is "used two seconds of footage for fair use commentary on it", or "used no footage at all, and the claim is a mistake", and those claims can't be appealed either.

I think you may be underestimating the number of takedowns that are impossible to appeal.

Maybe. I have never received one, nor do I know anyone who has.

I am also very careful about what I upload. I have paid a lot of money in fees to license content when it’s been necessary, and otherwise I would rather not take chances.

Despite that, on one memorable occasion I had to fight it out with Sony Music. That dispute almost went to court, and I had a university’s First Amendment legal clinic defending my side. Fortunately, Sony Music backed down. That wasn’t fun, though.

That description seems slanted to the most favorable possible case for Sony and YouTube, there. A very common case is "used two seconds of footage for fair use commentary on it", or "used no footage at all, and the claim is a mistake", and those claims can't be appealed either.

You might be right, though I was trying to describe the reason I think those contracts exist. I wasn’t saying anything definite, nor was I saying they are a good thing, though I probably implied it.

I do have personal experience having my company’s content infringed by a YouTube channel run by someone in Vietnam, and who filed a counter-notification in response to a takedown notice, despite their infringement being blatant. Suing someone overseas is ridiculously expensive, and they were probably judgment-proof anyway. It sucked.

Regarding your other point, I don’t think it’s possible to have Content ID automatically match audio that is less than ten seconds long. It used to be, but it’s not anymore.

If the dispute is rejected, that’s still not the end of the story. The uploader can press the dispute further. Doing so forces the claimant to either abandon their claim, or ‘upgrade’ it to a formal DMCA takedown. If a takedown is issued and the uploader believes their work is not infringing, they can respond with a counter-notification, which forces the claimant to either (a) sue the uploader within ten days, or (b) lose the dispute. In the latter case, the video goes back up and any escrow revenue - along with all future revenue - goes to the uploader instead of the copyright claimant.

Many video creators have reported not being given that option, and having the claimant's rejection being treated as the end of the process with no further recourse. If YouTube reliably always gave the option to switch to the DMCA process, to everyone, that would be less of a problem.

In hbomberguy’s recent video about plagiarism, he points out that one of the dumb side effects of YouTube’s content ID policy is that claiming is so common and usually bad that people assume actual serious infringements are benign.

"Oops, just a bug" only goes so far. What's interesting about content ID is that only a select group of large copyright holders have access to protecting their works through it, and we have a growing number of cases where it makes "decisions" that are not in line with copyright law.

So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law?

Inquiring minds in the federal government might want to know.

>So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law?

It's neither of those. Content ID is an automated detection system that Google/Youtube voluntarily put in place to help make peace with big copyright holders like Viacom to stop the lawsuits: https://archive.is/Awz5k

Basically Youtube created a win-win deal: when our content scanner finds a pirated upload matching with your content, you can choose to share in the monetization revenue we get from ads or you can remove it.

In contrast, the DMCA copyright strike takedown mechanism is the more heavy-handed attempt at "copyright enforcement".

EDIT add to reply: >So to be more direct: Google is exhibiting non-transparent, cartel-like behavior

I can't speak to any invisible back room behavior but as one datapoint... you can be a small independent musician on a small distributor like CDBaby or DistroKid and partipate in Content ID. Example: https://support.distrokid.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013534874...

The initial motivation for Content ID fingerprinting was placating the big players like Viacom but it has since been opened up to others.

win-win deal

Yeah I'm sure it's been a win for all of us (not)

That sounds exactly like cartel behavior. It does something to maximize the profits of a small number of Google's business partners (who in return scratch Google's back in other ways), and it claims to be a copyright enforcement mechanism, but it isn't.

Mind you when we say "it" colloquially we're all talking about content ID, but legally what we're really talking about is how Google, the firm, is making decisions.

So to be more direct: Google is exhibiting non-transparent, cartel-like behavior in selecting which of its partners to pay and which not to. It misrepresents this as copyright enforcement.

A major problem with this is that those matching uploads are not necessarily pirated uploads, but the whole system is biased to think they are.

NASA has gotten claims from news organizations who copied NASA's footage of rocket launches. Those NASA videos were not pirated (and neither where the news organization videos, but that's not the point).

