HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> the starving artist

The "starving" or small time artist is an excuse that is useful for corporations when they want to manipulate public opinion. No music label cares even the slightest bit about individual artists or their fair payment, they care about megahits and big sellers.

If you want to support your favourite artist that isn't already a millionaire or multi-millionare paying for spotify isn't it.

To actually support "starving artists" visit their shows, buy some merch (however even this isn't the case anymore for some) or look for independent artists on bandcamp (bandcamp takes 15% of a sold album).

If all you do is pay for spotify or something like that you are not supporting a "starving artist" any more than someone downloading the songs, maybe even less because sharing the music on the right filesharing forums might at least lead to some of the sales (merch/concert) above.

For anyone interested have a look at https://informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-ar...

To add to that: Big labels hurt small time artists immensely. If you are an artist on youtube getting hit with a (false) copyright claim by a large label is a constant threat to you. It even happens to people with songs with millions of views [1]. We have reached a point where using certain chords or chord progression can get you stomped by music labels.

Music labels are not in any way friends or allys to "starving artists", only to millionaire artists.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw

⬐ justinclift

Bandcamp seems to be a reasonable way for supporting artists, at least by the er... end users of the music.

eg: https://gunshipmusic.bandcamp.com

⬐ erwincoumans

Yes, and with Bandcamp you can leave a message to the artist when you make a payment. It feels rewarding to sometimes even recieve a personalized thank-you messages from the artist.

⬐ mmis1000

Probably merch is most effective these days? You can download a mp3, but you are never able to download a T-shirt.

But at same time, merch have higher entry gate. You are unlikely to buy a merch created for someone you don't really know. (Unless it is just good enough that you are willing to just use it like a general T-shirt...etc)

⬐ robtherobber

Performing has always (and should always, if you ask me) be the main avenue to make money for musicians. Music can be copied, can be covered, can be mixed etc. Chords can be guessed, copied and stolen.

But the musician herself is irreplaceable. If you want to make money by making music, be sure to develop a relationship with your audience rather than police it in order to ensure you're getting paid.

⬐ ksaj

This video is two years old. The person has posted more of their songs in the meantime, so I'm guessing it was resolved.

Rick Beato and Adam Neely are two other content creators who have had issues with this in more recent times, and there are probably many more out there.

> here artists get denied ownership of their own expression of public domain music

Hell why stop there, music artists get their own original music stolen by Youtube who then proceeds to hand it to someone else, for anyone interested in a popular example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw

This is the worst part of this whole copyright mess, defenders of youtube constantly preach the "They have to do this", "they are forced to do this" etc. defense.

However the way Youtube handles dmca and copyright claims means that if you are a smaller musician, a big corporation can just steal your music and profit off it. Good luck if you don't live in the US and don't have the money to take back what is yours. From that point you can basically just hope that you make the news so that a human at Google looks into the mess they created for once.

Just leaving a reminder of how infuriation Youtube copyright handling can become even for larger channels: Back in 2018 TheFatRat got his music claimed by some randoms and Youtube just gave it to them on a silver platter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw . TheFatRat was a popular youtuber even back then, and even for him the process was hard. Now imagine how that situation would have played out for the average musician.

When people talk about "protecting the musicians" they typically only mean the richest musicians, the top few % and the largest record labels. No one cares about regular musicians.

The same logic also means that dmca claims can be easily weaponized by any entity as long as they choose their targets strategically (or own enough money to tank the situation in which a target fights back, but even then that can create more damage for the target).

https://youtu.be/z4AeoAWGJBw

You need not use somebody other's work at all to get into trouble. Composing your own song, producing it and publishing it via YT is enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw (2018, now resolved)

⬐ Andre607

YouTube's approach to takedowns is, simply put, appalling. I'm not just referring to the automated Content ID system, which has a vast catalog of false identification, but am talking about the manual, human confirmation of takedowns.

