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This mentions something that has always irked me, YouTube trying to be informative about who the music is licensed by. For one, it's completely useless on class

This mentions something that has always irked me, YouTube trying to be informative about who the music is licensed by. For one, it's completely useless on classical piano music because the Content ID algo finds similarity in a dozen different recordings. But even when there is one canonical recording, such as Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, I'm informed that the music is licensed by: (on behalf of Sony BMG Music UK); UMPI, Kobalt Music Publishing, LatinAutor, Warner Chappell, BMI - Broadcast Music Inc., UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, LatinAutor - UMPG, SOLAR Music Rights Management, AMRA, UMPG Publishing, CMRRA, LatinAutorPerf, LatinAutor - Warner Chappell, and 15 Music Rights Societies What is happening here? Does YouTube have legal arrangements with all of these bodies to make sure they get their penny per kiloview?

djthorpe 5y ago
In my vague understanding, there are five parties: 1. The viewer or listener of the music, you might or might not get the right to listen to music in your "territory" or country, and often the music is monetised which means you get ads, or a portion of your subscription revenue is apportioned to the "view"; 2. YouTube itself, whom decides on the viewers' right to listen to the music based on their complicated set of algorithms or "claims" on the music track. They also have a complicated database of rights which includes not only rights holder relationships, but the much of the music catalogue itself; 3. A publisher of a piece of music. This copyright is for the composition (sheet music), and often YouTube may be able to work out the publishing right in a territory based on the melody match. So when you say "Content ID algo finds similarity in a dozen different recordings" this is in fact by design. Their melody matching system is in play as often publishers get paid on the composition; 4. The performance copyright of the music. This copyright is for the actual performance - whether it be live, on CD or MP3. Usually this is the record company, they will often upload or provide the music to YouTube and expect to get paid for performances. Content ID will then "claim" any third party copies of the performance and monetize them too (or sometimes block, depending on the territory of viewer, and what the publisher and performance owner wants to do for that territory); 5. Most countries also have music societies who collect on behalf of artists. So GEMA in Germany or PRS in the UK will collect money per view and by some complicated reporting will pay artists directly some small pittance every year if they are lucky. Some countries don't have societies which means YouTube doesn't need to pay. Where YouTube does not have an agreement in a country (less and less now) the music will not be monetized or may be blocked. There are huge data reports which move around to keep this system going - and the collecting societies themselves work together to ensure that the money for a view of "Never Gonna Give Up" is passed to PRS who then occasionally will pay Rick Astley. It's a nice earner for a minority of musicians to have this income when all the cover versions and MP3 sales have dried up. YouTube does have a lot of agreements with all the other parties and it's a constant job to renew and renegotiate these contracts constantly. You can see that in the rights notice you mention, this includes all the territories in which there are rights established: it's mind-boggling. No-one wants to lose control of this system and I imagine that makes it brittle and very difficult to disrupt...it's lawyers all the way down. I hope that is not all too misleading!
- DrJokepu 5y ago
  Don't forget about sub-publishers and admins, who represent the original publisher in certain territories!
anigbrowl 5y ago
It's really a pity there's no way for people to sue Youtube for abuse of the commons. Many economists like to invoke the tragedy of the commons' as a justification for property rights (real, maritime, or intellectual) but they tend to sidle around the fact that it's almost impossible for anyone to get legal standing to advocate on behalf of the commons.
- roughly 5y ago
  Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.
  - mucholove 5y ago
    As you point out—there are also fantastic administrations of shared resources. For example, many fisheries in the USA have recovered tremendously through smart limits. The Atlantic cod fishery is often cited. I personally have experienced the Pacific North West salmon fishery and can confirm that the fishing gets better up there every year while the Dominican fishery gets worse. The DR fishery has experienced the tragedy of the commons. The DR also experienced fantastic forest preservation in the 1970s. This was after all the old growth was destroyed. There was a success of the commons following a tremendous tragedy. Still, in the last few years these old laws have been disrespected and so the forests have been decimated to make way for Haas avocado plants. Do not buy Dominican Haas avocado. The tragedy of the commons is very real. Learn more about the success and failure of different shared resources through Elinor Ostrom’s work.
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      The Atlantic cod fishery is an example of massive failure. Any perception of apparent recovery has to limit its scope to the very recent past.
  - 5y ago
Operyl 5y ago
From what I understand, when multiple parties are claiming a video nobody gets the money. I can’t remember what popular YouTuber discovered this, but he basically “weaponized” it because he was tired of them going after his ad revenues even when he was within fair use, so he just started putting as much conflicting material as possible instead.
- quwert95 5y ago
  You're correct. The Youtuber is James Stephanie Sterling. She called it the "Youtube Deadlock" mechanic. Though the trick seems to be less successful now.
  - Operyl 5y ago
    That’s them! I could remember the details just not the name, they rely primarily on Patreon supporters for their revenue. EDIT: changed pronouns, been a while since I last looked into this creator.
    - maweki 5y ago
      She goes by "her" now. Edit: Yep, they/them. Should've looked it up.
      - astura 5y ago
        If you're going to correct someone, at least get it right - they prefer they/them pronouns. https://twitter.com/JimSterling https://twitter.com/JimSterling >They/Them. Pan & Trans Gendertrash in Non-Binary Finery. Indie wrestling supervillain. Polyantagonist. Hated by Gamers(tm)
- PixelOfDeath 5y ago
  I remember somebody who always claims his own videos with a secondary account. So if nobody else claims it, he still gets the money. And otherwise nobody does. Well except youtube keeps it in all this cases. Sad sad google now has to keep all the money for them self in a system they designed. What a unlucky coincident. Nothing they could do against that.
hermitdev 5y ago
> What is happening here? Music (and likely other media) is typically licensed for distribution regionally or nationally. What you're seeing here is probably the (unexhaustive) laundry list of different rights holders for various international markets. Remember region locking for DVDs? That wasn't (just) due to NSTC vs PAL.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  > That wasn't (just) due to NSTC vs PAL Correct, in fact most DVDs were encoded 480p and 24 fps, so they're neither NTSC nor PAL.
  - AnssiH 5y ago
    > most DVDs were encoded 480p and 24 fps Only in NTSC regions. PAL region DVDs are generally 576p and 25 fps.
    - jonny_eh 5y ago
      Since films are shot at 24fps, how were they converted to 25?
      - lbschenkel 5y ago
        > Since films are shot at 24fps, how were they converted to 25? Sped up by 4% to make them 25fps. The audio is supposed to be pitch-corrected, but some poorly done conversions did not do that.
        jonny_eh 5y ago
        Does that mean one of the frames is duplicated every second?
        AnssiH 5y ago
        No. If you increase the speed of 24 fps video 4%, it becomes 25 fps. Frame count does not change, frames are just shorter.
grapist420 5y ago
I do dislike YouTube for this. However, it’s a compromise they made to offer __pretty much all music, copyrighted or not, for free, to everyone, at any time__. That’s valuable! The arrangement is, essentially, yes, they have agreements with all of those bodies to give them the ad revenue in exchange for leaving the videos up

