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I've already stated this many times, I'll state it again. Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automat

I've already stated this many times, I'll state it again. Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automated company only interested in extracting as much data as possible from its users, force them to swallow as many ads as possible, all without caring about listening to them (both consumers and creators), under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them. They simply don't deserve anybody using their shitty products anymore. The error in this case is quite obvious. YouTube's scanner incorrectly identified the teacher's recording of Moonlight Sonata as a copyrighted reinterpretation of the same piece of music originally written by a guy who actually died 200 years ago. And I can't completely put the blame on Google's AI: the notes are technically the same, the beat might also be the same, if you calculate an FFT of the audio you'll probably also come up with similar spectral signatures. But a human listener will IMMEDIATELY notice that was played by the teacher IS NOT the the same as the copyrighted piece of music. The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors? Until Google can provide an answer to these questions, I repeat: keep your ass away from anything that has their name on it. They are not reliable, the risk of losing your data, your account or your followers because of random automated decision is very high, and the probability of getting a real human to assist you is very low.

bcrescimanno 5y ago
I agree with your assessment of Google; however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? You kinda have to go where the audience will be if you don't already have one and I'm not aware of any video discovery platforms with anywhere near the reach of YouTube. I've managed to get out of Google products almost entirely--YouTube remains the exception. Moreover, let's say a new site comes along and dethrones YouTube. Remember that this whole mess started because of lawsuits that were ultimately ruled (or settled) in favor of copyright holders. Any player in this space will need a method for handling vast quantities of copyrighted material scanning and, like Google, will be heavily incentivized by legal precedent to have that system "err on the side of caution." I'm not a fan of Google; but, the villain of this story is the horribly outdated and corporate-lobbied copyright system that will push any player in the video space to this kind of draconian approach.
- ergot_vacation 5y ago
  I'd disagree slightly with the parent post here: the conclusion shouldn't be "get away from Google" so much as "If you have to use Google, understand what you're getting into." If you deal with unsavory people, things will go south eventually. If you deal with Google, sooner or later things like this will happen. Expect it, build it into your strategy, but don't be surprised by it.
  - RogerL 5y ago
    How do you "build that into your strategy"? That is so easy to type, but unactionable. A piano teacher can't build her own streaming platform, and if she goes to a different platform she'll die in obscurity. Concretely, what should she have done differently?
    - piptastic 5y ago
      my thoughts would be: - while building up your following on google, market your brand to your own site(s) as much as possible - build brand an alternate streaming site(s) - have a way to reach your followers in the event you get shut down - email list, etc. to inform your followers to switch to the alternate site
      - matart 5y ago
        Do many people watch through embedded videos or do people watch in the YouTube app? There's a convenience in having all your videos in 1 place. I've had a couple podcasts move to Spotify only and I stopped listening even though I have a Spotify subscription.
    - zentiggr 5y ago
      It's that assumption of "dying in obscurity" that gives Google their damnable network effect. If there isn't enough marketing advice out there about finding as many channels and methods as you can, I'll eat this comment with barbecue sauce. Read up, utilize all the advice on everything except Google-owned properties, accept the lower visibility, and help neuter the algorithm beast. Or accept that you're riding the tiger and never complain again.
kzrdude 5y ago
Everyone uses youtube. Local businesses use youtube. I took driving lessons and they use it. Small tech companies use it to host their promo videos, and so on. So people use it without even needing the "reach" that youtube can provide - it's just being used for hosting.
- zentiggr 5y ago
  Again and again the same basic "but it's free" refrain. Sure, building on quicksand is free. No one wants to pay for a service that is as undependable, and impossible to appeal in case of fraudulent or just mistaken bans. So go ahead and build on that quicksand... but do it knowing so, and stop complaining when the quicksand swallows you. There might not be much land around the edge of the quicksand patch, but it's solid ground.
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    I think the point here is that users don't have much option, not the hosts. If the DMV uploads instructional videos to Youtube, it's hard to boycott google if you want a license. Meanwhile, I don't think the State govt.is going to care much about convoluted processes against takedowns. That's just Tuesday for them, they aren't gonna fight google on this despite technically having the resources.
6510 5y ago
All that is true of course but I think the bigger issue is that the copyright system has to go or at least change dramatically. People walk around with video cameras now 24/7, they want to add music to their video. We should facilitate this.
ergot_vacation 5y ago
More and more, ordinary people are not citizens in a nation, with a balance of rights and responsibilities afforded to them, but simply cattle: a resource to be cultivated, controlled, and harvested. This is true online, but also increasingly off. People are still operating under the outdated notion that corporations, banks and government institutions can be held to account because they are in some way vulnerable to the displeasure of ordinary people. They cannot, and are not. Youtube does not care about your happiness. Their business model is unrelated to it. Youtube, like Google, is in the business of gathering up a bunch of delicious users and bolt-gunning and butchering them so they can be served up to ad partners for a tidy sum. In this arrangement, the happiness of the livestock hardly matters.
lovelyviking 5y ago
>Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. My thoughts exactly 5 years ago. So I did exactly as you say back then. So , did you notice? Did it help? I do not think so. May be the problem is more complicated and leaving YouTube would not help ?
