7 ms·

YouTube Identifies Birdsong As Copyrighted Music

289 points by frankydp 15y ago

tensafefrogs 15y ago
Just more evidence that the DMCA is broken. This isn't YouTube's fault, it's a problem of Rumblefish harassing YouTube users.
- vajrabum 15y ago
  No. On the face of it sounds like a problem of Rumblefish stealing from users.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    It's not accurate when the RIAA says stealing like that, and it's not accurate when anyone else does either.
    - rcfox 15y ago
      The ads on the video pay out to Rumblefish instead of the video's owner.
      - lukeschlather 15y ago
        The word "steal" still obscures the true nature of the problem, which is one of demanding services they have no right to based on a flawed law. That's not theft, though it could be described as fraud, extortion, or racketeering.
        ajross 15y ago
        If you really want to be pedantic, "steal" is not a legal term. It's a term of common English routinely used to refer to any of theft, fraud, extortion and racketeering.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        I find it hard to equate an automated (bad) copyright takedown with any of those terms. Or file downloading, for that matter.
        ajross 15y ago
        Exploiting an automated takedown system for the purpose of extracting advertising revenue from non-infringing content to which you don't own the copyright is undeniably fraud.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        Fraud requires intentional bad faith. You can't accidentally commit fraud. (And there is no proof that this was anything but human error.. you could probably make a good case for gross negligence though.)
        ajross 15y ago
        You can't know intent in either direction. That's an issue of determining guilt, but this thread is a (ridiculous) digression on whether it's linguistically appropriate to use the word "steal" in reference to the takedown request. I assume you would therefore agree that it's valid to say that Rumblefish has allegedly stolen the ad revenue. So therefore you agree, right?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- savramescu 15y ago
  Only that this wasn't a DMCA request. It was a request from Rumblefish to Google, using a Google channel. I'm not trying to defend DMCA, but it wasn't used here.
fragsworth 15y ago
I am pretty sure this amounts to fraud on the part of Rumblefish.
- andrewljohnson 15y ago
  I - you the person, you the lawyer? pretty sure - just guessing, sure from some other knowledge, or just misusing words? fraud - like, they have committed a crime in some jurisdiction? I am pretty sure this amounts to uninformed speculation.
  - ubernostrum 15y ago
    Well, "fraud" in non-legal English is generally taken to mean false or deceiving statements. And falsely claiming to hold rights one does not hold is, well, a false and/or deceiving statement. Though in the realm of copyright, "slander of title" might be the more appropriate phrase.
- bo1024 15y ago
  Not if it's anything like the Megaupload controversy recently. Here's the loophole. Your EULA with YouTube states that YouTube may take down your videos for any reason. YouTube also has a side deal with certain large rightsholders that they may take down videos at any time for any reason.[1] It is implied that these takedowns will be only for DMCA purposes, but since the companies never have to officially file a DMCA notice, there are never any legal repercussions for false takedowns. Nice, eh? [1] (Edit) Well, they are only supposed to take down videos for good reason, but we haven't seen YouTube enforce that. Either way, this is between YouTube and the rightsholders; the DMCA doesn't get involved.
  - jemfinch 15y ago
    Do you have any links to substantiate your claims? I'd be interested in reading the background.
    - bo1024 15y ago
frankydp 15y ago
The interesting part is that Rumblefish is the largest sync/track provider and has a vested interest when it comes to increasing copyright ultra-protectionism. Which is sad because you would think that there "process" as they call it would be the non-legislative answer to audio copyright billing. 5,345,377 Social Soundtracks Licensed(and counting)
felixmar 15y ago
The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBlfeuZuWg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBlfeuZuWg Due to the low quality microphone the sound is a bit metallic. Perhaps that throws off YouTube's recognition software. But if there are a lot of false positives then Google should adjust its algorithm.
- bentlegen 15y ago
  The author makes it sound like Rumblefish manually inspected the video after the author disputed the automated claim, and Rumblefish still insisted the audio was copyrighted.
utunga 15y ago
has google published anything about how their audio copyright detection algorithm works? i ask because i know some people faced with the (clearly related, it seems) problem of automatically recognizing birdsong (as in - identifying from background noise, and figuring out what species).
- tomkinstinch 15y ago
  Apparently they licensed it from AudibleMagic: http://www.audiblemagic.com/ http://www.audiblemagic.com/ (source:) http://www.csh.rit.edu/~parallax/ http://www.csh.rit.edu/~parallax/
nextparadigms 15y ago