djthorpe 5y ago

In my vague understanding, there are five parties: 1. The viewer or listener of the music, you might or might not get the right to listen to music in your "territory" or country, and often the music is monetised which means you get ads, or a portion of your subscription revenue is apportioned to the "view"; 2. YouTube itself, whom decides on the viewers' right to listen to the music based on their complicated set of algorithms or "claims" on the music track. They also have a complicated database of rights which includes not only rights holder relationships, but the much of the music catalogue itself; 3. A publisher of a piece of music. This copyright is for the composition (sheet music), and often YouTube may be able to work out the publishing right in a territory based on the melody match. So when you say "Content ID algo finds similarity in a dozen different recordings" this is in fact by design. Their melody matching system is in play as often publishers get paid on the composition; 4. The performance copyright of the music. This copyright is for the actual performance - whether it be live, on CD or MP3. Usually this is the record company, they will often upload or provide the music to YouTube and expect to get paid for performances. Content ID will then "claim" any third party copies of the performance and monetize them too (or sometimes block, depending on the territory of viewer, and what the publisher and performance owner wants to do for that territory); 5. Most countries also have music societies who collect on behalf of artists. So GEMA in Germany or PRS in the UK will collect money per view and by some complicated reporting will pay artists directly some small pittance every year if they are lucky. Some countries don't have societies which means YouTube doesn't need to pay. Where YouTube does not have an agreement in a country (less and less now) the music will not be monetized or may be blocked. There are huge data reports which move around to keep this system going - and the collecting societies themselves work together to ensure that the money for a view of "Never Gonna Give Up" is passed to PRS who then occasionally will pay Rick Astley. It's a nice earner for a minority of musicians to have this income when all the cover versions and MP3 sales have dried up. YouTube does have a lot of agreements with all the other parties and it's a constant job to renew and renegotiate these contracts constantly. You can see that in the rights notice you mention, this includes all the territories in which there are rights established: it's mind-boggling. No-one wants to lose control of this system and I imagine that makes it brittle and very difficult to disrupt...it's lawyers all the way down. I hope that is not all too misleading!