- fsflover 5y ago
  I guess it did help you, since you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves.
  - lovelyviking 5y ago
    >you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves. Am I? It seems I am still influenced by their moves. Of course doing nothing is a good protection against any failure except perhaps a total failure to deliver anything useful? It is predictable, yes but I am not sure we can count it as protected result. It is more like protected nothing
mikenew 5y ago
> under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them It is, unfortunately, not a faulty assumption. I'm a piano teacher on YouTube, and I'm able to make money there. My entire audience was developed through the platform. I put videos on platforms like Vimeo or even Peertube, and I've had more views in one day on YouTube than their entire lifetime on those other platforms combined. The network effect is a cruel mistress, but short of some kind of global exodus no one has the ability to change that. I hate it as much as anyone.
- fsflover 5y ago
  Any creator with established audience can bring those people to alternative platform, e.g., Peertube. Start from posting videos on both platforms and advertise the other one. Then post videos on Peertube earlier.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    That will only work for a select group of viewers. Waiting a day or even a week isn’t a huge deal for me as a consumer, and I’m familiar with it because Patreon people often put their videos up in patreon earlier than their YouTube ones.
    - fsflover 5y ago
      You are right. However, when Google blocks the creator, most of their audience will know how to find them.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      My understanding gained from watching various kickstarters and patreons is that creators don't need a million views, they need a few thousand engaged fans and they can be self sufficient at that point. The question, always, is what's the alternative? Rumble?
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Yeah, but YouTube has ads that can pay the content creator. PeerTube doesn't.
tom-_- 5y ago
As a content creator, you want the platform to protect your copyright and at YouTube's scale, copyright scanners are the only way to implement this. Will they produce false positives? Of course. Do the benefits to content creators outweigh the costs of these false positives? Yes if you believe creative content should be protected. The only other viable model for content creators are subscription based services like Patreon and they have/will also be pressured by the entertainment industry or even the content creators themselves to flag copyright infringement once the platform gets large enough.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  Like some have suggested, the automated system should only be an input for a team of humans to then review and consider. They should then contact the potentially breaching party and get some feedback as well as doing some due diligence to check if the complaint came from a proper right holder. Yes this costs money but it is the only way to do the job without being a scumbag and a general burden on the world. Furthermore it should cost the person sending a complaint somethings to file it, which then is refunded if the complaint is found to have merit. Lastly, some of these steps could and should be skipped if a particular account or multiple accounts determined by some other means to be the same person are repeatedly found to be in violation. Similarly if a person keeps making unfounded accusations the refundable fee might increase in steps.
  - bskap 5y ago
    That's all great in theory, but current US copyright law isn't really in favor of implementing any of that. If Google tried to do it, they'd likely get flooded with massive lawsuits from the media conglomerates because they'd lose the DMCA safe harbor.
    - Swenrekcah 5y ago
      No doubt you’re right. In that case the copyright laws are wrong and should be fixed. I apologise and transfer my scumbag stamp from google to Congress then for this particular case :)
galangalalgol 5y ago
Sobhow was wicca moonlight even copyri if it was that close to something that is out of copyright protection?
dominostars 5y ago
People are using this system intentionally as a scam. Recently, I tried uploading a video which had video game music in the background, and youtube flagged a copyright claim on behalf of someone who made a remix of the original song. I did not have a license to use the song, so that's fair, but my choices were either to drop my video or run ads that give money to someone who wasn't even the owner of the song I was trying to use. There was no avenue for recourse, or to report the person who was fraudulently making claims.
- erik 5y ago
  Can you reach out to the original composer of the game music? They would likely care about the bogus claims. Particularly if it is a smaller studio. It’s not a great solution, but it might work.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Im not excusing what happened, but was the remix author actually making claims? Or did they just add a song to ContentID’s database? If it’s the former, that’s despicable and (almost certainly) illegal. If it’s the latter, it’s not their fault, but Google’s for having an overzealous system.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Without a viable and better alternative this wouldnt make sense. But what would be a viable alternative? Well, it could use only non-copyrighted material, which is feasible nowadays, there is tons of CC0 music to dress any video
heavyset_go 5y ago
> The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors? Given that we've had to endure this nonsense for more years than I can count now, and Google and other companies refuse to budge, it sounds like a great opportunity for legislation to enumerate users' rights in situations like this, and to enumerate penalties should companies like Google violate them.
ChuckMcM 5y ago
When I was at Google they had a mission statement that went something like "Organize the worlds data and make it available." But the reality seems to be it was "Seize the world's data and hold it for ransom." The latter of course being the better business model.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either. The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"
  - ChuckMcM 5y ago
    See that is the 'hook' then Google monetizes those petabytes without paying the people who uploaded them[1], that is the 'business model'. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-partner-videos-but-wont-pay-the-creators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-...
