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I recommend the excellent video by Youtuber Tom Scott "YouTube's Copyright System Isn't Broken. The World's Is." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU htt

I recommend the excellent video by Youtuber Tom Scott "YouTube's Copyright System Isn't Broken. The World's Is." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwo5qc78QU While I agree with the OP in broad strokes (they clearly have the right to post and profit off their performance), I find that the vast majority of comments on Youtube's copyright claim system fail to even acknowledge major aspects of the problem. Perhaps Youtube's practical monopoly does it a disservice here, and it's hard to separate "big self publishing video platform" problems with Youtube specific problems. Without a system like YT currently has, it would get absolutely sued into oblivion by rightful copyright complaints. This is in many ways is a problem of copyright law not being designed with modern technology in mind. I think a good first step would be a way for copyright owners to be punished for broadly overreaching with their claims.

mod50ack 5y ago
Oh, Tom is right. I've seen his video (actually a fan of his stuff), and I know that there's a real problem here for Google. They need to cover their asses here, and with good reason. And in many cases the problem is with the global copyright system. But this isn't such a case --- nobody should get flagged for performing Sullivan or Mozart. It's absurd and a much easier problem to solve than the ones involving fair use which Tom discusses.
esjeon 5y ago
> a way for copyright owners to be punished for broadly overreaching with their claims. That will only harm small businesses and individuals. It doesn't take a huge sum of imagination to draw the situation in the brain. A lawyer hired by a big corporation on one side, and a poor artist on another side, both standing in the same courtroom. You already get the drama about to happen. Lawyers will happily bully those poor souls that they are fully capable of introducing more misery to their opponents, so you should just sign this paper and f** off. A few may resist, and few will survive, but the majority won't even take the case to the court out of fear. So, no, that's not a solution.
- izacus 5y ago
  No it's not, but it's what DMCA is. And EU is following USA with building broad and abusive copyright protection legislation. And everytime there's a proposal to make copyright law less abusive and ridiculous, there's a huge pushback from both authors, giant content megacorps and even people on HN who should know better. I bet Warner/Disney/etc. lawyers are laughing their ass off when Google - due to their crazy incompetence and use of AI - gets blamed for the law they lobbied to accept.
  - pkilgore 5y ago
    Last I checked DCMA did not require proactive removal like contintID, but to be responsive to claims. Did that change?
    - izacus 5y ago
      No, but the claims are automated as well (there are APIs between content publishers and big content silos which make this distinction pretty unimportant). Ideally, the law would defend you against content providers and Googles/YouTubes and protect you from frivoulous claims. Instead DMCA codifies this approach (even if it's a bit different than what Google is doing right now).
      - kevingadd 5y ago
        The codified counter-notice approach in the DMCA is different from YouTube's approach in a very significant way. The difference is clearly felt by creators.
- pkilgore 5y ago
  The corporate bullies have been trotting out this argument forever to keep the status quo. But it is not as if it is impossible to craft a law that carves out protections for this exact harm, like fee shifting provisions or a cheaper administrative proceeding available to small business and non-corporate ownership. We are, as a society, capable of changing and writing creative laws. Specifically here, how do you imagine a punishment for overreach hurting small owners? They are the plaintiffs here, assuming they bring meritorious casee, they are in the driver's seat with no downside over the status quo.
swiley 5y ago
I hated that video. I think he's absolutely wrong. If that's really the case then how come people on /gif/ and /wsg/ on 4chan haven't been sued? There's tons of copyrighted music on there (the ygyl threads are almost all just commercial music with anime.) By removing the legal system Google has short circuited the law. There is a protection for individuals here, it's called perjury. If the claimants here pulled the same shit they do on 4chan that they do on youtube they would be perjured and that's why they haven't deployed bots to go suing people.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  Sue 4chan and members? And garner the focused attention of one of the most vile communities of trolls the world has ever seen? Let me get my popcorn, because that will be an epic shitshow to watch.
  - swiley 5y ago
    >4chan and members 4chan has no members?
    - Forbo 5y ago
      Users that bought a 4chan pass could be considered "members" of a sort. Regardless of whatever you choose to call them, be it "users", "members", or "shitposters", I think the point you're trying to make is overly pedantic.
      - swiley 5y ago
        My point is that every other website doesn't appear to have this problem, it's definitely one Google created.
- plantsbeans 5y ago
  I don’t understand how perjury applies here.
  - 5y ago
makeitdouble 5y ago
This is as usual a very well done video, and as Tom Scott mentions, there is a gap between the law and what’s happening online. He argues for how the small guy is protected by the status quo, but glosses over how the big players also massively get away with behaviors that would be prohibitively expensive/labor intensive/turned against them to do without youtube’s system. > a way for copyright owners to be punished for broadly overreaching That critically is covered by the law, and removed from the start from Youtube’s system.