The question here is not about Youtube's algorithm being perfected or not, but about why they are having such an automatic censorship tool in the first place? They aren't doing anything illegal by not having the tool, which means they are doing it voluntarily, and since the tool is not perfect, Youtube itself can be more abusive than the copyright owners asking for takedowns. Google needs to stop this practice.
- abraham 15y ago
  Because of all the lawsuits from media conglomerates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID
rorrr 15y ago
Small claims court. Sue them for damages (and punitive, if small claim courts allow). Also, report Rumblefish for sending fake DMCA requests, it's illegal.
- brntn 15y ago
  Rumblefish hasn't sent a DMCA takedown request, they've used Google's provided tool to say that they own the rights.
  - AgentConundrum 15y ago
    I don't know if the video was ever actually taken down, but it's available now. Either YouTube has ruled in favour of the poster or Rumblefish is taking a cut of the advertising on the video. If it's the latter, then I believe that makes Rumblefish guilty of copyright infringement, since they're profiting off the copyright (the video) of the poster. DMCA request or not, that seems like it would be actionable.
dpearson 15y ago
What is truly appalling here is the claim that the video had been reviewed by humans, who had determined that birdsong was copyrighted music (although the birds ought to be flattered by that), and, as such, Rumblefish is either lying (about having looked at all), hoping to make a quick buck, or criminally incompetent. I wouldn't be surprised if Rumblefish was trying to make a buck or two off of ads here, but I'm guessing that that's their standard response, and they hope whoever made the video will give up.
- vibrunazo 15y ago
  Are there humans from Google involved in the review process somehow? Or do they just automatically accept claims from the copyright owners?
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    I'd say the wording of Rumblefish's reply implies that there are Rumblefish humans involved in the review process.
  - kamjam 15y ago
    >Are there humans from Google Yeah, good point, are there humans at Google? Or have their bots finally taken over?
    - loup-vaillant 15y ago
      If they had, we'd already be doomed. http://intelligenceexplosion.com/ http://intelligenceexplosion.com/
- marshray 15y ago
  Kill all the mockingbirds!
chjj 15y ago
Youtube is only complying with DMCA safe harbor by doing this. It requires a speedy takedown of whatever content the claim was filed against. I'm getting slightly sick of people claiming this is Youtube's fault. YT is required by law to do this.
- fadzlan 15y ago
  With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally. Then again, should we not say that the algorithm that processes for copyrighted audio is imperfect and therefore could be improved further to not have false positive such as this? I would bet that someone would have copyrighted sounds such as cash register's ka-ching!. Although use of such sounds from a specific recording should be copyrighted, I should be able to record a video of a real world cash register without anybody in the world claiming my work to be theirs.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - bigiain 15y ago
    "With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally." Two comments: I wonder of Rumblefish intentionally err on the side of false positives, and use that stance in marketing their service to copyright owners? Cynical-me thinks perhaps this is just some viral marketing scam - with the birdsong being used on purpose since there's no legal-entity who could be said to be "the copyright holder" who could file fraud charges? Secondly, I wonder if there's some recourse available to audit Rumblefish over this? If they're accepting payment from Google for their alleged copyright interest in the birdsong, how exactly are they disbursing that money and to which "copyright holder"?
- mbetter 15y ago
  I see no evidence that this incident has anything to do with the DMCA.
lukeschlather 15y ago
During the SOPA mess, a lot of people on this site were saying that the DMCA is fine, we don't need a new law. However, it seems pretty clear that the DMCA is not fine. There need to be better protections against this sort of thing - no hiding behind "it wasn't a DMCA takedown notice" when your automated takedown bot fraudulently implicates someone. Also, and this almost goes without saying, we need to modify the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to at least legalize jailbreaking, whether the device is an iPhone, a PS3, or whatever. Though ideally the anti-circumvention provisions should be repealed wholesale, since they're unreasonably broad and create huge damages for a wide class of perfectly valid uses.
- Silhouette 15y ago