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      I still don't think that this constitutes "seizing". YT provides the streaming service for the uploaded video, claims the ad revenue in exchange. I don't like it, but it's not "seizing". Also, boring as it is, and aware as I am that I am in a tiny minority, I do not use a mobile device, and on my browser(s) I have uBlock Origin installed, as well as 69k entries in /etc/hosts to block any and all access to a huge number of known-to-serve-ad domains. I essentially never see YT ads.
robbrown451 5y ago
And put your content where? What should this piano teacher do? This is partially the fault of YouTube/Google, but also copyright law in general. It's broken. This community, right here, could collaborate and force changes upon the powers that be. Boycotting Google and YouTube isn't going to do it though.
- josteink 5y ago
  > And put your content where? Vimeo? Peertube? Facebook? Self hosted website? Anywhere?
  - livre 5y ago
    You can put your content anywhere you want but you can't choose where the audience is. YouTube is in practice a big monopoly because there's no audience in the "alternatives." If you want to be seen you have no choice but YouTube, you can prepare for the worst and upload simultaneously to other platforms and include links in your video description but you can't avoid YouTube.
  - jasode 5y ago
    >Vimeo? Peertube? Facebook? Self hosted website? Anywhere? Those proposed alternatives don't address why the content creators like this piano teacher put their tutorials on Youtube: ++ $0 in hosting and bandwidth costs: self-hosted costs money that's often unpredictable, and Vimeo has platform membership fees ++ ad revenue to help make the effort of producing a video worthwhile : Peertube does not have relationship with ad sponsors ++ audience size & reach : Vimeo/Peertube/selfhosted/etc don't have comparable viewers. For niche content such as piano instruction, this makes building a financially sustainable audience more difficult ++ discovery recommendations from the platform: Vimeo/Peertube/selfhosted don't have the network effect ecosystem of other videos on music that can lead viewers to the piano teacher's tutorial videos. When frustrated Youtubers ask "And put your content where?", they're not looking for dumb hosting sites to upload some mp4 files. Their question is really a short version of: "And put your content where that has the audience reach and monetization to make the video production worthwhile?" A content creator like this piano teacher wants to make some extra money with Youtube videos. It's not the end of the world if she can't do that but the extra income could help offset the cancellation of in-person lessons because of pandemic social distancing. I don't think lecturing people repeatedly about Vimeo and Peertube is helpful. EDIT reply to: >But the other rely to this comment makes a very good point - post in as many places as possible/desired _in addition_ to YouTube, and point to all the other places in that YouTube posting. You're still losing sight of this thread's topic: the piano teacher is losing ad monetization money to a fraudulent claim of copyright. If she hypothetically uploaded her Moonlight Sonata tutorial to Peertube/Vimeo/selfhosting, she still gets $0 in ad share revenue from those alternative video hosters which makes the advice irrelevant. Your "syndication" advice to distribute the videos to multiple sites solves a different problem such as de-platforming. E.g. Youtube deletes/censors her video or her entire channel. That's not the problem she has. Her video is still there and viewable. But she doesn't want the ad monetization money stolen from her by a fraudulent claim.
danbmil99 5y ago
Interestingly this intersects with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 Content cannot be safe if the tech necessary to deliver it is out of reach for independent creators. Note that in the Roku thread Google is (IMHO) the good guy, for reasons unrelated to this thread's concern.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  Cannot be safe? What does that even mean?
vkou 5y ago
> Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Any video hosting service that you will move to will behave in a very similar ways, in order to avoid getting sued out of existence by the media lobby. If you want to solve this problem, the solution can only come from dismantling the parasitic parts of the media industry. That requires political action.
- zentiggr 5y ago
  Sure, that's step 2. Step 1 is walk away from the biggest, most obscure and capricious banning system around, to pull the biggest teeth of that copyright industry.
  - vkou 5y ago
    If you think that's step 2, then all you'll be doing is playing whack-a-mole as the MPAA/RIAA will either sue hosts out of existence, or strong-arm them into implementing something functionally identical, or worse than ContentID. The MPAA/RIAA aren't stupid, and they can smell money. Hosting firms have money. Users uploading infringing content to a service gives them a stick to beat the hosting firm until money falls out.
simion314 5y ago
I just want to emphasize that Google are not the only ones, I had my Sony Play Station account banned for 2 months with no exact reason and no way to appeal, on short the Sony message was like "you did something wrong, something about our policy on sex and violence, our moderators are perfect so there is no mistake and there is nothing you can do". I think we need something that addresses all such issues and not a Google only workaround, the solution is regulations.
mustacheemperor 5y ago
Genuine question, what should I replace Firebase with? I have a responsibility to my customers there, not just myself. I want to fulfill that responsibility by migrating off of Google while continuing to provide the product performance they expect.
matchagaucho 5y ago
The error in this case is quite obvious... That was the symptom. The cause of the error was Google allowing another Publisher to stake claims on public domain music.
Causality1 5y ago
The more stories like this crop up, the more I wonder what the source is. Google's pervasively horrible treatment of both free users and paying customers reflects its extraordinary fetish for using computers to do a person's job. The worse it gets the more I start to think this is coming from someone in particular. How could they be so incapable of improvement unless someone powerful is stomping on it? Who is it? Who in the top twenty Alphabet/Google executives has this godawful obsession?
d0mine 5y ago
There is no viable alternative and there won't be without changing the law. And the law won't be changed due to lobbying (any success would be temporary)
nitwit005 5y ago
You can escape Google's algorithms, but you can't escape these sorts of dumb algorithms generally. People get all sorts of bogus DMCA notices, spit out by some application that scours the web.
aeortiz 5y ago
Beethoven's copyright has long expired, and all music of the 18th and 19th centuries is in the public domain. (Disney notwithstanding)