Piano teachers who play public domain classic works have gotten claims from publishers like Sony.

The system is heavily biased towards he big copyright holders and against other publishers, largely regardless of the actual merits of the case.

As a sibling comment says, it's at best a win-win-loose situation.

As for the DMCA: that system, and how YouTube handles it, has severe shortcomings of its own. It's very well possible that ContentID is better than the DMCA, but that's a very small hurdle to clear.

That's a win-win-loose, as there are 3 parties involved here.

In this case Disney does not hold the copyright and yet YouTube and Disney are acting like a cartel to demonetize competitors.

So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law?

Yes. In this case this is certainly because this footage is in Disney's YouTube CMS and set to be auto-claimed. The fact that we are at the whim of an admin doing the right thing and removing that content from their CMS or at the very least changing the policy attached to it is problematic at best.

Intent is significant, it can determine outcomes in court rulings. So here we have this content ID system which Google claims exists to help some Google partners manage their copyright claims. One would think that would mean it helps them determine which claims are valid and which aren't. But it didn't appear to help Disney with that in this case, rather it enabled Disney to swiftly make an invalid claim after the film entered the public domain.

So Google's tool in this case didn't help their partner manage valid copyright claims. Its just helped Disney suppress some other publisher.

We've known for many years that Steamboat Willie would become public domain in 2024. If you were really trying to help your partners manage copyright claims wouldn't you build some notion of this into the system?

Whereas if you were trying to kowtow to larger publishers in exchange for favors - maybe you would leave details like public domain out of your implementation.

So what was Google's intent here? Of course they will have arguments like "it was a bug" or "that would be too hard," but finding out if those things are true is what you do discovery for.

As far as I know, Content ID has no information about public domain content, nor does it understand fair use in any way other than by allowed match percentages that you configure (as a content owner). Content owners are under agreement to only claim content that they have the rights to. If you abuse the privilege Google gives you, which is an approval system, ostensibly Google would remove your access to use the system. (Basically no chance that would happen to Disney)

You are totally right that it should do these things, but I contend that an extralegal process that grants more rights to content owners (especially big ones) at the expense of fair use shouldn't be improved to the level of acceptability, I think it shouldn't be allowed.

So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law?

Kinda both, IMO.

So, talking to defence lawyers about copyright cases, even if you settle before going to court, is extremely expensive, and even if you're a well-earning software developer you really don't want to pay even the counterparty legal costs that would precede a court case (and those can count as "actual damages" from an act of copyright infringement). The copyright holder may only get part of even just those legal costs back, so they don't really want to do that either.

For both rights holders and infringers, a thing like ContentID is actually pretty good. Likewise even mere suspected (but actually innocent) infringers, as things can be taken down without having to face a huge legal bill even if you're innocent.

But the downside is the cost savings is in the form of automation, and as there is no algorithm for the truth (and only just starting to be one for "common sense") this automation can be systematically abused by people who are not rights holders. (This isn't the cartel-like behaviour, this is just straight up old fashioned fraud).

Cartels are associations of suppliers who conspire to restrict competition and inflate prices. I think copyright does this all by itself[0], but the extra part of what you wrote was "replacing" copyright law, and… kinda? To the extent that ToS are contracts, and contracts bind parties to do more than the law alone, but can't do illegal things?

But the usual implication is that a cartel is doing forbidden things, even though that's not strictly true and they can sometimes be legally required[1], and that would be something I couldn't prove — but I don't see any particular reason why the big players in video IP would even be interested in doing that given they've already got copyright law. The closest I know of is things where a studio is inspired by a YouTuber, makes a big thing, and then someone sends a take-down request to the original[2], which seems familiar from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide[3]

[0] compulsory cartels include those forced by law[1], and there are copyright holders who lobby for the laws, in some places I'm told it's not possible to voluntarily renounce copyright (though that may have been a game of telephone involving a misunderstanding of a court ruling), and that this was behind the discussion of why there are equivalent licenses that aren't strictly "public domain": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-domain-equivalent_licen...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_cartel

[2] Pixels movie and it's antecedent, and I vaguely remember Tom Scott saying something similar as an example of the one time he used a small claims court?

