- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@derp.foo
YouTube demonetizes public domain ‘Steamboat Willie’ video after copyright claim::undefined
YouTube demonetizes public domain ‘Steamboat Willie’ video after copyright claim::undefined
I think YouTube has made people forget how draconian the DMCA is. YouTube made a special deal with the studios where copyright disputes would be handled by takedowns and demonitization instead of lawsuits against individual posters—on any other site, posters could potentially be exposed to damages in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The DMCA is draconian but YouTube’s system is insidious. The DMCA forces YouTube to take down content upon receipt of a valid takedown notice but it also requires it to put the content back up within 10 days of a counter-notice, at which point if the original complaining party wants to do more they can take it to court.
In contrast, YouTube’s content ID and manual copyright claim system can be more lenient in that it’s less likely to wind up in court as the rights holder can simply demonetize the content or divert monetization to them. However it’s open to a lot of fraud, abuse, conflicts of interest, and Kafkaesque appeals systems.
I have a friend who has ~1M subscribers. He specifically licensed music from an artist for his video intro and outro. Now, every few months out of the blue he gets dozens to hundreds of Content ID claims from obscure music rights management companies who have added remixes of that work to their Content ID databases. Monetization is instantly diverted to these companies. He appeals. The money is not held in escrow pending appeal – the company gets to keep it no matter what. So the first couple of appeals get decided by the company claiming the content. Usually about a week or two later he gets actual YT support to help or he causes enough stink on social media that a YT rep will look at it and fix it. But he’s lost thousands of dollars over this shit.
He should make DMCA requests to himself from an outside source so it pre-emptively locks up the request system.
Pretty sure the DMCA claims take the material down and give you a copyright strike. And not everyone has access to the other system that can affect monetization.
The only example I’ve seen of this being possible is making some unique song/sounds and putting them in the video, signing up with one of the rights management companies that does have access, and then claiming your own content. Still not perfect as they take a fee and a cut of “recovery” iirc.
The YouTube deal isn’t “instead” of the DMCA; it’s in addition to it. Copyright holders are free to bypass it if they like, and posters are (at least in theory) able to file a counterclaim against the takedown and force the copyright holder to use the DMCA process instead of letting Youtube have the final say.