bcrescimanno 5y ago

I agree with your assessment of Google; however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? You kinda have to go where the audience will be if you don't already have one and I'm not aware of any video discovery platforms with anywhere near the reach of YouTube. I've managed to get out of Google products almost entirely--YouTube remains the exception. Moreover, let's say a new site comes along and dethrones YouTube. Remember that this whole mess started because of lawsuits that were ultimately ruled (or settled) in favor of copyright holders. Any player in this space will need a method for handling vast quantities of copyrighted material scanning and, like Google, will be heavily incentivized by legal precedent to have that system "err on the side of caution." I'm not a fan of Google; but, the villain of this story is the horribly outdated and corporate-lobbied copyright system that will push any player in the video space to this kind of draconian approach.

ergot_vacation 5y ago
I'd disagree slightly with the parent post here: the conclusion shouldn't be "get away from Google" so much as "If you have to use Google, understand what you're getting into." If you deal with unsavory people, things will go south eventually. If you deal with Google, sooner or later things like this will happen. Expect it, build it into your strategy, but don't be surprised by it.
- RogerL 5y ago
  How do you "build that into your strategy"? That is so easy to type, but unactionable. A piano teacher can't build her own streaming platform, and if she goes to a different platform she'll die in obscurity. Concretely, what should she have done differently?
  - piptastic 5y ago
    my thoughts would be: - while building up your following on google, market your brand to your own site(s) as much as possible - build brand an alternate streaming site(s) - have a way to reach your followers in the event you get shut down - email list, etc. to inform your followers to switch to the alternate site
    - matart 5y ago
      Do many people watch through embedded videos or do people watch in the YouTube app? There's a convenience in having all your videos in 1 place. I've had a couple podcasts move to Spotify only and I stopped listening even though I have a Spotify subscription.
  - zentiggr 5y ago
    It's that assumption of "dying in obscurity" that gives Google their damnable network effect. If there isn't enough marketing advice out there about finding as many channels and methods as you can, I'll eat this comment with barbecue sauce. Read up, utilize all the advice on everything except Google-owned properties, accept the lower visibility, and help neuter the algorithm beast. Or accept that you're riding the tiger and never complain again.