My 'favourite' (in the sense of most egregious) example of what I am talking about is the case where YouTube's Content ID flagged the sound of birds in someone's garden as being copyright infringing [1]. So far, par the course for a mistaken automatic identification. But the outrage comes after that: the copyright claimant (the notorious Rumblefish) reviewed the claim and confirmed that it was valid! In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted. Actions like this are indefensible and highlight the outrageous monstrosity of YouTube's takedown system - -beyond Kafkaesque in its total disenfranchisement of users.

[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120227/00152917884/guy-g...

⬐ kkarakk

> In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted.

i think it is likely that this human is just someone employed from mechanical turk who gets paid on the basis of how many videos they process in an hour and not actually an employee of rumblefish

⬐ Andre607

In this case the CEO of Rumblefish, Paul Anthony, confirmed that it was in fact one of their employees [1]:

> They still work at RF, feel absolutely terrible about what happened and are taking a whole new approach to claim/dispute reviews. A mistake like this in the hands of the right employee is a game changer and brings about significant improvement. In the hands of a less-competent employee...they fold and get worse and that isn't acceptable for me. I hope and trust that it's the former. I believe that although it was a terrible oversight, that it was an honest mistake by this individual.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_r...

Note that since that particular incident, Rumblefish has had continued incidents of blatantly erroneous coypright claims - like claiming ownership of a US Navy rendition of "America the Beautiful" (which is public domain) and proceeded to monetize it! [2]

[2] https://boingboing.net/2015/07/03/july-4-rumblefish-claims-t...

Rumblefish of course describes these incidents as "honest mistakes", which completely ignores the inconvenience they cause people and the fact that they have to make noise via social media or tech news outlets for them to take action - the real concern is how often this happens that we don't hear about.

⬐ sireat

Similarly, a friend of mine recorded waves crashing at a sea and it got flagged by Content ID.

Some music video (by Sony subsidiary) contained a small sample of waves crashing from a completely different sea.

I told him to appeal and appeal he did and yes the claim was upheld.

I told him to fight on because this first level upheld is what throws people off and what the Content ID abusers are hoping for.

On the 2nd appeal they have to have someone with legal authority to really pursue the claim.

That is no "real" human will look at the case on its merits until 2nd instance.

⬐ Andre607

Wow! How did this story end?

⬐ org3432

I filed a likeness claim where Youtube created a profile with a picture of me somehow and there was no way to delete it. The takedown request was rejected because they said the video was invalid, despite it not being a video and it being explained that it was a profile and Youtube itself had taken property that wasn't theirs. Eventually I found some email address I could file a complaint against with a picture of my DL and they took it down.

It seems like companies have their 99% cases that their systems are optimized for, but within the remaining 1% where they themselves are causing the problem or have a bug etc. the humans they hire can't understand simple things if they deviate an iota from what they're used to.

⬐ jchw

I absolutely love the level-headedness and honesty of this person. If I were in his shoes, I can only imagine how furious I would be at YouTube.

I hope this system can be fixed... At least, we need a more balanced playing field. Making it so easy and yet having practically no consequences to abuse the system is absurd. But, what can really be done? This is the system that various industries have been pushing super hard to get. I think DMCA also doesn't do nearly enough to dissuade abuse. Can we try to fix DMCA, too? Where do we begin?

⬐ dylan604

It's great that YT did the right thing by giving him ownership back on their platform. The next thing would be to give him any money earned during the time it was wrongfully taken away and in dispute. That should not be dependent on having the asshats paying it back first. YT messed up, so they need to make it right all the way.

⬐ larkeith

Where did you find that YouTube has returned ownership to him? As far as I've been able to find with a quick search, the false claimant continues to receive monetization from the video.

⬐ efrafa

Read the first comment under the video.

⬐ sniuff

The comment on the video by the author of the video

> UPDATE: It's official! I got my video back and Ramjets channel was deleted for false copyright claim. Huge thanks to everybody who helped. Every share, like comment, everybody who spread the word about what happened. You made the difference. Now let's make sure we protect EVERY content creator from false claims. Please sign the petition, we can make a difference.

