18 ms·

“My ten hour white noise video now has five copyright claims”

860 points by ryanlol 9y ago

tripzilch 9y ago
A common misunderstanding: There is no formal/legal claim of infringement being made anywhere in the ContentID process, it's just the automated process YouTube uses to decide whether or not to take down a video. Any formal/legal claims of infringement should be made by the right-holders industry towards YouTube (which YouTube really wants to avoid) not the uploader. The DCMA was made to facilitate this, but for a huge platform such as YouTube it just falls short. Here's the important part, let it sink in very clearly: ContentID is a deal that YouTube made, demanded by the larger players in the right-holders industry that goes (something) like: IF the big right-holders can easily make large amounts of claims, and YouTube provides some sort of ML detecting filter to scan for possible infringements, and when flagged the ContentID process will handle these cases such and such, THEN the big right-holder industry people won't file gigantic claims of infringements and take down requests to YouTube. From the perspective of the little uploader, no courts, claims or legal things are involved. You have no legal relation with the right-holders when YouTube takes down your vid for infringement. You can't sue YouTube for taking down your vid since as a US corporation they have every right to take down any video for whatever reason (and TOS, but mostly because big corporations just get to do whatever). And that reason is mainly: Whatever keeps the big right-holders happy. YouTube is first and foremost interested in keeping the big right-holders happy, and of course keeping their advertisers happy. That's it. They're not interested in being fair or even ethical (as the recent Logan Paul drama has shown us--considering that YouTube's trending videos are hand-picked by humans ...). ContentID is not at ALL about YouTube dealing with copyright infringement in general. If you write, perform and record an original song with your band and upload it, ContentID is not going to protect you. It's just there to help the big players scan for their own stuff and then flag whatever. If they accidentally flag the wrong thing, original content or even the actual original sample (if it's not licensed to the big right-holders) that was used in a newer big right-holder licensed work, then it's going to get removed. A false positive is only a very tiny little "oops" for YouTube, they don't really care. The dispute thingy is just a pacifier. They have literally zero reason to reduce their false positive rate. The software works; the big right holders are happy.
BrandoElFollito 9y ago
I do not really understand what the problem is about (I am not a lawyer) : why not simply respond "sue me" and request 10 M dollars of prejudice for false accusations? The next copyright claim should be more careful, I guess
jftuga 9y ago
Ridiculous
- vkou 9y ago
  All of these claims have been filed under penalty of perjury. There has to be a reason for why not a single copyright troll has been prosecuted for it.
  - paulgb 9y ago
    Unfortunately the only part that has to be under penalty of perjury is a declaration that "the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed." So even if these are bullshit, as long as they are acting behalf of the owner of the work they claim it to infringe, they haven't perjured themselves. And that's for a standard DMCA takedown, which these may not have been. I believe YouTube has their own process separate from the DMCA which may have looser requirements. (They still have to accept standard DMCA takedowns to get the safe harbor protection, but it doesn't mean they can only act on takedowns that are DMCA compliant)
  - colonelxc 9y ago
    They likely weren't. ContentID enforcement doesn't require a DMCA takedown request. It's essentially a pre-get-laywers-involved level of enforcement. That makes YouTube the judge.
  - mikekchar 9y ago
    On my youtube channel I use Kimiko Ishizaka's open source bach recordings (under CC0) as background music. I got copyright claims every single time (from the same trolls -- forget their name). Eventually, when replying I got the idea to say, "You have made a claim on the same recordings for every single one of my videos. You have subsequently relinquished the claim when you discovered that I had a license to use this music. Given that you know that I have a valid license, you seem to be acting in bad faith. Please do not flag my videos again". And, you know what? It seems to have worked. They never flagged me again.
betolink 9y ago
Have you guys listened to Justin Bieber samplings? I bet he is the one claiming copyrights for all that white noise.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
djsumdog 9y ago
The edge case to this classification problem is quite literally noise. If you filter out noise, you're kinda in a pickle ... a Pickle Rick! ... I'll let myself out..
bwang29 9y ago
It would be silly if actual human file these claims so the claims are very likely to be filed by some algorithm, which somehow found matching pattern in the noise. Maybe: 1) Some copyrighted music has a period of noise that closely matched the segment of noise of the video. 2) There is adversarial pattern in the noise in the video that confused the hunting algorithm.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Neural networks are easily fooled: http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling
  - njharman 9y ago
    Almost as easily as humans.
- stordoff 9y ago
  Three of the claims are for other white noise recordings. It's arguably not even an algorithmic mistake, but a result of someone claiming they have rights over a recording of white noise.
  - cpncrunch 9y ago