kzrdude 5y ago

Everyone uses youtube. Local businesses use youtube. I took driving lessons and they use it. Small tech companies use it to host their promo videos, and so on. So people use it without even needing the "reach" that youtube can provide - it's just being used for hosting.

zentiggr 5y ago
Again and again the same basic "but it's free" refrain. Sure, building on quicksand is free. No one wants to pay for a service that is as undependable, and impossible to appeal in case of fraudulent or just mistaken bans. So go ahead and build on that quicksand... but do it knowing so, and stop complaining when the quicksand swallows you. There might not be much land around the edge of the quicksand patch, but it's solid ground.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  I think the point here is that users don't have much option, not the hosts. If the DMV uploads instructional videos to Youtube, it's hard to boycott google if you want a license. Meanwhile, I don't think the State govt.is going to care much about convoluted processes against takedowns. That's just Tuesday for them, they aren't gonna fight google on this despite technically having the resources.

6510 5y ago

All that is true of course but I think the bigger issue is that the copyright system has to go or at least change dramatically. People walk around with video cameras now 24/7, they want to add music to their video. We should facilitate this.

ergot_vacation 5y ago

More and more, ordinary people are not citizens in a nation, with a balance of rights and responsibilities afforded to them, but simply cattle: a resource to be cultivated, controlled, and harvested. This is true online, but also increasingly off. People are still operating under the outdated notion that corporations, banks and government institutions can be held to account because they are in some way vulnerable to the displeasure of ordinary people. They cannot, and are not. Youtube does not care about your happiness. Their business model is unrelated to it. Youtube, like Google, is in the business of gathering up a bunch of delicious users and bolt-gunning and butchering them so they can be served up to ad partners for a tidy sum. In this arrangement, the happiness of the livestock hardly matters.

lovelyviking 5y ago

>Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. My thoughts exactly 5 years ago. So I did exactly as you say back then. So , did you notice? Did it help? I do not think so. May be the problem is more complicated and leaving YouTube would not help ?

fsflover 5y ago
I guess it did help you, since you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves.
- lovelyviking 5y ago
  >you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves. Am I? It seems I am still influenced by their moves. Of course doing nothing is a good protection against any failure except perhaps a total failure to deliver anything useful? It is predictable, yes but I am not sure we can count it as protected result. It is more like protected nothing

mikenew 5y ago

> under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users and consumers to live without them It is, unfortunately, not a faulty assumption. I'm a piano teacher on YouTube, and I'm able to make money there. My entire audience was developed through the platform. I put videos on platforms like Vimeo or even Peertube, and I've had more views in one day on YouTube than their entire lifetime on those other platforms combined. The network effect is a cruel mistress, but short of some kind of global exodus no one has the ability to change that. I hate it as much as anyone.

fsflover 5y ago
Any creator with established audience can bring those people to alternative platform, e.g., Peertube. Start from posting videos on both platforms and advertise the other one. Then post videos on Peertube earlier.
- SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
  That will only work for a select group of viewers. Waiting a day or even a week isn’t a huge deal for me as a consumer, and I’m familiar with it because Patreon people often put their videos up in patreon earlier than their YouTube ones.
  - fsflover 5y ago
    You are right. However, when Google blocks the creator, most of their audience will know how to find them.
  - LegitShady 5y ago
    My understanding gained from watching various kickstarters and patreons is that creators don't need a million views, they need a few thousand engaged fans and they can be self sufficient at that point. The question, always, is what's the alternative? Rumble?
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Yeah, but YouTube has ads that can pay the content creator. PeerTube doesn't.

tom-_- 5y ago

As a content creator, you want the platform to protect your copyright and at YouTube's scale, copyright scanners are the only way to implement this. Will they produce false positives? Of course. Do the benefits to content creators outweigh the costs of these false positives? Yes if you believe creative content should be protected. The only other viable model for content creators are subscription based services like Patreon and they have/will also be pressured by the entertainment industry or even the content creators themselves to flag copyright infringement once the platform gets large enough.