⬐ larkeith

Thank you - that's excellent to hear!

⬐ alecco

> Please sign the petition

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/YouTube_fix_...

⬐ colejohnson66

Not trying to be cynical, but do petitions really do anything?

⬐ skilled

https://www.change.org/p/mike-morhaime-legacy-server-among-w...

There's also a story behind how the signatures were delivered. [1] However, I'm not sure that this video explains the 'psychology' behind it.

In a wow-related podcast a few months back [sorry no link], Mark said that he wanted to deliver all the signatures in physical form on paper since that's a tactic that Blizzard itself had employed when selling their game packages back in the day. In a nutshell, the weight of something makes it feel more valuable. And in the case of 260,000 signatures, it doesn't just sound big in your head, but actually has a substantial weight in physical form.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS4g2rkZwLI

⬐ IAmGraydon

YT was forced to do so by his legal team. In no way did they do the right thing.

⬐ cc81

No way, this blew up and has been one of the biggest stories about youtube lately. There is no way this would end in any other way and I doubt legal needed to be involved more than how can they be safe from the false claim guys.

⬐ Kaveren

Moderation is really the ultimate scalability problem. I have some level of sympathy for the predicament YouTube is in, but I really hope the system can be redesigned.

I've never seen (keyword: seen) a press release or article about how an individual / group of DMCA abusers of this sort was arrested. Why can't this be taken more seriously as a form of fraud, and why can't these people be gone after? Sure, you can obfuscate your real IP when making a takedown request, but they have to receive the money somewhere.

⬐ whoisjuan

I would have sympathy if they weren't so damn incompetent. You can clearly see how they fail to make a simple rational check in this guy's issue and objectively realize that it's a fraudulent claim. They only care when the issues go public and viral, and the outburst is too large to ignore.

This is a disaster for any small creator that uses YouTube. A platform that controls the majority of the internet video distribution is incapable of reacting reasonably to a copyright claim issue until its large enough to actually threaten the solidity of that distribution.

⬐ dylan604

The easiest thing to do would require the claimant and defendant to produce proof of ownership. In this case, it really seems like the claimant's case would have been over as soon as the defendant produced his proof.

If there is conflicting claims of ownership that seems valid from both sides, then send to a 3rd party to decide. Whether that is arbitration or courts. Why should YouTube be responsible at all? During the term of dispute, the ability to earn money is suspended. If the defendant wins, then the claimant should be required to reimburse lost earnings. At this point, YT would have acted in a reasonable manner such that they should not have any liability in it.

How naive am I being for making it seem like a really simple thing to handle?

⬐ manigandham

What would be proof of ownership exactly?

⬐ None

None

⬐ singularity2001

Sounds reasonable.

⬐ icebraining

Proof of ownership seems complicated to produce if you're a regular person uploading your own videos. What would you produce?

⬐ mkl

Raw takes including stuff that was edited out of the uploaded video seem like a simple way for many types of video.

I think the real problem is that evaluating such proof would need to be done by a human, and YouTube want a completely automated system.

⬐ DenisM

Register a hash of the (video + your name) on blockchain, that's the proof that you had it first.

Just needs a nice UI, and, well, Google giving a damn about it.

⬐ pilif

How would that work with some third party uploading (and registering on the blockchain) something to youtube they ripped off another place?

⬐ DenisM

Well, you just do it first? If you made the video, then you should register the hash before uploading it anywhere at all.

⬐ jnbiche

There are plenty of timestamping services out there, both blockchain-based and otherwise. If a video creator timestamps their video as soon as they create, and before they upload it, it could prove definitively these kinds of fraudulent claims.

Also, these services are usually reasonably priced, and sometimes even free, so it would be reasonable to use even if you're making several videos a day.

⬐ jackvalentine

> If a video creator timestamps their video as soon as they create, and before they upload it, it could prove definitively these kinds of fraudulent claims.

The immediate issue I see here is timestamping other people’s videos who produced them in the past, or for a different service, or just plain old didn’t know they needed to timestamp their video to protect it.