leeter 5y ago
I personally think the better solution is going back to how copyright worked pre 1976, where copyright had to be positively asserted to exist and everything else went into the public domain. I'm also of the position that a 'make available' clause needs to be added to ensure that a work is constantly available during its period of copyright; moreover if the rightsholder should fail to make it available for longer than a set period of time it reverts to the public domain permanently. Finally I think the default period for copyright should be 23years (in line with patents) with progressively more expensive renewals based on the annual income of the property, the goal being to encourage people to let things go into the public domain unless they are extremely profitable.
- shadilay 5y ago
  I wholly agree with this but the extension period should be forever with exponentially increasing fees not based on the profit of the work which can be gamed like movies are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Why forever and not terminated at the author’s funeral (or 20 years after publication, whichever is later)?
    - redflagsTA 5y ago
      This is tougher when the work is produced by a team and the copyright is owned by the company. There also needs to be logic to handle this other case.
- not2b 5y ago
  Wouldn't help; with Content ID the big companies are positively asserting copyright to things they don't own.
- grishka 5y ago
  IMO copyright for creative works should last a year, maybe two or three, but no more. The most income something generates is usually when it just gets released. Movies, for example, usually don't even count their revenue from outside of movie theaters. This is the only way to make copyright mostly work, and make people respect it. Right now it's so long it could as well never expire. On the other hand, if it only lasts several years, many people would have the choice of paying right now or waiting for the copyright to expire and getting it for free. It's also very unfortunate that the entirety of our pop culture is covered by copyright right now. And second thing to make it work even better: copyright should not be transferable. It should not be possible to sign something to forfeit your exclusive rights to your own work.
jrochkind1 5y ago
I think you are probably basically right, but it seems notable that what YouTube does is not just a DMCA by-the-books implementation, but their own policy/structure, right? That is, they give copyright claimants more flexibilty/power than the DMCA strictly requires; the DCMA "counter-claim" process would let them put the material back up in response to a counter claim the end without the original claimant needing to approve or agree with your counter-claim, which is not how YouTube operates. Youtube's system resembles the DMCA, but is not the DMCA, and is much more pro-claimant than the actual DMCA. Woudln't an actual DMCA proess be sufficient to avoiding "suing out of oblivion"? My guess is that part of is YouTube's current business model, they make money by enforcing copyright, they have no business/profit incentive to let you file a DMCA counter-notice, and plenty to make it even easier than the DMCA specifies to file a claim.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  YouTube’s “ContentID” system came about at roughly the same time as Vevo (music videos on demand) became a thing. My guess is that it was implemented to appease the rights holders so they’d put their videos on YouTube.
- hnick 5y ago
  DMCA doesn't protect someone who makes money directly from the content. Let the lawyers decide what that means, but I guess it could cover advertising and subscriptions if you prove there's a big chunk of copyrighted content. Hence their pseudo-DMCA appeasement process. There seems to be a gap though. If I make something independently and am not covered by Content ID and want nothing to do with it, they will need to abide by the DMCA. They have been sued over this and I think it's a fair argument. Setup a system and force me to use it without any contractual agreements, waiving my legal rights? Doesn't really seem proper.
sneak 5y ago
> Without a system like YT currently has, it would get absolutely sued into oblivion by rightful copyright complaints. That's false, the DMCA's safe harbor provision for content hosts has a mechanism in place for handling this.
twirlock 5y ago
No, it's not a problem of the copyright system that Google the corporation doesn't care about the concept of public domain. That's a "quasi-government monopoly that benefits from gestapo apologetics whenever the public critiques the obvious issues any imbecile could otherwise identify" problem.
HWR_14 5y ago
ContentID is far beyond what YT needs to do to prevent themselves from being sued by copyright holders. It's a proactive difficult (or impossible) to appeal system. The DMCA requires much less involvement on their part.
Popegaf 5y ago
Isn't the solution to this already there? Creative Commons ( https://creativecommons.org/ https://creativecommons.org/ ) > One goal of Creative Commons is to increase the amount of openly licensed creativity in “the commons” — the body of work freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing. Through the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world have made their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use. Choosing a license is easy https://creativecommons.org/choose/ https://creativecommons.org/choose/ or you can have a look at the entirety of existing 7 CC licenses ( https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ ) It's possible to allow people to use things for free with attribution (CC-BY), shared under the same license / share alike (CC-BY-SA), no commercial uses (CC-BY-NC), no derivatives (CC-BY-ND), and public domain (CC0). There are a mix of those to make up the total 7. IANAL so I'm not sure about commercial use.