    There's nothing wrong in theory with someone claiming copyright over white noise. If someone else blatantly copies their white noise, they are perfectly within their rights to file a copyright claim. However in this case it does seem to be youtube's content matching algorithm that is finding the match (as far as I can tell, but it's hard to know for sure). My guess is that their matching algorithm just doesn't work well for white noise.
    - njharman 9y ago
      Copyright, in USA, requires a creative component. Facts, randomness, and other stuff lacking any creative expression is not covered by copyright. The bar is ridiculously low as in you can claim copyright on particular formatting or page layout of say names and phone numbers. I could imagine, it's a stretch, a specific "arrangement" of white noise being copyrightable. But in general it is wrong to think you can copyright white noise.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
MikeBVaughn 9y ago
I'm surprised there isn't a claim from John Cage's estate.
- erric 9y ago
  That would be silence, or, the absence of music; not white noise. Seriously this is insane that there is a claim against this.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - MikeBVaughn 9y ago
    It really depends on where you perform the piece.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    If you amplify almost any recording enough, you can get some form of noise. Any white noise of a sufficient duration is effectively a recording of that one John Cage piece.
    - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
      no, it isn't, because that piece is unconscious- it is meant to be what happens without any intention. A crank up to noise is a definite intention of the performer. In 4'33", the performer does nothing but open the score and the keyboard, mark movements, and bow at the end.
      - stcredzero 9y ago
        If you go through enough generations of analog copies of a recording of that performance, you get 4'33" of noise.
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    no, it would not be silence. I don't mean to be all snooty here-- but since we are talking about it-- it would be whatever sounds occur during that time. He was inspired by those Rauschenberg paintings ( that appear to be blank canvasses, and are but are functioning as shadow catchers- real-time spontaneous art framers, if you will)- same with 4'33". It's about whatever happens in that space in that particular moment. It is a kind of unconscious spontaneous group improv, sort of. Interestingly, improvised solos over tunes aren't copyrightable- bandleaders ripped them off players all the time.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
It would be nice to see a timeseries correlation.
cwkoss 9y ago
1. Assemble a botnet 2. Automatically download and reupload popular videos, with extremely subtle modifications. 3. File automated takedown notices against each copied (popular) video 4. Destroy youtube's ad ecosystem for cheap
- tritium 9y ago
  5. Create an atmosphere of fog in the DMCA dispute system, slowing down operations and reducing the effectiveness of automation efforts
  - QAPereo 9y ago
    6. Package this in such a way that anyone can deploy it, making it eternal and diffuse. Otherwise it’s just going to be one or two people with the feds eating them alive to “make a point” about law and order.
- zitterbewegung 9y ago
  Or, use an adversarial DNN to transform videos into ones that will get copyright claims. Extra points if you figure out to how to have it using reinforcement learning to improve itself.
  - myhf 9y ago
    Demonstrating that the system is broken is not an effective strategy. It is impossible to get someone to understand a fact when their salary depends on not understanding it.
    - Spivak 9y ago
      That's like saying that grocery stores are broken because you can just print out bar codes and use them at the self-checkout. Stores have enough security for their needs and balance it with customer convenience. I don't think even Google would claim that their system is perfect, only that it's currently good enough to stave off ravenous lawyers and keep them from losing safe harbor.
jboggan 9y ago
This video of the ending of Star Wars without John Williams' music got a copyright claim from the rightsholder to Williams' score [edited from original post, not actually claimed by Williams himself]. The little bit of music at the beginning is from Gustav Holst and is public domain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI edit for more context: https://www.wired.com/story/the-star-wars-video-that-baffled-youtubes-copyright-cops/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-star-wars-video-that-baffled...
- jcoffland 9y ago
  John Williams stole (borrowed) a lot of music from Gustav Holst and many others. He's famous for it. Specifically parts of Holst's The Planets. Does this sound familiar?: https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs?t=4m24s https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs?t=4m24s
  - gre 9y ago
    Listen at 1:45, whole piece is amazing though. https://youtu.be/JFIGoB7rK70?t=1m40s https://youtu.be/JFIGoB7rK70?t=1m40s
  - jboggan 9y ago
    Oh of course, Auralnauts replace so many of Williams' works with Holst in their various videos that you hardly even know it. Similarly look at the opening of the 4th movement of Dvorak's 9th (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OBf8f55tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OBf8f55tU) for Jaws' inspiration. Or listen to any of Ralph Vaughan Williams' 9 symphonies and you'll hear John Williams' orchestration and voicing directly.
  - meri_dian 9y ago
    There's a long history - I suppose it's a tradition - of composers leaning on one another for inspiration. Sometimes this takes the form of them outright copying another's melody and elaborating upon it. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms etc. all did this. Put in this context what Williams has done in borrowing from Holst and others isn't scandalous whatsoever and shouldn't be thought of as such.
draw_down 9y ago
Pathetic.
m3kw9 9y ago