⬐ jnbiche

If you're goal is only to prove that you invented something before some random patent troll did, then that issue doesn't matter so much.

At the least, it's very, very strong evidence for a trial. Along with also emailing your lawyer or notary public a copy of the timestamp as soon as you create it, these factors would be virtually unassailable in a court of law.

⬐ jackvalentine

What’s stopping me timestamping a tonne of other people’s content before they do, and then claiming that they stole it from me?

Then we’re literally back where we started - proving ownership by other means.

⬐ sheeshkebab

It’s unfortunate but that’s the reality of centralized content and product platforms (YouTube, Amazon, AppStore etc) - they are often used to squiz out competition using bogus claims, as much as allow for distribution channels.

Better strategy is to continue supporting open web and host content or products you care about on your own.

⬐ bryanrasmussen

Just asking, but didn't the company falsely accusing him of copyright infringement slander him? The damage can be shown in the money he lost out on, but I mean I guess his reputation is also damaged with Google by the accusation. It was definitely a realistic accusation that someone might believe as Google evidently believed it.

⬐ londons_explore

Doesn't slander only apply to public statements, rather than something privately told to another company?

⬐ icebraining

It depends on the jurisdiction, but I believe in many countries and US states there is no such restriction, it just has to be false and harm the reputation.

⬐ darkpuma

> "Just asking, but didn't the company falsely accusing him of copyright infringement slander him?"

Probably, but who is he supposed to sue over it? It's far from clear who the 'company' is. He could sue John Doe and then get youtube to reveal what they know, but he may very likely discover that the 'company' is just some guy with hardly any assets in a country that doesn't give a shit about him or his plight.

⬐ thirdsun

I guess the right thing for Youtube to do is to simply suspend any payouts, but continue monetization until the dispute is resolved. Once that happens the rightful owner of the content should receive any pending payouts.

⬐ bryanrasmussen

Maybe, but I guess the guy has some assets now.

I mean if it is a guy with hardly any assets in a country that doesn't give a shit I don't think that suit will drag on that long and probably wouldn't be too expensive to litigate. It's only if the guy has assets in a country that does give a shit that will want to fight, and if that's the case they're probably screwed.

⬐ fouc

Does anyone think ramjets is going around doing this with multiple videos and making thousands of dollars as a result?

Could be the new scam. I bet people out there are going to be doing this to make tons of money until youtube smartens up.

⬐ astonex

This is already happening a lot. So far Youtube hasnt changed anything

⬐ olliej

Seems like you should be able to leverage standard copyright law - per-violation 10-100k seems like the industry demanded fine...

⬐ aw3c2

I am pretty sure that those are not actual copyright claims in a DMCA sense. Sadly Youtube is using some internal system with these claims. I assume they were pressured into this by the music industry for ease of squeezing money out of it.

⬐ tinus_hn

Actually the DMCA requires large players to create some kind of automated system to prevent infringement.

⬐ colejohnson66

Thus subverting the penalty of perjury of the DMCA

⬐ tinus_hn

YouTube has the automated service. The rights holders are not filing claims. There is no perjury.

It’s all about balance. What’s the point of having a takedown procedure if uploading a thousand copies is easier than taking down one?

⬐ larkeith

Does YouTube have the necessary information to prosecute false claimants? They certainly are unwilling to pass such info on to content creators; I'm unsure what, if any, verification of identity is required to submit a claim.

⬐ Meph504

I'm pretty sure that as part of the uploading process you agree to use YouTube process of arbitration in these matters, so the courts would likely tell you this a civil matter to be handled by YouTube.

With that said, nothing was stolen, a claim for the monetization reimbursement was made to YouTube, who is the sole source in deciding who the compensation goes to, decided to send that compensation to the party that made the claim.

Making a claim against an existing video is actually probably a lot safer than re-uploading and attempting to monetize.

From that perspective, what would be the grounds for a lawsuit?