  > There need to be better protections against this sort of thing There is always a better protection against this sort of this: host your own content. It is regrettable that as the Internet has grown, and services that offer hosting for free in exchange for attaching ads have grown, a lot of people have forgotten that you're under no obligation to host a video file on one of those services. If your blog/pictures/videos/whatever are important to you, look for a self-hosted solution. If enough people are interested in doing that, businesses will appear to help the less technically literate do it as well, just as there are numerous businesses today that will make you a web site, register you a domain, and host everything on their servers but otherwise under your control. Unless that starts happening, all the big video sites (not that there are many of them in the grand scheme of things) can impose more or less any terms they want, including claiming all kinds of rights to use any content you upload and not giving any guarantee that they will continue to host it or that they will not modify/corrupt/ad-splatter it.
- masklinn 15y ago
  > During the SOPA mess, a lot of people on this site were saying that the DMCA is fine, we don't need a new law. The sentiment was mostly that DMCA provided enough and more than enough "protection for the artists" (as demonstrated by the numerous fraudulent DMCA cases over the year, DMCA is already way overboard). Then again, this has little to do with DMCA, it's Youtube's content copyright management tools, producing entities don't even need a DMCA they can just go "I have the copyright on this" and down goes the video.
ryanjmo 15y ago
This just happened to me with a parody video I created. I created all the music from scratch and obviously rewrote all the lyrics. And UMG review my video and said that it was indeed their property. So, I can not run ads against the video, which at this point has probably cost me $500-$1,000. There is nothing I can do right now but wait and hope YouTube changes its mind... The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQAnamKeLs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQAnamKeLs Here is what I see: These content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: UMPG Publishing Content Type: Musical Composition These content owners have reviewed your video and agreed with your dispute: Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition Your dispute is still awaiting a response from these content owners: Entity: Social Media Holdings Content Type: Musical Composition What should I do? No action is required on your part. Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video. What can I do about my video's status? Please note that the video's status can change, if the policies chosen by the content owners change. You may want to check back periodically to see if you have new options available to you. Please take a few minutes to visit our Help Center section on Policy and Copyright Guidelines, where you can learn more about copyright law and our Content Identification Service.
- nivloc 15y ago
  It's different in that neither party has claimed ownership of your content. If they delayed with intent to cause damage, sure, but otherwise a court would probably defer to the extra-judicial process Google is using. It's not ideal, and I'm not really sure if there are sites with similar revenue sharing deals like YouTube you could post it on, but it's how the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.
bipolarla 15y ago
It seems big companies fold to pressure from large companies and political pressure. It is sad they see a creator as less valid then a bigger company. I think they fear the legal teams of these larger companies. Many of them have legal teams waiting around to file suit and since they are salaried lawyers it costs the companies nothing extra to sue. On the other hand music companies already lost billions on free music being used. It appears every industry is either going through or will go through a lower cost or free model. Examples are books, music, newspapers, and the list goes on. Who pay 15 for a cd when it is easy to download for 0. I am happy many top music acts still make so much that it doesnt matter. Firemen, teachers, and cops make pennies compared to Snoop Dogg? Who deserves more? That's the dizzle for schizzle my nizzle!
KristianRoebuck 15y ago
I was so furious after reading this article, I wrote to Rumblefish demanding an explanation. Anyway, it's good news, I've just received this email. Kristian, Thank you for your note, just read your email and I share your concern. The YouTube content ID system mis-ID'd birds singing as one of our artists songs. We reviewed the video this evening and released the claim that YT assigned to us. One of our content id representatives made a mistake in the identification process and we've worked diligently to correct the error once we were made aware of it earlier today. Thank you for voicing your concern. Very much appreciated. We're doing our best to improve the process as it's very challenging for our team to keep up with the massive amount of claims coming through which grow every day. All the best, Paul Anthony | Founder and CEO | Rumblefish
- NameNickHN 15y ago
  A ray of hope. Albeit a very small one in comparison to al. the other things that are very wrong with the system.
  - KristianRoebuck 15y ago
    Absolutely, it's a shame that only cases with a little publicity get reviewed and corrected. Still, least there's a small positive to take away from this.
Tyrannosaurs 15y ago