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9789445-the-simplistic-styl...

I vaguely remember Tom Scott saying something similar as an example of the one time he used a small claims court?

Tom Scott said two things about himself in YouTube's copyright system isn't broken. The world's is. [0]

1. "A TV channel from Thailand took one of my videos, played it out without permission in one of their big television shows, and then put that entire television show into Content ID. I got a Content ID hit on my original video from them, and that took a long time to sort out."

2. "The UK has [...] the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court [1][...] and that court has a small claims track. If you're an individual photographer or video maker, you can [...] issue a claim as a "litigant in person", which is the fancy British term for "without a lawyer". I've done it, because a major company ripped off one of my videos. [...] And there I was, walking in, no lawyer, thinking I had a case, thinking I had a grip on reality. Statistically, the odds weren't in my favour, but I filed successfully. And the company settled with me, they paid me to drop the claim, because they were in the wrong, and they knew they were in the wrong, and they knew I could actually get it to a judge in exchange for a bit of work and a court fee of just over £100."

He did not say these two incidents were related.

He did not say he used a court to resolve a Content ID claim.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Property_Enterpri...

He did not say these two incidents were related.

Thank you, I had indeed blurred both of those two together in my head.

He did not say he used a court to resolve a Content ID claim.

I didn't intend to imply that he had, I intended to imply that it had been used falsely against him, in much the same way you kindly elaborated.

Accurate, but not precise.

I'd imagine they were focused on catching as many violations as possible, at the cost of catching false positives into net.

If someone scans a recent DVD release of SW, is it still public domain?

Or must you have access to an original film reel from the early 1900 and scan that? Do anyone have besides in some Disney archive?

Has issues like that ever been clarified?

If you consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality the answer seems to be "it depends"

For example, in the US there have been cases where high quality reproductions of old public domain paintings did not meet the threshold of originality to qualify for copyright. Remastered audio recordings with adjustments such as equalisation and sound editing were ruled to be eligible for copyright in 2016, then the ruling was overturned in 2018.

On the other hand, under German law digitised versions of public domain paintings are entitled to new 'Leistungsschutzrecht' copyrights, reflecting the effort and expertise necessary to create the reproductions.

There was actually a dispute between Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons and the British National Gallery over this - the UK working similar to Germany

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_and_...

Actually the UK works like the USA, there was a recent court case on this that made it very clear. Photographs of public domain works, of any quality, are public domain as well unless they contain some original expression of their own (say, if you're taking a selfie in front of a famous picture, you probably have copyright over it - but not if a museum takes a high-res, excellent lighting photo to reproduce the painting itself).

There are some more details on the UK system and its historical changes at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow#New_(Europea...

UK law is very clear in the sense that in 2023, an appeals court judgement explicitly stated that in the UK, no new copyright is created in making a photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional public domain artwork.

UK law is not very clear, in the sense that it took an appeals court judge to reach that determination, and it only happened in 2023 :)

And presumably if people like Disney were so inclined they could make sure every new DVD release had slight adjustments to colour grading, a remastered audio track, and things like that, muddying the water by introducing more elements of human creativity.

Actually, according to Wikipedia, starting in 2021, even Germany requires human creativity for a work to be protected by copyright. They explicitly say in the law that simple reproduction of public domain works is not protected.

In the UK, it was recently ruled that copyright could only apply to things not designed solely to replicate the original artefact. The context was museums licensing photographs of artefacts while keeping the originals locked away.

From what I understand it's not been tested significantly in the US yet, though I could be wrong.

There's a similar case in the US - Bridgeman vs Corel - that influenced the UK one. I don't think it forms a universal rule in the US, unlike the more recent UK ruling, but it is influential.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reuse_of_PD-Art...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeman_Art_Library_v._Cor....

Although it’s somewhat different IANAL but Feist probably at least peripherally applies in that “sweat of the brow” doesn’t give you copyright. So with respect to the photographs, just because you spent days setting everything up to get the perfect reproduction, you probably still can’t get copyright on it.

I'm guessing that Brock Baker didn't digitise a 1928 reel of film himself.