⬐ olliej

Why would it be YouTube’s job? Someone has claimed ownership and is now making profit on it - that (to me a non lawyer expect same behavior from the legal system ;) ) seems like it would be a standard copyright violation :D

⬐ None

None

⬐ jtbayly

If YouTube is unwilling to pass along the information, as the parent says, then who are you going to file suit against? You’ll have to sue an unknown person and get a court order to get YouTube to turn over the person’s name. That’s an expensive start to aprocess with an unknown end. Isn’t it even possible the person isn’t in the US? Then you’ve thrown away your money.

⬐ greenyoda

Even if the defendant is in the U.S., they may have no significant income or assets from which you could recover damages or legal fees.

⬐ coding123

A lot of people have personal liability umbrella policies... However probably not the kinds of people that would do this.

Why have we made it so easy for crime in this country.

⬐ CPLX

It’s really not that hard to do. People do sometimes overestimate how hard it is to do basic legal tasks.

Filing a simple John Doe summons in your home jurisdiction and then sending a subpoena to YouTube for the offending contact information is pretty trivial. You could probably find someone to do it for you for a thousand bucks or less.

Admittedly that’s not free but in a context like this with real money at stake it’s not a huge obstacle.

⬐ Andre607

And what do you do when you go through all of that time and effort (and potential expense) and get the very likely outcome that the claimant is not in your home jurisdiction?

⬐ CPLX

Jurisdiction isn’t simply determined by where the opponent is. There’s nuance to this but you can typically sue and gain jurisdiction in any venue that has a nexus to the business activity in question. Given that YouTube is global there’s probably a lot of places you could find a valid venue. California almost certainly being one of them.

You might have trouble getting the opponent to cooperate but if your ultimate goal is to get YouTube to do something then that could work just fine.

Again, clearly legal action isn’t easy but people seem too inclined to throw up their hands instantly.

Learning how to take basic legal action is just a core part of running a business, and someone earning from YouTube at this level is indeed doing just that.

⬐ Andre607

I'm not sure why you're singling out California, is that where the claimant is in this case? Or are you referring to YouTube?

My (and the GPs) question was: let's say, following the filing of the requisite legal documents and the accompanying fees if any, you receive the contact information of the claimant from YouTube. You are in Germany. The claimant's address is in Turkmenistan. What are you meant to do next?

⬐ None

None

⬐ nicoburns

A court could presumably subpeona that information?

⬐ IshKebab

Yeah after you pay for a lawyer to set all that up for you.

⬐ darkpuma

Lawyers and lawmakers (who are very often also the former) in their infinite wisdom have created a system in which they always win, even when the people the system ostensibly exists to serve do not.

⬐ icebraining

As a developer, I also get paid even if the project gets written off later. Doesn't seem that unusual.

⬐ darkpuma

The difference being the software industry contains less compulsion. Nobody is compelled to interact with you or your peers. The very nature of the law renders all analogies you can think of inherently flawed. The closest analogy you could make would be to doctors in the hypothetical scenario where other people are allowed to hire doctors to injure you, requiring you to in turn hire your own doctor. Which is absurd but the reality of our legal system.

⬐ singularity2001

Or youtube just add a clause that whoever lays claims to DMCA content has to agree to share their verified real name and phone number.

⬐ kazinator

If it doesn't have the necessary information to prosecute false claimants (i.e. their exact identity) then why does it hand over ownership of a video to these same claimants at the drop of a hat?

⬐ jayd16

So what's stopping this guy from making a new account and claiming the video back? Should creators claim their own videos so they can't be claimed by others?

⬐ kkarakk

i think that's grounds for an instant strike against your new channel.since you only get 3 strikes before you're kaput it's not worth it

⬐ brailsafe

I had actually listened to this song recently on his channel. Hot tip: It's fun, check it out.

⬐ None

None

⬐ trumped

You could shorten #FixYoutubeCopyright to #FixCopyright... because it is probably the source of the problem....

⬐ CrowFly

We're talking about a specific problem with YouTube here. If you want to start your own initiative to get laws changed, go right ahead, but that's not what this video is about.