DrJokepu 5y ago
Don't forget about sub-publishers and admins, who represent the original publisher in certain territories!

anigbrowl 5y ago

It's really a pity there's no way for people to sue Youtube for abuse of the commons. Many economists like to invoke the tragedy of the commons' as a justification for property rights (real, maritime, or intellectual) but they tend to sidle around the fact that it's almost impossible for anyone to get legal standing to advocate on behalf of the commons.

roughly 5y ago
Incidentally, “tragedy of the commons” is one of those things like “inventing money because barter is inefficient” that exists in the lore of economists but doesn’t seem to exist in the real world, and most societies at most times in most places in history seem to have done just fine managing “the commons” as a shared resource through social compact and peer pressure.
- mucholove 5y ago
  As you point out—there are also fantastic administrations of shared resources. For example, many fisheries in the USA have recovered tremendously through smart limits. The Atlantic cod fishery is often cited. I personally have experienced the Pacific North West salmon fishery and can confirm that the fishing gets better up there every year while the Dominican fishery gets worse. The DR fishery has experienced the tragedy of the commons. The DR also experienced fantastic forest preservation in the 1970s. This was after all the old growth was destroyed. There was a success of the commons following a tremendous tragedy. Still, in the last few years these old laws have been disrespected and so the forests have been decimated to make way for Haas avocado plants. Do not buy Dominican Haas avocado. The tragedy of the commons is very real. Learn more about the success and failure of different shared resources through Elinor Ostrom’s work.
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    The Atlantic cod fishery is an example of massive failure. Any perception of apparent recovery has to limit its scope to the very recent past.
- 5y ago

Operyl 5y ago

From what I understand, when multiple parties are claiming a video nobody gets the money. I can’t remember what popular YouTuber discovered this, but he basically “weaponized” it because he was tired of them going after his ad revenues even when he was within fair use, so he just started putting as much conflicting material as possible instead.

quwert95 5y ago
You're correct. The Youtuber is James Stephanie Sterling. She called it the "Youtube Deadlock" mechanic. Though the trick seems to be less successful now.
- Operyl 5y ago
  That’s them! I could remember the details just not the name, they rely primarily on Patreon supporters for their revenue. EDIT: changed pronouns, been a while since I last looked into this creator.
  - maweki 5y ago
    She goes by "her" now. Edit: Yep, they/them. Should've looked it up.
    - astura 5y ago
      If you're going to correct someone, at least get it right - they prefer they/them pronouns. https://twitter.com/JimSterling https://twitter.com/JimSterling >They/Them. Pan & Trans Gendertrash in Non-Binary Finery. Indie wrestling supervillain. Polyantagonist. Hated by Gamers(tm)
PixelOfDeath 5y ago
I remember somebody who always claims his own videos with a secondary account. So if nobody else claims it, he still gets the money. And otherwise nobody does. Well except youtube keeps it in all this cases. Sad sad google now has to keep all the money for them self in a system they designed. What a unlucky coincident. Nothing they could do against that.

hermitdev 5y ago

> What is happening here? Music (and likely other media) is typically licensed for distribution regionally or nationally. What you're seeing here is probably the (unexhaustive) laundry list of different rights holders for various international markets. Remember region locking for DVDs? That wasn't (just) due to NSTC vs PAL.

jonny_eh 5y ago
> That wasn't (just) due to NSTC vs PAL Correct, in fact most DVDs were encoded 480p and 24 fps, so they're neither NTSC nor PAL.
- AnssiH 5y ago
  > most DVDs were encoded 480p and 24 fps Only in NTSC regions. PAL region DVDs are generally 576p and 25 fps.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    Since films are shot at 24fps, how were they converted to 25?
    - lbschenkel 5y ago
      > Since films are shot at 24fps, how were they converted to 25? Sped up by 4% to make them 25fps. The audio is supposed to be pitch-corrected, but some poorly done conversions did not do that.
      - jonny_eh 5y ago
        Does that mean one of the frames is duplicated every second?
        AnssiH 5y ago
        No. If you increase the speed of 24 fps video 4%, it becomes 25 fps. Frame count does not change, frames are just shorter.

grapist420 5y ago

I do dislike YouTube for this. However, it’s a compromise they made to offer __pretty much all music, copyrighted or not, for free, to everyone, at any time__. That’s valuable! The arrangement is, essentially, yes, they have agreements with all of those bodies to give them the ad revenue in exchange for leaving the videos up