If the digitisation was done recently and a lot of work went into cleaning up the images (restoring old movies is time consuming and costly - including artists touching up/recreating/fixing frames) couldn't Disney (or who ever has done it) claim that the new restored digitised version is now copyright?

It seems to depend on the exact jurisdiction, but in the US and UK, it seems that this type of work is not protected, as it doesn't constitute human expression, it is only a matter of skill and technique.

Now of course anyone can claim anything in court, and you have to decide whether you think you can beat Disney's lawyers if you decide to do so...

Recent Hacker News discussion on this:

Court of Appeal ruling will prevent UK museums from charging reproduction fees

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38817128

It's like trying to copyright pictures of artwork from a museum - I don't think changing the media matters - taking a picture isn't significant authorship of a painting. Similarly whether on DVD or film reel, there isn't a significant authorship change in posting the same clip from a DVD.

This article is misleading, since it omits very important information. See the screenshot provided by the YouTuber regarding the Content ID claim? Look at the far right of the screenshot. There’s a “Select Action” link.

I make my living from YouTube, and I am going to explain what’s behind that link.

The first level of the dispute process is essentially the uploader asking the claimant to reconsider, with the option to provide a brief explanation of why the uploader believes the claim is invalid. There’s even a radio button to select if you believe the material is in the public domain.

If the initial dispute is rejected, that’s not the end of the story. The uploader can press the dispute further. Doing so forces the claimant to either abandon their claim, or ‘upgrade’ it to a formal DMCA takedown.

If a takedown is issued and the uploader believes their work is not infringing, they can respond with a counter-notification, which forces the claimant to either (a) sue the uploader within ten days, or (b) lose the dispute. In the latter case, the video goes back up and any escrow revenue - along with all future revenue - goes to the uploader instead of the copyright claimant.

Behind the “Select Action” link is the option to initiate the dispute process I just described. Which the uploader almost-certainly already did.

Also behind that link, IIRC, is the option to contact the claimant via email. That can be an equally-effective path toward resolution, as it provides the opportunity for a more casual, professional dialog, outside of YouTube’s formal process. In fact, on one occasion I developed a positive and ongoing business relationship with another media outlet after being contacted by them regarding a claim that I had made in error.

When Content ID first rolled out in 2007, it could be easily abused. And it was. But that was almost 17 years ago, and the way it works today is - dare I say - pretty good. Like any enormous system it has its problems, but on the whole it’s pretty fair.

Edit:

There is one other option behind the “Select Action” link. It’s irrelevant in this case, but I might as well include it here for completeness.

If the claim involves only a portion of the video, or the audio in the video, the uploader is given options to (1) excise the claimed section of their video, (2) silence the audio in the claimed section, or (3) replace the claimed audio with music from YouTube’s (huge) library of free music.

If the uploader chooses any one of those options, it immediately resolves the claim in their favor, since the claimed material is no longer present in their upload.

I've worked in digital rights management for YouTube media, and (dare I say) it is far from being pretty good. Claimers can basically deny revenue to uploaded videos for months at a time while the dispute process is occuring. This period is a killzone as many content creators often rely on both the timing and month-to-month revenue to pay bills (content creation doesn't pay well to begin with).

The end effect is that claimers bully the industry far beyond what the legal rights that they hold.

This is a powerful indictment and should not be missed.

I recently read an article about how video games shops don't need to worry about any kind of copying. The reason is that most video games make the lion share of their money in the first few months, and then it tapers off significantly. So, you can copy ideas, styles, and whatever, but it won't dampen opportunities for the original work to make money, so don't worry about it. This is good for the industry and for the creative world and for commons.

If a claimer can halt revenue for the first few months on any creative work, they can kill any opportunities to be made off public domain works. This a second order effect of the public domain laws.

There should be an amendment where a claimer should have to pay damages to the creators if they abuse this. I would love for Disney to pay when they file a claim in bad faith.

If a claimer can halt revenue for the first few months on any creative work, they can kill any opportunities to be made off public domain works. This a second order effect of the public domain laws.