So there are two things here. The first is Google's algorithm incorrectly identified something as another work. This is bit is a bit "yeah, whatever". False positives will happen, what's important is the processes that are put in place around the algorithm to help resolve the errors. And that's the second bit and the foobar bit, where a "human" check has confirmed it. Now, I may be skeptical but it feels very much like no-one ever looked at this, that Rumblefish basically automatically reply "yeah, that's ours" to any request or question and then leave it up to the poor video owner to show otherwise. What I'd suggest needs to happen here is, at the very least, Google, Rumblefish or whoever need to state the piece of work that's being infringed. On Google's part this should be trivial - it's algorithm must have got a match against something specific which is cataloged. The "copyright owner" at that point has a far more straight forward check (if they bother with it) and the video producer at least knows more about the claim rather than ending up in a slightly Kafka-esque position.
bnr 15y ago
Rumblefish CEO responded on Slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2693545&cid=39168105 http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2693545&cid=3916...
- GFischer 15y ago
  And a Rumblefish employee (Lead Architect actually). They at least appear to be answering questions, that's a start. Edit: apparently an AmA on Reddit too. From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3640452 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3640452 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_rumblefish_i_guess_were_the_newest/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_ru...
extension 15y ago
This is a massive problem on YouTube right now. Essentially, there are a few large troll operations that abuse Google's "Content ID" system to steal ad revenues from random accounts, while Google shows no interest in fixing the system or shutting down the fraudulent accounts. The targetted videos often contain original music or no music at all. It's so common that it seems to be a fact of life for anyone as soon as they start monetizing their videos, and it's enough to remove any desire I have to do business with Google.
cgmorton 15y ago
Geezus internet. How and why are so many people getting so damn angry about this? Rumblefish presumably gets thousands upon thousands of copyright infringement claims every day. And so far, there has been one guy who had birdsong mistaken for music. Instead of just writing an email and getting it fixed, he decides to make a post about it to make people angry, and then once Rumblefish hears what happens it gets fixed. Let's look at the key elements here. 1) It got fixed! 2) Of course they use an automated system for confirming copyrighted audio content. It's a second line of defense after Google's initial scan. The third line of defense is called customer support, and in any other situation that would be the obvious and trivial solution. 3) It's one guy! This happened ONCE! 4) It got fixed!! And if you're still worried about your own stuff being falsely identified as copyrighted music, rest assured you can always make an internet s*storm about it and your problem will be solved (this is clearly the ideal solution, yes?) Now can we please get on with our lives?
- dkarl 15y ago
  Of course they use an automated system for confirming copyrighted audio content. It's a second line of defense after Google's initial scan. It's good to pay attention to cases like this, if only to flush other such cases out of the woodwork. You say it's once, but it's more accurate to say it's at least once. I also say that if I were greedy, I'd make my "automated system" confirm everything as a violation. I'm not making that up as a crazy consume conspiracy theory. That's exactly what robosigning was: mass-production of claims that put the burden on consumers to figure out, and show evidence, of whether the company was making a valid claim or not. Robosigning (or simply returning "true" in this case) is extremely cheap, gets the job done in cases where the company is in the right, and gets the job done in many cases where the company is wrong because some people fail to jump through the hoops placed before them. In either case, it softens people up a bit before the company has to do any real work. In the case of robosigning, it might actually have been profitable, even though they got caught at exactly the wrong time, when people were mad as hell about the crisis. At any other time, the penalty for getting caught would have been lighter, and it's certainly profitable when you don't get caught. If the strategy comes close to making money even in the worst possible case, I'd call it successful, and any established means of gaining an advantage at somebody else's expense merits a certain amount of vigilance. We put locks on our doors, we have laws against fraud, and in cases like this: rest assured you can always make an internet s_storm about it and your problem will be solved (this is clearly the ideal solution, yes?) Exactly. I'm not any good at it myself, but I have to admit, it's the best way to get things done as a consumer.
murrain 15y ago
The CEO of Rumblefish did an AMA on reddit as a result of all the press this story received: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_rumblefish_i_guess_were_the_newest/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_ru...