mod50ack 5y ago

Oh, Tom is right. I've seen his video (actually a fan of his stuff), and I know that there's a real problem here for Google. They need to cover their asses here, and with good reason. And in many cases the problem is with the global copyright system. But this isn't such a case --- nobody should get flagged for performing Sullivan or Mozart. It's absurd and a much easier problem to solve than the ones involving fair use which Tom discusses.

esjeon 5y ago

> a way for copyright owners to be punished for broadly overreaching with their claims. That will only harm small businesses and individuals. It doesn't take a huge sum of imagination to draw the situation in the brain. A lawyer hired by a big corporation on one side, and a poor artist on another side, both standing in the same courtroom. You already get the drama about to happen. Lawyers will happily bully those poor souls that they are fully capable of introducing more misery to their opponents, so you should just sign this paper and f** off. A few may resist, and few will survive, but the majority won't even take the case to the court out of fear. So, no, that's not a solution.

izacus 5y ago
No it's not, but it's what DMCA is. And EU is following USA with building broad and abusive copyright protection legislation. And everytime there's a proposal to make copyright law less abusive and ridiculous, there's a huge pushback from both authors, giant content megacorps and even people on HN who should know better. I bet Warner/Disney/etc. lawyers are laughing their ass off when Google - due to their crazy incompetence and use of AI - gets blamed for the law they lobbied to accept.
- pkilgore 5y ago
  Last I checked DCMA did not require proactive removal like contintID, but to be responsive to claims. Did that change?
  - izacus 5y ago
    No, but the claims are automated as well (there are APIs between content publishers and big content silos which make this distinction pretty unimportant). Ideally, the law would defend you against content providers and Googles/YouTubes and protect you from frivoulous claims. Instead DMCA codifies this approach (even if it's a bit different than what Google is doing right now).
    - kevingadd 5y ago
      The codified counter-notice approach in the DMCA is different from YouTube's approach in a very significant way. The difference is clearly felt by creators.
pkilgore 5y ago
The corporate bullies have been trotting out this argument forever to keep the status quo. But it is not as if it is impossible to craft a law that carves out protections for this exact harm, like fee shifting provisions or a cheaper administrative proceeding available to small business and non-corporate ownership. We are, as a society, capable of changing and writing creative laws. Specifically here, how do you imagine a punishment for overreach hurting small owners? They are the plaintiffs here, assuming they bring meritorious casee, they are in the driver's seat with no downside over the status quo.

swiley 5y ago

I hated that video. I think he's absolutely wrong. If that's really the case then how come people on /gif/ and /wsg/ on 4chan haven't been sued? There's tons of copyrighted music on there (the ygyl threads are almost all just commercial music with anime.) By removing the legal system Google has short circuited the law. There is a protection for individuals here, it's called perjury. If the claimants here pulled the same shit they do on 4chan that they do on youtube they would be perjured and that's why they haven't deployed bots to go suing people.

voakbasda 5y ago
Sue 4chan and members? And garner the focused attention of one of the most vile communities of trolls the world has ever seen? Let me get my popcorn, because that will be an epic shitshow to watch.
- swiley 5y ago
  >4chan and members 4chan has no members?
  - Forbo 5y ago
    Users that bought a 4chan pass could be considered "members" of a sort. Regardless of whatever you choose to call them, be it "users", "members", or "shitposters", I think the point you're trying to make is overly pedantic.
    - swiley 5y ago
      My point is that every other website doesn't appear to have this problem, it's definitely one Google created.
plantsbeans 5y ago
I don’t understand how perjury applies here.
- 5y ago

makeitdouble 5y ago

This is as usual a very well done video, and as Tom Scott mentions, there is a gap between the law and what’s happening online. He argues for how the small guy is protected by the status quo, but glosses over how the big players also massively get away with behaviors that would be prohibitively expensive/labor intensive/turned against them to do without youtube’s system. > a way for copyright owners to be punished for broadly overreaching That critically is covered by the law, and removed from the start from Youtube’s system.