Your premise is incorrect, which makes the conclusions invalid. The revenue is not lost during a monetization dispute, it's held in escrow. I.e. even if it were true that the vast majority of revenue of a YT video is generated in the first few months of it existing, the revenue generated by a video that gets a content id match is the same as one that doesn't.

That's a really good clarification, thank you. I didn't know this!

But, isn't it a fact that the monetization would be limited because the viewing is limited? I can't believe that YouTube would leave the video accessible after a claimant tried to take it down.

100% this

Your observation that the process can be excessively drawn-out is accurate. I think should be changed.

I disagree, however, with your conclusion that the drawn-out process is a financial “killzone” for creators. I talk regularly with other successful YouTubers, and I don’t know anyone for whom the majority of their revenue comes from sporadically-released new content. Yes, it sucks if revenue from a new release is held up in Content ID escrow, but for me and for the other YouTubers I know well, that wouldn’t wreck our overall earnings during the escrow period.

If someone is reliant on month-to-month revenue from single-release videos to pay their bills, that sounds more like a personal financial planning issue than a problem caused by Content ID.

Would you talk a bit more about “claimers bully the industry far beyond the scope of legally binding terms”? I don’t know what you are referring to, and I’d like to hear more.

I also make my living from Youtube and I would strongly disagree that it is fair.

On the absolute most simple basis, false claims can be damaging to the creator but the same false claims are completely risk free to the issuers.

The problem shown in the OP is an additional layer of complexity where another company is contacting the creator on behalf of Disney which muddies the waters on who exactly is filing the claim and whether they have the right to.

The only thing in the Content ID system that is built in favor of the creator is if the claim issuer doesn't progress the counter claim and it is automatically dismissed.

This doesn't even get into the likely diminished recommendations the video will get after being flagged, the time wasted by the creator to manual fight things that can be spammed with the API (0), and the unfair revenue splits that can result if the creator did make an honest mistake.

(0) https://developers.google.com/youtube/partner/identify_conte...

I also make my living from Youtube and I would strongly disagree that it is fair

The only thing in the Content ID system that is built in favor of the creator is if the claim issuer doesn't progress the counter claim and it is automatically dismissed.

Fairness doesn’t mean that the system should be stacked in favor of anyone who uploads a video. I get that copyright is a controversial subject, but both Content ID and the DMCA have mechanisms that are intended to balance the rights of copyright holders against the rights of people who create content using others’ works.

This doesn't even get into the likely diminished recommendations the video will get after being flagged

My personal experience is that Content ID claims have no impact on video performance. Do you have any evidence that a claim negatively impacts search and discovery?

the unfair revenue splits that can result if the creator did make an honest mistake

If the result of unintentional copyright infringement is a revenue split, that sounds to me like a very pro-creator outcome. They could take the video down. Or even sue you.

Fairness doesn’t mean that the system should be stacked in favor of anyone who uploads a video.

Agreed, however if a creator repeatedly violates copyright and gets the three Copyright strikes (which I recognize are distinct while will related to claims) it is deleted. For the the issuer though. there is no penalty for invalid copyright removal requests. This is the type of unfairness that is an issue. Additionally, the claim issuer needs zero proof they even have the right to file a claim. The DMCA is mostly unfair to the companies that host the content forcing them act against the uploader and have zero ability to push back against bad faith actors. So the system Google has implemented can only legally pass the problem onto the content creators.

Do you have any evidence that a claim negatively impacts search and discovery?

No. Can anyone truly have a confident stance that X == Y when it comes to how Youtube presents videos to potential viewers through its black box "algorithm"? I've seen plenty of inexplicable things happen with video recommendations as both a creator and viewer that both make me question what can/can't influence and never make an absolute statement about it, hence the "likely".

that sounds to me like a very pro-creator outcome

You glanced over the unfair part there. Having 10s of music audio in a 10m video because you walked past a restaurant while filming a conversation can cause drastically disproportionate amounts of revenue to go to the claimant. This part is Google's fault and is an overreaction erring on the side of caution to appease the claim issuers.

The key bit being that youtube and it's employees never make copyright decisions. They provide the tools, but all actual disputes must be settled between the parties or in court.