Just imagine if they all claim each others videos lol
- krapp 9y ago
  Jim Sterling adds multiple instances of copyright infringing material to some his videos to take advantage of a similar effect[0]. [0]http://www.thejimquisition.com/copyright-deadlock-the-jimquisition/ http://www.thejimquisition.com/copyright-deadlock-the-jimqui...
TipVFL 9y ago
I used a song, with permission from the artist, on a demo reel and got a copyright claim on YouTube. I was surprised to find that the claim was on behalf of a French band who covered the song and added lyrics to it. I tried to dispute the claim, but there was no option or possible way to indicate that their match wasn't correct, you could only dispute whether or not you had a license to the track they matched. In the end I just gave up, and let some French band monetize my video that contained a song written and recorded by my friend's dad. Enjoy the 25 cents you earned!
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  Since there appears to be no consequences to making a false or misleading claim, and although I wouldn't call it a solution, one course of action would be to make a claim against their song. Kick 'em where it hurts.
  - Waterluvian 9y ago
    The cover band's claim that they were acting in good faith would likely hold more water. Not sure if you want to be playing games with the law like that.
    - tripzilch 9y ago
      > Not sure if you want to be playing games with the law like that. There's no law involved here. "Infringement" in this context relates to a term defined in YouTube's TOS with regards to the ContentID take-down service provided to the big right-holders industry. Not the legal sense of "copyright infringement", because nobody is making a copyright infringement claim in this whole story. The entire ContentID take-down service is designed so that YouTube will have to deal with as little copyright infringement claims (from the big right-holder industries) as possible. From the perspective of the uploaders and viewers, ContentID is just this thing that helps YouTube take down videos, which they have the right to do (as per the TOS) "for whatever reason". The dispute procedure is just something to make that easier to swallow, but unsurprisingly it's not at all effective in getting a more just result. That's what you get when you upload your work to a platform like YouTube instead of publishing it yourself. As a small player you can't really get YouTube to sign a contract detailing the license under which you allow them to publish it on their platform.
Keverw 9y ago
I think automatic systems like Content ID should be illegal. Plus I doubt a robot can consider things like fair use. Well maybe they could do some machine learning of past cases where videos were complained about but ended up being fair use... I think a real human should have to spend all day finding content and manually doing the work. Kinda like how some states have banned red light cams. Technology is not perfect. I heard of those cams going off even when it's legal to turn on right. A real human swearing under penalty of perjury or giving sworn testimony seems perfect for accountability. At least the money is held until you do a dispute now with Youtube. I know if you license royalty free music - the system will even flag it. I know someone personally who had that problem. I guess the systems aren't linked so no idea you had a license but annoying. So say you made a video for a client and uploaded it, and embedded to their website. Even though you didn't monetize it, your client website now has ads for their competitor as they'll allow the video to stay up but with ads where the money goes to whoever claimed it! I guess the way to protect that is to upload as unpublished or unlisted then dispute it before publishing it when you already purchased a license.
- justinmoh 9y ago
  Apparently this is the development of Artificial Intelligence. From a corporate point of view, one big fix cost is obviously better than ever growing (now rather small) variable cost. Also, google is leading in this AI sector. Your feedback will help them to improve. The more hassle they introduce, the more you react upon it, the faster it can learn.
- krapp 9y ago
  I suspect Youtube's Content ID and flagging system is the way it is to placate companies like Disney and Viacom who couldn't care less about fair use, but do like arbitrary power.
- flukus 9y ago
  It shouldn't be illegal, google can do what the want on their hardware. The problem is that everyone has centralized to googles hardware, and issues like this will happen for as long as that remains unchanged. We need a path back to the distributed web where people upload videos to a server they own and control. Instead of IoT juicers we need "video broadcasting in a box" solutions.
excitom 9y ago
I recorded a video once and added ocean wave sounds to it. I googled "ocean wave sounds" and used part of someone's recording of the ocean. When I posted it to Facebook it got taken down for copyright infringement. I appealed and they put it back, so there's that.
- newman8r 9y ago
  IMO that actually would be a legitimate case of copyright infringement (not that I'm a proponent of it) - I'm surprised you were able to get it put back.
  - poizan42 9y ago
    There needs to be an element of creativity for a work to be copyrightable in the US. If it's just the same sound as you would hear from going to a beach on any windy day then it may be hard to argue that there is any creativity to it.
    - newman8r 9y ago
      An audio professional would probably argue that there's a level of creativity required to create and edit such a recording for commercial use, but I'm no expert on the subject so you may be right.
    - saint_fiasco 9y ago
      Due to a combination of technical limitations and the coconut effect, many natural sounds don't sound very natural if you just naively record them. Often the artist has to edit it at least a little to make it sound good.
jimrandomh 9y ago