Swenrekcah 5y ago
Like some have suggested, the automated system should only be an input for a team of humans to then review and consider. They should then contact the potentially breaching party and get some feedback as well as doing some due diligence to check if the complaint came from a proper right holder. Yes this costs money but it is the only way to do the job without being a scumbag and a general burden on the world. Furthermore it should cost the person sending a complaint somethings to file it, which then is refunded if the complaint is found to have merit. Lastly, some of these steps could and should be skipped if a particular account or multiple accounts determined by some other means to be the same person are repeatedly found to be in violation. Similarly if a person keeps making unfounded accusations the refundable fee might increase in steps.
- bskap 5y ago
  That's all great in theory, but current US copyright law isn't really in favor of implementing any of that. If Google tried to do it, they'd likely get flooded with massive lawsuits from the media conglomerates because they'd lose the DMCA safe harbor.
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    No doubt you’re right. In that case the copyright laws are wrong and should be fixed. I apologise and transfer my scumbag stamp from google to Congress then for this particular case :)

galangalalgol 5y ago

Sobhow was wicca moonlight even copyri if it was that close to something that is out of copyright protection?

dominostars 5y ago

People are using this system intentionally as a scam. Recently, I tried uploading a video which had video game music in the background, and youtube flagged a copyright claim on behalf of someone who made a remix of the original song. I did not have a license to use the song, so that's fair, but my choices were either to drop my video or run ads that give money to someone who wasn't even the owner of the song I was trying to use. There was no avenue for recourse, or to report the person who was fraudulently making claims.

erik 5y ago
Can you reach out to the original composer of the game music? They would likely care about the bogus claims. Particularly if it is a smaller studio. It’s not a great solution, but it might work.
colejohnson66 5y ago
Im not excusing what happened, but was the remix author actually making claims? Or did they just add a song to ContentID’s database? If it’s the former, that’s despicable and (almost certainly) illegal. If it’s the latter, it’s not their fault, but Google’s for having an overzealous system.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Without a viable and better alternative this wouldnt make sense. But what would be a viable alternative? Well, it could use only non-copyrighted material, which is feasible nowadays, there is tons of CC0 music to dress any video

heavyset_go 5y ago

> The problem is: who is accountable for these mistakes? Who shall I reach out to if Google's foggy algorithms make a mistake? And, in the case of educators and creators who actually do that for a job, who will compensate them for the revenue they have lost because of algorithmic errors? Given that we've had to endure this nonsense for more years than I can count now, and Google and other companies refuse to budge, it sounds like a great opportunity for legislation to enumerate users' rights in situations like this, and to enumerate penalties should companies like Google violate them.

ChuckMcM 5y ago

When I was at Google they had a mission statement that went something like "Organize the worlds data and make it available." But the reality seems to be it was "Seize the world's data and hold it for ransom." The latter of course being the better business model.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either. The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"
- ChuckMcM 5y ago
  See that is the 'hook' then Google monetizes those petabytes without paying the people who uploaded them[1], that is the 'business model'. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-partner-videos-but-wont-pay-the-creators.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-...
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    I still don't think that this constitutes "seizing". YT provides the streaming service for the uploaded video, claims the ad revenue in exchange. I don't like it, but it's not "seizing". Also, boring as it is, and aware as I am that I am in a tiny minority, I do not use a mobile device, and on my browser(s) I have uBlock Origin installed, as well as 69k entries in /etc/hosts to block any and all access to a huge number of known-to-serve-ad domains. I essentially never see YT ads.

robbrown451 5y ago

And put your content where? What should this piano teacher do? This is partially the fault of YouTube/Google, but also copyright law in general. It's broken. This community, right here, could collaborate and force changes upon the powers that be. Boycotting Google and YouTube isn't going to do it though.