Thanks for this. Informative

I assume content id database entries have expiry dates

In most countries works go into public domain XX years after death of author. Predicting date of death is non-trivial problem.

Who is the author of a collaborative work like a film?

According to UK copyright law, in order to know if a film is in the public domain you need to identify the following creators:

(a) the principal director

(b) the author of the screenplay

(d) the composer of music specially created for and used in the film

Copyright in the film expires 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last person listed above dies.

Taken from: https://www.copyrightuser.org/create/public-domain/duration/

Interesting that the actors aren't taken into account, you would think so considering the large impact they have on the final product. Certainly more so than the music director. Maybe that last one is just a result of the powerful music lobby.

I think it would be difficult to truly list all of the actors in a particular film, let alone establish when they all died.

Do extras count? Many of them aren't going to be listed in the credits.

Perhaps you could only count those actors listed in the credits at the end of the film and nobody else?

I think it would be difficult to truly list all of the actors in a particular film, let alone establish when they all died.

Do extras count? Many of them aren't going to be listed in the credits.

The person who is the most successful actor -- if you take the box office of all their appearances and sum them -- is Stan Lee. All those MCU appearances adds up. You probably wouldn't be too surprised about that if you thought about it.

At position number 3 though is Frank Welker -- the guy who voices Fred in much of the original Scooby-Doo cartoons. More recently he's Nibbler in Futurama. The top 5 have 2 other voice actors, including Bob Bergan -- who played Merv in Monsters University, and unforgettably Ant Worker #2 in Antz

When you are credited as "Additional Voices", does it really apply?

Incidently, Stan Lee may be top of the charts in total, but Warwick Davis is a bigger hit on average -- bringing $633m per film he's in compared to Lee's $612m.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_actor...

Third hard problem in computing after the infamous "naming things", "cache invalidation" and "off by 1 errors".

I mean, dying is kinda nature invalidating cache...

You key is evicted buddy, now go back to the big blob of matter.

If you have XX years, you can update the expiration date when the author dies. If the author is still alive, expiration is safely decades in the future.

Of course, the real problem is that the system is not seriously designed with the idea that false positives are a problem.

Most systems (involving computers and otherwise) are not designed with death in mind, even though death comes for all.

I would know because I'm on the tail end of cleaning up affairs from a recent family death.

you assume wrong.

Maybe because in some countries (like Germany) it is not yet in public domain.

In Germany there is no public domain, so it never will be.

It will be "gemeinfrei", which is a different thing, somewhen after 2036. Probably even only after 2058, because one of the composers of the music lived till 1988.

EDIT: German Wikipedia says 2042.

What are the practical differences between US public domain and German gemeinfrei?

The main difference is that in Germany it is not possible to give up moral rights and therefore you cannot truly dedicate something to the public. Some rights always stay with the creator in contrast to public domain, which gives away all rights.

None, apart from the fact you cannot gegemeinfreien your work voluntarily.

YouTube forces everyone, independent of local laws, to work under the US's fair use laws, they could at least be consistent and not care if some country has other laws on copyright.

Which is what they do mostly. If Germany was the problem, they'd make the upload inaccessible in Germany and leave it untouched for everyone else. Content-ID marking it globally is clearly an issue on YouTube's end

YouTube forces everyone, independent of local laws, to work under the US's fair use laws

No they don't. You must work under the fair use laws of every territory the content is available in.

The US has a significantly wider fair use law than almost any other country on Earth.

If Germany was the problem, they'd make the upload inaccessible in Germany and leave it untouched for everyone else.

They do - it is extremely common for items to be blocked to Japan especially, as Japan has very tight fair use provisions in particular.

"Play stupid games... win stupid prizes."

Isn't a remastered version a separate work under the copyright semblance rules?

i.e. each digitally remastered re-release essentially extends that versions protection another 85 years. =)

Isn't a remastered version a separate work under the copyright semblance rules?

No.

A 2018 9th Circuit decision held that remasters are not eligible for copyright protection because they lack originality. The case was ABS Entertainment Inc. v. CBS Corporation.

"Burninating the countryside, Burninating the peasants, Burninating all the peoples" (Trogdor)

From one monster to another, cheers =)

Haha! Thanks, man!