Every so often, I come across an old blog post or other content with a YouTube video embedded in it. About half the time, it'll have been taken down by a false-positive copyright claim. It seems that YouTube videos can't be permanent, only ephemeral; as a long-term hosting service it simply doesn't function.
- Digital-Citizen 9y ago
  Yet another reason not to host on YouTube. Here are some more reasons not to host with YouTube: - some YouTube videos use nonfree Javascript to implement DRM. https://notabug.org/GPast/avideo/ https://notabug.org/GPast/avideo/ is a youtube-dl variant that avoids running that JS code. notabug.org seems to be down as I type this, perhaps it will return later. - should you wish to allow your video to be downloaded, YouTube sets up needless barriers to allow downloads. - hosting with YouTube means you and your users are being tracked by Google (which owns YouTube). - YouTube doesn't make it clear how to download the precise video file the submitter uploaded; users get rewritten videos instead. - YouTube only hosts videos, not arbitrary kinds of other media. All of these problems are easily solved: use the Internet Archive (at https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/) and your own hosting instead of YouTube. IA offers a download URL which is static and will redirect to your uploaded data. You can use this URL in an HTML5 video or audio element to embed the data in a webpage (again, no JS needed). IA will (by default) rewrite certain kinds of files, but your original uploaded file is also available and machine-determinable (via an XML file that clearly indicates which is the source file and which are derivative files). IA can be used fully without JS turned on (no need to worry about executing code to get files). IA hosting is gratis (zero cost), as is YouTube. I have no evidence which indicates IA tracks users akin to how Google does. I encourage you to consider hosting your media with the Internet Archive and your own website instead of YouTube.
  - nasredin 9y ago
    Mr. Stallman, is that you? --- One more reason Google sucks: Google recently deleted hundreds of videos of the war in Syria. Potential evidence of war crimes erased. Original uploaders may be dead. I don't think some tech people realize the consequences of their decisions.
mncolinlee 9y ago
I had the same problem happen years ago with video using a song that's way out of copyright and already adjudicated in courts as being in the commons. I think most use automated systems to attempt to claim copyrights over your video. At the time, it was very hard to contest claims.
- user5994461 9y ago
  While a lyrics or a melody might be public, it doesn't mean the song is.
  - loopbit 9y ago
    While a song might be public, it doesn't mean that a specific recording of the song is. The owners of the rights to the recording can only exercise rights over their recording, not on the song itself. Sorry to nitpick, but if we are going to talk about legal issues let's, at least, be precise.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Yes, that's what I meant.
djaychela 9y ago
I've had a number of claims against tracks I've made where the basis of the claim is a sample I've used - not a sample of a commercial track, but one from a sample library that I've bought and used legitimately, but where said sample has been used and published on YouTube before the track I've done. There seemed to be no worthwhile way of contesting it as responses seemed to go nowhere. It's not a big issue for me as there's no income from YouTube for us, but I'm sure there are cases where it is a significant problem for a legitimate user.
- memsom 9y ago
  I had a copyright claim once on songs my band wrote and performed. Original material. Our original material. None of which vaguely sounded like any one else's songs. The person I had to talk to to resolve the issue was very difficult to deal with and we went round in circles until I managed to prove we owned the copyright and publishing on our own material.
drawkbox 9y ago
Youtube copyright claim system and ContentID shows us a glimpse of what happens when unchecked AI in many cases reports and handles the report by just removing it. It can be cold and inhuman even if it is a needed service, very vogon-like.
chanandler_bong 9y ago
What I don't get is how when I post a 15 second video that has some music in the background at a coffee shop and I get a YouTube-bot telling me I have violated copyright but then bazillions of others post full HD rips of Hollywood movies and commercial albums.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  They might post them but the money goes to the rights holder, which I guess is why they'll tolerate it.
laci27 9y ago
YouTube copyright claim system needs to add penalties for false claims with the same banning system that they have in place for youtubers with too many take down claims. This is just insanse...
z3t4 9y ago
Youtube is about taking culture and adding your own touch to it. Mostly fair use. This copyright thing is just as stupid as software patents.
Iv 9y ago
To be fair, the copyrights claims are from other videos containing white noise. An algorithm that matches two white noise audio by claiming they contain the same information is doing its job pretty well.
Double_a_92 9y ago
Maybe the white noise messes up the AI trying to find songs in it...
anonemouse145 9y ago
YouTube grants all monetization to the claimant instantly, for the entire period of the claim, even if it's bunk. So take an algorithm that can flag a million YouTube videos, and maybe you steal $10,000 of monetization over cost in a few days. Nobody can afford to sue you hard on the false positives because you're mostly only hitting "nice guys" who will just change the sound and reupload. So you up the algorithm to be more profitable, wash, rinse, repeat. That's why this is really happening.
stevenroose 9y ago
There really should be penalties for filing an incorrect complaint.