⬐ duskwuff

Nah. This situation is specific to Youtube -- copyright law doesn't deal in terms of monetization.

⬐ trumped

"yah." lookup dmca takedowns... they probaby just don't want to have to deal with the consequences of that.

⬐ nixarian

"If you blame the people doing it, you're a LOSER" Okay, buddy.

⬐ heyjudy

Fucking Youtube. Total bullshit.

⬐ dang

Can you please not break the site guidelines, even if YouTube did something bad? It doesn't help, and only makes this place worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ topynate

I do admire just how perverse YouTube's solution for copyright law is. If they were accepting DMCA notices, they'd have the obligation to take note of counter-notices. If they were giving control of claimed videos to the claimants, then if someone filed a false claim against you, taking control of your video, you could then file a DMCA notice against the claimaint. But YouTube does neither of these things. Instead, they leave the video in your ostensible control, and just decide to give advertising revenue to someone who isn't you – which, as far as I can tell, doesn't mean that either YouTube or the claimant is technically infringing your copyright. It's brilliant bastardy.

⬐ infinitesoup

But YouTube does accept DMCA claims, of course, as it's required by law. Their Content ID system provides an automated way to detect potential infringement by large copyright holders and redirect ad revenue to them, but if uploaders dispute the claim and appeal decision to uphold the claim, then the copyright holder is required to send a full DMCA claim to take down the video, and the uploader can respond with a counter notice to put the video back up. Of course, the copyright holder can choose to jump ahead to filing a DMCA notice at any point, bypassing some or all of the Content ID process. I'm guessing that most wouldn't do that, though, because the DMCA process is not automated, has strict timelines built in, and only allows for takedown (whereas Content ID allows for videos to stay up but make ad revenue for them). Without Content ID system, I'm guessing we'd be back in the days where the big copyright holders would just spam DMCA notices and end up with a lot more videos taken down.

(Disclaimer: I used to work in the media business so I'm familiar with the process).

⬐ 0xcde4c3db

> YouTube does accept DMCA claims, of course, as it's required by law.

As far as I know, it's not required. Rather, if a provider doesn't do it, they can be found liable for contributory infringement when a user posts infringing content.

⬐ infinitesoup

Yes, sorry, you're right -- they do it to keep the safe harbor protection (which is the only sane option when running a video sharing website).

⬐ jjoonathan

> if uploaders dispute the claim and appeal decision to uphold the claim, then the copyright holder is required to send a full DMCA

I have heard that the dispute process uses dark patterns to punish uploaders for actually using it -- e.g. you must select between reasons for your dispute, none of which is "the claimed material isn't actually present."

Is this true?

⬐ infinitesoup

Looking at copyright claims I have on my channel (these are valid music claims, for what it's worth), I see a dispute option labeled "The video is my original content and I own all of the rights to it", which I think covers the case you're describing.

⬐ slavik81

That's not quite the same thing. For example, a work may be public domain, in which case it is not your original content, but nobody else owns the rights to it either.

⬐ jjoonathan

Yes, and if there is official lawyerly language about certifying the truth of your choices, the distinction is important. Sounds like a dark pattern.

⬐ infinitesoup

There's a different option for if the video is public domain or otherwise not copyrightable to handle this case. I assume that that "lawyerly language" is to dissuade users from abusing the process and choosing an option when it's not really true.

⬐ rasz

Why would the care tho? Its between YT uploader and alleged IP owner.

⬐ jjoonathan

Nearly every video is going to be an amalgamation of original content, licensed work, and public domain work, yet the listed alternatives you've presented both clearly apply to entire videos, forcing the content creator to lie if they want to go forward with a dispute.

It seems quite bonkers that you disagree with the "disputes are discouraged by forced lying" narrative yet keep posting evidence to support it.

Ah well. It's not my fight. I should be grateful for that.

⬐ annadane

Thanks for actually explaining this. The defenders of Youtube - I'm convinced a few on r/youtube are shills at this point - will say this is all necessary due to copyright law, Viacom lawsuit, etc etc. One day it will emerge the Google leadership is as crooked as it comes.