Back in high school, I bought their CD. [0] I wish I still had that thing. The packaging was hilarious.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_Bad_Sings_(and_Other_...

I'm in high school now and I bought their sbemail DVD boxset

it became public domain in the US. Disney still holds copyright elsewhere and Youtube must adhere to all national copyright laws in countries which have access to youtube

Pretty sure YouTube/Google have a notion of region and can selectively enforce copyright if they choose to.

Yup, correct. And interestingly the article says it was in fact blocked from view in some territories.

Which makes me think that the copyright claim is not actually about the video content but likely audio.

So perhaps they have blocked in territories where the video is not yet public domain and there’s a copyright claim in the territory (USA) where some other copyright controlled element is causing an issue.

Not only this, but the musical works contained within the video may not be public domain. I can’t tell whether he has replaced all of the audio or dubbed his version on top of existing music.

I don't understand what youtube is gaining from this, there are so many stories like that.

Is that because they partner with big movie/music industries?

Also I don't understand why competitors are not really picking up.

Social media sites have so many users/viewings that fixed costs for serving all their content don't really matter to them, but since ads don't pay much per viewing, they have to cut the marginal costs of hosting and serving content to the bone to stay profitable.

For every million pieces of user-generated content hosted, they get a certain number of copyright complaints, so handling those complaints is a marginal cost. Since the kind of uploaded content YouTube target is particularly prone to being a significant violation of copyright (e.g. entire films), handling the complaints cheaply is a particularly big concern for them. Handling them effectively and with common sense would require human processing of each complaint, but the effect of that on marginal costs wouldn't fit with the business model, so they go with a low-marginal cost, error-prone system instead.

Since the consequences for the business of wrongly failing to take down copyrighted content can be very bad, but the consequences for the business of wrongly taking down uncopyrighted content are negligible, if the system must be error prone, they want their users to be on the wrong side of any errors, not the complainants.

Any American rival to YouTube would have the same problem and would resolve it a similar way.

I don't understand what youtube is gaining from this, there are so many stories like that.

As others have noted, the Content ID system is in place to show that YouTube is proactively trying to do something about piracy - this makes the movie studios and record labels less likely to sue Google.

Also I don't understand why competitors are not really picking up.

Video hosting and streaming on the scale of YouTube is expensive and probably can't be profitable.

YouTube allows anyone to upload an unlimited amount of 4K video, make it available to everyone in the world - all free of charge. Advertising revenue won't cover everything, and of course, quite a few people are blocking ads.

Services like Vimeo compete to some extent, but they acknowledge the expenses involved, so only cater for niche market segments. Things like PeerTube offer an alternative model, using peer to peer bandwidth to keep the costs down - but the federated nature of it makes it less likely to catch on in the mainstream like YouTube has.

Their main reason is to not get sued to hell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._Y....

Also I don't understand why competitors are not really picking up.

Video is expensive. But competitors do pick up, just in different ways. TikTok and Twitch are strong competition, but they have a focus on different style of experience.

the article didn't seem to have it (?) so here's the video in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMYJxCj6pmI

It got caught right after they uploaded it. Basically content ID hasn't been updated yet. I would contest it.

Everyone and their grandmother knows that the video is public domain now. How is it possible that Disney and Youtube don't? How are people so incompetent calling the shots?

Wire fraud?

A one-off mistake or a sign of copyright battles to come over Mickey Mouse?

Or a stunt by a clever youtuber to make himself some free attention?

Nothing says that YouTube (Google or Alphabet) cares a little too much about automated processes and not enough about making sense of what’s happening than they not have pro-actively removed that IP from their content recognition system—having implemented a way to do that systematically, even.

This is the canonical piece of culture whose entry into the public domain was expected and celebrated. It’s the touchstone of copyright extension.

If you work at YouTube, please get a couple of intelligent people to parse WikiData to flag those, ask rights-holders if they still want to extend strikes, and avoid getting egg on your face in straightforward cases.

Disney also claimed copyright to my upload of Steamboat Willie to Facebook on January 1st. They have 1 week to review my dispute.