860 points by ryanlol 9y ago

A common misunderstanding: There is no formal/legal claim of infringement being made anywhere in the ContentID process, it's just the automated process YouTube uses to decide whether or not to take down a video. Any formal/legal claims of infringement should be made by the right-holders industry towards YouTube (which YouTube really wants to avoid) not the uploader. The DCMA was made to facilitate this, but for a huge platform such as YouTube it just falls short. Here's the important part, let it sink in very clearly: ContentID is a deal that YouTube made, demanded by the larger players in the right-holders industry that goes (something) like: IF the big right-holders can easily make large amounts of claims, and YouTube provides some sort of ML detecting filter to scan for possible infringements, and when flagged the ContentID process will handle these cases such and such, THEN the big right-holder industry people won't file gigantic claims of infringements and take down requests to YouTube. From the perspective of the little uploader, no courts, claims or legal things are involved. You have no legal relation with the right-holders when YouTube takes down your vid for infringement. You can't sue YouTube for taking down your vid since as a US corporation they have every right to take down any video for whatever reason (and TOS, but mostly because big corporations just get to do whatever). And that reason is mainly: Whatever keeps the big right-holders happy. YouTube is first and foremost interested in keeping the big right-holders happy, and of course keeping their advertisers happy. That's it. They're not interested in being fair or even ethical (as the recent Logan Paul drama has shown us--considering that YouTube's trending videos are hand-picked by humans ...). ContentID is not at ALL about YouTube dealing with copyright infringement in general. If you write, perform and record an original song with your band and upload it, ContentID is not going to protect you. It's just there to help the big players scan for their own stuff and then flag whatever. If they accidentally flag the wrong thing, original content or even the actual original sample (if it's not licensed to the big right-holders) that was used in a newer big right-holder licensed work, then it's going to get removed. A false positive is only a very tiny little "oops" for YouTube, they don't really care. The dispute thingy is just a pacifier. They have literally zero reason to reduce their false positive rate. The software works; the big right holders are happy.

BrandoElFollito 9y ago

I do not really understand what the problem is about (I am not a lawyer) : why not simply respond "sue me" and request 10 M dollars of prejudice for false accusations? The next copyright claim should be more careful, I guess

jftuga 9y ago

Ridiculous

vkou 9y ago
All of these claims have been filed under penalty of perjury. There has to be a reason for why not a single copyright troll has been prosecuted for it.
- paulgb 9y ago
  Unfortunately the only part that has to be under penalty of perjury is a declaration that "the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed." So even if these are bullshit, as long as they are acting behalf of the owner of the work they claim it to infringe, they haven't perjured themselves. And that's for a standard DMCA takedown, which these may not have been. I believe YouTube has their own process separate from the DMCA which may have looser requirements. (They still have to accept standard DMCA takedowns to get the safe harbor protection, but it doesn't mean they can only act on takedowns that are DMCA compliant)
- colonelxc 9y ago
  They likely weren't. ContentID enforcement doesn't require a DMCA takedown request. It's essentially a pre-get-laywers-involved level of enforcement. That makes YouTube the judge.
- mikekchar 9y ago
  On my youtube channel I use Kimiko Ishizaka's open source bach recordings (under CC0) as background music. I got copyright claims every single time (from the same trolls -- forget their name). Eventually, when replying I got the idea to say, "You have made a claim on the same recordings for every single one of my videos. You have subsequently relinquished the claim when you discovered that I had a license to use this music. Given that you know that I have a valid license, you seem to be acting in bad faith. Please do not flag my videos again". And, you know what? It seems to have worked. They never flagged me again.

betolink 9y ago

Have you guys listened to Justin Bieber samplings? I bet he is the one claiming copyrights for all that white noise.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

djsumdog 9y ago

The edge case to this classification problem is quite literally noise. If you filter out noise, you're kinda in a pickle ... a Pickle Rick! ... I'll let myself out..

bwang29 9y ago

It would be silly if actual human file these claims so the claims are very likely to be filed by some algorithm, which somehow found matching pattern in the noise. Maybe: 1) Some copyrighted music has a period of noise that closely matched the segment of noise of the video. 2) There is adversarial pattern in the noise in the video that confused the hunting algorithm.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Neural networks are easily fooled: http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling http://www.evolvingai.org/fooling
- njharman 9y ago
  Almost as easily as humans.
stordoff 9y ago
Three of the claims are for other white noise recordings. It's arguably not even an algorithmic mistake, but a result of someone claiming they have rights over a recording of white noise.
- cpncrunch 9y ago
  There's nothing wrong in theory with someone claiming copyright over white noise. If someone else blatantly copies their white noise, they are perfectly within their rights to file a copyright claim. However in this case it does seem to be youtube's content matching algorithm that is finding the match (as far as I can tell, but it's hard to know for sure). My guess is that their matching algorithm just doesn't work well for white noise.
  - njharman 9y ago
    Copyright, in USA, requires a creative component. Facts, randomness, and other stuff lacking any creative expression is not covered by copyright. The bar is ridiculously low as in you can claim copyright on particular formatting or page layout of say names and phone numbers. I could imagine, it's a stretch, a specific "arrangement" of white noise being copyrightable. But in general it is wrong to think you can copyright white noise.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