josteink 5y ago
> And put your content where? Vimeo? Peertube? Facebook? Self hosted website? Anywhere?
- livre 5y ago
  You can put your content anywhere you want but you can't choose where the audience is. YouTube is in practice a big monopoly because there's no audience in the "alternatives." If you want to be seen you have no choice but YouTube, you can prepare for the worst and upload simultaneously to other platforms and include links in your video description but you can't avoid YouTube.
- jasode 5y ago
  >Vimeo? Peertube? Facebook? Self hosted website? Anywhere? Those proposed alternatives don't address why the content creators like this piano teacher put their tutorials on Youtube: ++ $0 in hosting and bandwidth costs: self-hosted costs money that's often unpredictable, and Vimeo has platform membership fees ++ ad revenue to help make the effort of producing a video worthwhile : Peertube does not have relationship with ad sponsors ++ audience size & reach : Vimeo/Peertube/selfhosted/etc don't have comparable viewers. For niche content such as piano instruction, this makes building a financially sustainable audience more difficult ++ discovery recommendations from the platform: Vimeo/Peertube/selfhosted don't have the network effect ecosystem of other videos on music that can lead viewers to the piano teacher's tutorial videos. When frustrated Youtubers ask "And put your content where?", they're not looking for dumb hosting sites to upload some mp4 files. Their question is really a short version of: "And put your content where that has the audience reach and monetization to make the video production worthwhile?" A content creator like this piano teacher wants to make some extra money with Youtube videos. It's not the end of the world if she can't do that but the extra income could help offset the cancellation of in-person lessons because of pandemic social distancing. I don't think lecturing people repeatedly about Vimeo and Peertube is helpful. EDIT reply to: >But the other rely to this comment makes a very good point - post in as many places as possible/desired _in addition_ to YouTube, and point to all the other places in that YouTube posting. You're still losing sight of this thread's topic: the piano teacher is losing ad monetization money to a fraudulent claim of copyright. If she hypothetically uploaded her Moonlight Sonata tutorial to Peertube/Vimeo/selfhosting, she still gets $0 in ad share revenue from those alternative video hosters which makes the advice irrelevant. Your "syndication" advice to distribute the videos to multiple sites solves a different problem such as de-platforming. E.g. Youtube deletes/censors her video or her entire channel. That's not the problem she has. Her video is still there and viewable. But she doesn't want the ad monetization money stolen from her by a fraudulent claim.

danbmil99 5y ago

Interestingly this intersects with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 Content cannot be safe if the tech necessary to deliver it is out of reach for independent creators. Note that in the Roku thread Google is (IMHO) the good guy, for reasons unrelated to this thread's concern.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Cannot be safe? What does that even mean?

vkou 5y ago

> Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Any video hosting service that you will move to will behave in a very similar ways, in order to avoid getting sued out of existence by the media lobby. If you want to solve this problem, the solution can only come from dismantling the parasitic parts of the media industry. That requires political action.

zentiggr 5y ago
Sure, that's step 2. Step 1 is walk away from the biggest, most obscure and capricious banning system around, to pull the biggest teeth of that copyright industry.
- vkou 5y ago
  If you think that's step 2, then all you'll be doing is playing whack-a-mole as the MPAA/RIAA will either sue hosts out of existence, or strong-arm them into implementing something functionally identical, or worse than ContentID. The MPAA/RIAA aren't stupid, and they can smell money. Hosting firms have money. Users uploading infringing content to a service gives them a stick to beat the hosting firm until money falls out.

simion314 5y ago

I just want to emphasize that Google are not the only ones, I had my Sony Play Station account banned for 2 months with no exact reason and no way to appeal, on short the Sony message was like "you did something wrong, something about our policy on sex and violence, our moderators are perfect so there is no mistake and there is nothing you can do". I think we need something that addresses all such issues and not a Google only workaround, the solution is regulations.

mustacheemperor 5y ago

Genuine question, what should I replace Firebase with? I have a responsibility to my customers there, not just myself. I want to fulfill that responsibility by migrating off of Google while continuing to provide the product performance they expect.

matchagaucho 5y ago

The error in this case is quite obvious... That was the symptom. The cause of the error was Google allowing another Publisher to stake claims on public domain music.

Causality1 5y ago

The more stories like this crop up, the more I wonder what the source is. Google's pervasively horrible treatment of both free users and paying customers reflects its extraordinary fetish for using computers to do a person's job. The worse it gets the more I start to think this is coming from someone in particular. How could they be so incapable of improvement unless someone powerful is stomping on it? Who is it? Who in the top twenty Alphabet/Google executives has this godawful obsession?

d0mine 5y ago

There is no viable alternative and there won't be without changing the law. And the law won't be changed due to lobbying (any success would be temporary)

nitwit005 5y ago

You can escape Google's algorithms, but you can't escape these sorts of dumb algorithms generally. People get all sorts of bogus DMCA notices, spit out by some application that scours the web.

aeortiz 5y ago

Beethoven's copyright has long expired, and all music of the 18th and 19th centuries is in the public domain. (Disney notwithstanding)