leeter 5y ago

I personally think the better solution is going back to how copyright worked pre 1976, where copyright had to be positively asserted to exist and everything else went into the public domain. I'm also of the position that a 'make available' clause needs to be added to ensure that a work is constantly available during its period of copyright; moreover if the rightsholder should fail to make it available for longer than a set period of time it reverts to the public domain permanently. Finally I think the default period for copyright should be 23years (in line with patents) with progressively more expensive renewals based on the annual income of the property, the goal being to encourage people to let things go into the public domain unless they are extremely profitable.

shadilay 5y ago
I wholly agree with this but the extension period should be forever with exponentially increasing fees not based on the profit of the work which can be gamed like movies are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  Why forever and not terminated at the author’s funeral (or 20 years after publication, whichever is later)?
  - redflagsTA 5y ago
    This is tougher when the work is produced by a team and the copyright is owned by the company. There also needs to be logic to handle this other case.
not2b 5y ago
Wouldn't help; with Content ID the big companies are positively asserting copyright to things they don't own.
grishka 5y ago
IMO copyright for creative works should last a year, maybe two or three, but no more. The most income something generates is usually when it just gets released. Movies, for example, usually don't even count their revenue from outside of movie theaters. This is the only way to make copyright mostly work, and make people respect it. Right now it's so long it could as well never expire. On the other hand, if it only lasts several years, many people would have the choice of paying right now or waiting for the copyright to expire and getting it for free. It's also very unfortunate that the entirety of our pop culture is covered by copyright right now. And second thing to make it work even better: copyright should not be transferable. It should not be possible to sign something to forfeit your exclusive rights to your own work.

jrochkind1 5y ago

I think you are probably basically right, but it seems notable that what YouTube does is not just a DMCA by-the-books implementation, but their own policy/structure, right? That is, they give copyright claimants more flexibilty/power than the DMCA strictly requires; the DCMA "counter-claim" process would let them put the material back up in response to a counter claim the end without the original claimant needing to approve or agree with your counter-claim, which is not how YouTube operates. Youtube's system resembles the DMCA, but is not the DMCA, and is much more pro-claimant than the actual DMCA. Woudln't an actual DMCA proess be sufficient to avoiding "suing out of oblivion"? My guess is that part of is YouTube's current business model, they make money by enforcing copyright, they have no business/profit incentive to let you file a DMCA counter-notice, and plenty to make it even easier than the DMCA specifies to file a claim.

colejohnson66 5y ago
YouTube’s “ContentID” system came about at roughly the same time as Vevo (music videos on demand) became a thing. My guess is that it was implemented to appease the rights holders so they’d put their videos on YouTube.
hnick 5y ago
DMCA doesn't protect someone who makes money directly from the content. Let the lawyers decide what that means, but I guess it could cover advertising and subscriptions if you prove there's a big chunk of copyrighted content. Hence their pseudo-DMCA appeasement process. There seems to be a gap though. If I make something independently and am not covered by Content ID and want nothing to do with it, they will need to abide by the DMCA. They have been sued over this and I think it's a fair argument. Setup a system and force me to use it without any contractual agreements, waiving my legal rights? Doesn't really seem proper.

sneak 5y ago

> Without a system like YT currently has, it would get absolutely sued into oblivion by rightful copyright complaints. That's false, the DMCA's safe harbor provision for content hosts has a mechanism in place for handling this.

twirlock 5y ago

No, it's not a problem of the copyright system that Google the corporation doesn't care about the concept of public domain. That's a "quasi-government monopoly that benefits from gestapo apologetics whenever the public critiques the obvious issues any imbecile could otherwise identify" problem.

HWR_14 5y ago

ContentID is far beyond what YT needs to do to prevent themselves from being sued by copyright holders. It's a proactive difficult (or impossible) to appeal system. The DMCA requires much less involvement on their part.

Popegaf 5y ago

Isn't the solution to this already there? Creative Commons ( https://creativecommons.org/ https://creativecommons.org/ ) > One goal of Creative Commons is to increase the amount of openly licensed creativity in “the commons” — the body of work freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing. Through the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world have made their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use. Choosing a license is easy https://creativecommons.org/choose/ https://creativecommons.org/choose/ or you can have a look at the entirety of existing 7 CC licenses ( https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/ ) It's possible to allow people to use things for free with attribution (CC-BY), shared under the same license / share alike (CC-BY-SA), no commercial uses (CC-BY-NC), no derivatives (CC-BY-ND), and public domain (CC0). There are a mix of those to make up the total 7. IANAL so I'm not sure about commercial use.