MikeBVaughn 9y ago

I'm surprised there isn't a claim from John Cage's estate.

erric 9y ago
That would be silence, or, the absence of music; not white noise. Seriously this is insane that there is a claim against this.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- MikeBVaughn 9y ago
  It really depends on where you perform the piece.
- stcredzero 9y ago
  If you amplify almost any recording enough, you can get some form of noise. Any white noise of a sufficient duration is effectively a recording of that one John Cage piece.
  - brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
    no, it isn't, because that piece is unconscious- it is meant to be what happens without any intention. A crank up to noise is a definite intention of the performer. In 4'33", the performer does nothing but open the score and the keyboard, mark movements, and bow at the end.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      If you go through enough generations of analog copies of a recording of that performance, you get 4'33" of noise.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  no, it would not be silence. I don't mean to be all snooty here-- but since we are talking about it-- it would be whatever sounds occur during that time. He was inspired by those Rauschenberg paintings ( that appear to be blank canvasses, and are but are functioning as shadow catchers- real-time spontaneous art framers, if you will)- same with 4'33". It's about whatever happens in that space in that particular moment. It is a kind of unconscious spontaneous group improv, sort of. Interestingly, improvised solos over tunes aren't copyrightable- bandleaders ripped them off players all the time.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

It would be nice to see a timeseries correlation.

cwkoss 9y ago

1. Assemble a botnet 2. Automatically download and reupload popular videos, with extremely subtle modifications. 3. File automated takedown notices against each copied (popular) video 4. Destroy youtube's ad ecosystem for cheap

tritium 9y ago
5. Create an atmosphere of fog in the DMCA dispute system, slowing down operations and reducing the effectiveness of automation efforts
- QAPereo 9y ago
  6. Package this in such a way that anyone can deploy it, making it eternal and diffuse. Otherwise it’s just going to be one or two people with the feds eating them alive to “make a point” about law and order.
zitterbewegung 9y ago
Or, use an adversarial DNN to transform videos into ones that will get copyright claims. Extra points if you figure out to how to have it using reinforcement learning to improve itself.
- myhf 9y ago
  Demonstrating that the system is broken is not an effective strategy. It is impossible to get someone to understand a fact when their salary depends on not understanding it.
  - Spivak 9y ago
    That's like saying that grocery stores are broken because you can just print out bar codes and use them at the self-checkout. Stores have enough security for their needs and balance it with customer convenience. I don't think even Google would claim that their system is perfect, only that it's currently good enough to stave off ravenous lawyers and keep them from losing safe harbor.

jboggan 9y ago

This video of the ending of Star Wars without John Williams' music got a copyright claim from the rightsholder to Williams' score [edited from original post, not actually claimed by Williams himself]. The little bit of music at the beginning is from Gustav Holst and is public domain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI edit for more context: https://www.wired.com/story/the-star-wars-video-that-baffled-youtubes-copyright-cops/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-star-wars-video-that-baffled...

jcoffland 9y ago
John Williams stole (borrowed) a lot of music from Gustav Holst and many others. He's famous for it. Specifically parts of Holst's The Planets. Does this sound familiar?: https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs?t=4m24s https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs?t=4m24s
- gre 9y ago
  Listen at 1:45, whole piece is amazing though. https://youtu.be/JFIGoB7rK70?t=1m40s https://youtu.be/JFIGoB7rK70?t=1m40s
- jboggan 9y ago
  Oh of course, Auralnauts replace so many of Williams' works with Holst in their various videos that you hardly even know it. Similarly look at the opening of the 4th movement of Dvorak's 9th (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OBf8f55tU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OBf8f55tU) for Jaws' inspiration. Or listen to any of Ralph Vaughan Williams' 9 symphonies and you'll hear John Williams' orchestration and voicing directly.
- meri_dian 9y ago
  There's a long history - I suppose it's a tradition - of composers leaning on one another for inspiration. Sometimes this takes the form of them outright copying another's melody and elaborating upon it. Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms etc. all did this. Put in this context what Williams has done in borrowing from Holst and others isn't scandalous whatsoever and shouldn't be thought of as such.

draw_down 9y ago

Pathetic.

m3kw9 9y ago

Just imagine if they all claim each others videos lol

krapp 9y ago
Jim Sterling adds multiple instances of copyright infringing material to some his videos to take advantage of a similar effect[0]. [0]http://www.thejimquisition.com/copyright-deadlock-the-jimquisition/ http://www.thejimquisition.com/copyright-deadlock-the-jimqui...