⬐ walterbell

They would now clarify that as YouTube leadership within the Alphabet holding company, at least until they may be separated by antitrust policy or otherwise.

⬐ j-c-hewitt

You can file a counterclaim, though.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en

If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.

He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever. When dealing with these kinds of issues you have to realize that it's not personal. It is like getting mad at a voice chat app for misunderstanding you. There is nothing personal about it.

There are a few things that could help to improve this process: force people making claims to verify their identity positively (he does bring this up in his video), improve the technology at the Copyright office to provide both platform owners and copyright owners some method to generate keys that verify that claims are accurate and authorized, and for more people who are victims of false claims to sue the people who are making them.

I think ideally copyright owners would have to go to Copyright.gov, enter the registration number(s) that they own that they want to enforce using the account that made the registration, generate a time-limited key using the system, and then enter that key into their copyright complaint on the platform that they want to police their IP on. When GooFaceZon processes the complaint, they would check with the copyright.gov server to verify that an authorized copyright owner made that complaint within the timeframe provided by the system. That way even if there is some kind of account compromise at some point the damage can be limited.

I don't actually know if that'd be the best system, but something like that would be a great improvement over the current system of being able to make any kind of fake claim with no verification.

⬐ fenomas

From your link:

> The process may only be pursued in instances where the upload was removed or disabled ... It should not be pursued under any other circumstances.

GP's whole point is that counterclaims don't work here, because the content hasn't been removed, just re-monetized.

⬐ j-c-hewitt

I understand I just thought that he was saying no counterclaims are possible through Youtube's system. In this case it's kind of YT specific because someone else made a false claim to copyright ownership.

⬐ j-c-hewitt

You can file a counterclaim, though.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en

If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.

He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever.

There are a few things that can help to police this process:

⬐ jjoonathan

> after 10 days, Google will reinstate

Wait just a second, isn't the revenue half-life of a youtube video like 2 days or something? 10 days sounds like way, way too long.

⬐ j45

I wonder if DMCAing your own videos is still a viable strategy.

⬐ baylisscg

No but some people, who just want their video to stay up and don't care about the ad revenue, will purposefully add a snippets of content to trigger multiple copyright bots into filing competing claims. When this happens the video stays up until the claims are resolved and since there's no actual people involved and it's covered by fair use anyway they just time out eventually.

[edit: grammar]

⬐ j45

Interesting. If you don't care about ad revenue, there's certain options.

General question: if one did care about ad revenue.. are there some up to date resources to learn what current best practices are?

⬐ a11595

I mean, it's not "your" ad revenue. It's youtube - if someone is looking for revenue they should start a business, or get a job.

Youtube is a private company, they can do whatever they want - even take revenue generated by ads on a video you upload, and give it to someone else, without reason - just because. You don't like it - don't upload your video. They owe you zero - they never signed your contract.

It's brilliant in the way Christianity is brilliant. Stupefying to doorknob-licking level, yet able very well to separate complete retards from their money, but them voluntarily giving it away. When they much later figure out this basic obvious bad deal, they complain of unfairness. Because they're stupid. Just leave them alone and let them be stupid. It's what keeps the lower class down - the lower class itself.

⬐ blihp

It's not, and never was, a solution for copyright law. Remember that the whole content id / revenue redirection scheme was only created so that the major media companies (mainly 'Hollywood') didn't obliterate YouTube with lawsuits. Everything about the system is designed to keep them happy. The majority of other (i.e. small) publishers on YouTube accept it because they can't afford a real legal fight for copyright violations, which at least part of would likely include going after YouTube to even get the information about the other party since YouTube is effectively shielding the identity of the other party. And YouTube remains safe from damages because... safe harbor.

⬐ grecy

> It's not, and never was, a solution for copyright law

Of course you're right. But it's a solution for YouTube because it means they have to do absolutely nothing, and don't get in trouble.

That one is even "better"

How my video with 47 million views was stolen on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4AeoAWGJBw