TipVFL 9y ago

I used a song, with permission from the artist, on a demo reel and got a copyright claim on YouTube. I was surprised to find that the claim was on behalf of a French band who covered the song and added lyrics to it. I tried to dispute the claim, but there was no option or possible way to indicate that their match wasn't correct, you could only dispute whether or not you had a license to the track they matched. In the end I just gave up, and let some French band monetize my video that contained a song written and recorded by my friend's dad. Enjoy the 25 cents you earned!

TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
Since there appears to be no consequences to making a false or misleading claim, and although I wouldn't call it a solution, one course of action would be to make a claim against their song. Kick 'em where it hurts.
- Waterluvian 9y ago
  The cover band's claim that they were acting in good faith would likely hold more water. Not sure if you want to be playing games with the law like that.
  - tripzilch 9y ago
    > Not sure if you want to be playing games with the law like that. There's no law involved here. "Infringement" in this context relates to a term defined in YouTube's TOS with regards to the ContentID take-down service provided to the big right-holders industry. Not the legal sense of "copyright infringement", because nobody is making a copyright infringement claim in this whole story. The entire ContentID take-down service is designed so that YouTube will have to deal with as little copyright infringement claims (from the big right-holder industries) as possible. From the perspective of the uploaders and viewers, ContentID is just this thing that helps YouTube take down videos, which they have the right to do (as per the TOS) "for whatever reason". The dispute procedure is just something to make that easier to swallow, but unsurprisingly it's not at all effective in getting a more just result. That's what you get when you upload your work to a platform like YouTube instead of publishing it yourself. As a small player you can't really get YouTube to sign a contract detailing the license under which you allow them to publish it on their platform.

Keverw 9y ago

I think automatic systems like Content ID should be illegal. Plus I doubt a robot can consider things like fair use. Well maybe they could do some machine learning of past cases where videos were complained about but ended up being fair use... I think a real human should have to spend all day finding content and manually doing the work. Kinda like how some states have banned red light cams. Technology is not perfect. I heard of those cams going off even when it's legal to turn on right. A real human swearing under penalty of perjury or giving sworn testimony seems perfect for accountability. At least the money is held until you do a dispute now with Youtube. I know if you license royalty free music - the system will even flag it. I know someone personally who had that problem. I guess the systems aren't linked so no idea you had a license but annoying. So say you made a video for a client and uploaded it, and embedded to their website. Even though you didn't monetize it, your client website now has ads for their competitor as they'll allow the video to stay up but with ads where the money goes to whoever claimed it! I guess the way to protect that is to upload as unpublished or unlisted then dispute it before publishing it when you already purchased a license.

justinmoh 9y ago
Apparently this is the development of Artificial Intelligence. From a corporate point of view, one big fix cost is obviously better than ever growing (now rather small) variable cost. Also, google is leading in this AI sector. Your feedback will help them to improve. The more hassle they introduce, the more you react upon it, the faster it can learn.
krapp 9y ago
I suspect Youtube's Content ID and flagging system is the way it is to placate companies like Disney and Viacom who couldn't care less about fair use, but do like arbitrary power.
flukus 9y ago
It shouldn't be illegal, google can do what the want on their hardware. The problem is that everyone has centralized to googles hardware, and issues like this will happen for as long as that remains unchanged. We need a path back to the distributed web where people upload videos to a server they own and control. Instead of IoT juicers we need "video broadcasting in a box" solutions.

excitom 9y ago

I recorded a video once and added ocean wave sounds to it. I googled "ocean wave sounds" and used part of someone's recording of the ocean. When I posted it to Facebook it got taken down for copyright infringement. I appealed and they put it back, so there's that.

newman8r 9y ago
IMO that actually would be a legitimate case of copyright infringement (not that I'm a proponent of it) - I'm surprised you were able to get it put back.
- poizan42 9y ago
  There needs to be an element of creativity for a work to be copyrightable in the US. If it's just the same sound as you would hear from going to a beach on any windy day then it may be hard to argue that there is any creativity to it.
  - newman8r 9y ago
    An audio professional would probably argue that there's a level of creativity required to create and edit such a recording for commercial use, but I'm no expert on the subject so you may be right.
  - saint_fiasco 9y ago
    Due to a combination of technical limitations and the coconut effect, many natural sounds don't sound very natural if you just naively record them. Often the artist has to edit it at least a little to make it sound good.

jimrandomh 9y ago

Every so often, I come across an old blog post or other content with a YouTube video embedded in it. About half the time, it'll have been taken down by a false-positive copyright claim. It seems that YouTube videos can't be permanent, only ephemeral; as a long-term hosting service it simply doesn't function.

Digital-Citizen 9y ago
Yet another reason not to host on YouTube. Here are some more reasons not to host with YouTube: - some YouTube videos use nonfree Javascript to implement DRM. https://notabug.org/GPast/avideo/ https://notabug.org/GPast/avideo/ is a youtube-dl variant that avoids running that JS code. notabug.org seems to be down as I type this, perhaps it will return later. - should you wish to allow your video to be downloaded, YouTube sets up needless barriers to allow downloads. - hosting with YouTube means you and your users are being tracked by Google (which owns YouTube). - YouTube doesn't make it clear how to download the precise video file the submitter uploaded; users get rewritten videos instead. - YouTube only hosts videos, not arbitrary kinds of other media. All of these problems are easily solved: use the Internet Archive (at https://archive.org/ https://archive.org/) and your own hosting instead of YouTube. IA offers a download URL which is static and will redirect to your uploaded data. You can use this URL in an HTML5 video or audio element to embed the data in a webpage (again, no JS needed). IA will (by default) rewrite certain kinds of files, but your original uploaded file is also available and machine-determinable (via an XML file that clearly indicates which is the source file and which are derivative files). IA can be used fully without JS turned on (no need to worry about executing code to get files). IA hosting is gratis (zero cost), as is YouTube. I have no evidence which indicates IA tracks users akin to how Google does. I encourage you to consider hosting your media with the Internet Archive and your own website instead of YouTube.
- nasredin 9y ago
  Mr. Stallman, is that you? --- One more reason Google sucks: Google recently deleted hundreds of videos of the war in Syria. Potential evidence of war crimes erased. Original uploaders may be dead. I don't think some tech people realize the consequences of their decisions.

mncolinlee 9y ago

I had the same problem happen years ago with video using a song that's way out of copyright and already adjudicated in courts as being in the commons. I think most use automated systems to attempt to claim copyrights over your video. At the time, it was very hard to contest claims.

user5994461 9y ago
While a lyrics or a melody might be public, it doesn't mean the song is.
- loopbit 9y ago
  While a song might be public, it doesn't mean that a specific recording of the song is. The owners of the rights to the recording can only exercise rights over their recording, not on the song itself. Sorry to nitpick, but if we are going to talk about legal issues let's, at least, be precise.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Yes, that's what I meant.

djaychela 9y ago

I've had a number of claims against tracks I've made where the basis of the claim is a sample I've used - not a sample of a commercial track, but one from a sample library that I've bought and used legitimately, but where said sample has been used and published on YouTube before the track I've done. There seemed to be no worthwhile way of contesting it as responses seemed to go nowhere. It's not a big issue for me as there's no income from YouTube for us, but I'm sure there are cases where it is a significant problem for a legitimate user.

memsom 9y ago
I had a copyright claim once on songs my band wrote and performed. Original material. Our original material. None of which vaguely sounded like any one else's songs. The person I had to talk to to resolve the issue was very difficult to deal with and we went round in circles until I managed to prove we owned the copyright and publishing on our own material.

drawkbox 9y ago

Youtube copyright claim system and ContentID shows us a glimpse of what happens when unchecked AI in many cases reports and handles the report by just removing it. It can be cold and inhuman even if it is a needed service, very vogon-like.

chanandler_bong 9y ago

What I don't get is how when I post a 15 second video that has some music in the background at a coffee shop and I get a YouTube-bot telling me I have violated copyright but then bazillions of others post full HD rips of Hollywood movies and commercial albums.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
They might post them but the money goes to the rights holder, which I guess is why they'll tolerate it.

laci27 9y ago

YouTube copyright claim system needs to add penalties for false claims with the same banning system that they have in place for youtubers with too many take down claims. This is just insanse...

z3t4 9y ago

Youtube is about taking culture and adding your own touch to it. Mostly fair use. This copyright thing is just as stupid as software patents.

Iv 9y ago

To be fair, the copyrights claims are from other videos containing white noise. An algorithm that matches two white noise audio by claiming they contain the same information is doing its job pretty well.

Double_a_92 9y ago

Maybe the white noise messes up the AI trying to find songs in it...

anonemouse145 9y ago

YouTube grants all monetization to the claimant instantly, for the entire period of the claim, even if it's bunk. So take an algorithm that can flag a million YouTube videos, and maybe you steal $10,000 of monetization over cost in a few days. Nobody can afford to sue you hard on the false positives because you're mostly only hitting "nice guys" who will just change the sound and reupload. So you up the algorithm to be more profitable, wash, rinse, repeat. That's why this is really happening.

stevenroose 9y ago

There really should be penalties for filing an incorrect complaint.