289 points by frankydp 15y ago

Just more evidence that the DMCA is broken. This isn't YouTube's fault, it's a problem of Rumblefish harassing YouTube users.

vajrabum 15y ago
No. On the face of it sounds like a problem of Rumblefish stealing from users.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  It's not accurate when the RIAA says stealing like that, and it's not accurate when anyone else does either.
  - rcfox 15y ago
    The ads on the video pay out to Rumblefish instead of the video's owner.
    - lukeschlather 15y ago
      The word "steal" still obscures the true nature of the problem, which is one of demanding services they have no right to based on a flawed law. That's not theft, though it could be described as fraud, extortion, or racketeering.
      - ajross 15y ago
        If you really want to be pedantic, "steal" is not a legal term. It's a term of common English routinely used to refer to any of theft, fraud, extortion and racketeering.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        I find it hard to equate an automated (bad) copyright takedown with any of those terms. Or file downloading, for that matter.
        ajross 15y ago
        Exploiting an automated takedown system for the purpose of extracting advertising revenue from non-infringing content to which you don't own the copyright is undeniably fraud.
        Karunamon 15y ago
        Fraud requires intentional bad faith. You can't accidentally commit fraud. (And there is no proof that this was anything but human error.. you could probably make a good case for gross negligence though.)
        ajross 15y ago
        You can't know intent in either direction. That's an issue of determining guilt, but this thread is a (ridiculous) digression on whether it's linguistically appropriate to use the word "steal" in reference to the takedown request. I assume you would therefore agree that it's valid to say that Rumblefish has allegedly stolen the ad revenue. So therefore you agree, right?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
savramescu 15y ago
Only that this wasn't a DMCA request. It was a request from Rumblefish to Google, using a Google channel. I'm not trying to defend DMCA, but it wasn't used here.

fragsworth 15y ago

I am pretty sure this amounts to fraud on the part of Rumblefish.

andrewljohnson 15y ago
I - you the person, you the lawyer? pretty sure - just guessing, sure from some other knowledge, or just misusing words? fraud - like, they have committed a crime in some jurisdiction? I am pretty sure this amounts to uninformed speculation.
- ubernostrum 15y ago
  Well, "fraud" in non-legal English is generally taken to mean false or deceiving statements. And falsely claiming to hold rights one does not hold is, well, a false and/or deceiving statement. Though in the realm of copyright, "slander of title" might be the more appropriate phrase.
bo1024 15y ago
Not if it's anything like the Megaupload controversy recently. Here's the loophole. Your EULA with YouTube states that YouTube may take down your videos for any reason. YouTube also has a side deal with certain large rightsholders that they may take down videos at any time for any reason.[1] It is implied that these takedowns will be only for DMCA purposes, but since the companies never have to officially file a DMCA notice, there are never any legal repercussions for false takedowns. Nice, eh? [1] (Edit) Well, they are only supposed to take down videos for good reason, but we haven't seen YouTube enforce that. Either way, this is between YouTube and the rightsholders; the DMCA doesn't get involved.
- jemfinch 15y ago
  Do you have any links to substantiate your claims? I'd be interested in reading the background.
  - bo1024 15y ago

frankydp 15y ago

The interesting part is that Rumblefish is the largest sync/track provider and has a vested interest when it comes to increasing copyright ultra-protectionism. Which is sad because you would think that there "process" as they call it would be the non-legislative answer to audio copyright billing. 5,345,377 Social Soundtracks Licensed(and counting)

felixmar 15y ago

The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBlfeuZuWg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPBlfeuZuWg Due to the low quality microphone the sound is a bit metallic. Perhaps that throws off YouTube's recognition software. But if there are a lot of false positives then Google should adjust its algorithm.

bentlegen 15y ago
The author makes it sound like Rumblefish manually inspected the video after the author disputed the automated claim, and Rumblefish still insisted the audio was copyrighted.

utunga 15y ago

has google published anything about how their audio copyright detection algorithm works? i ask because i know some people faced with the (clearly related, it seems) problem of automatically recognizing birdsong (as in - identifying from background noise, and figuring out what species).

tomkinstinch 15y ago
Apparently they licensed it from AudibleMagic: http://www.audiblemagic.com/ http://www.audiblemagic.com/ (source:) http://www.csh.rit.edu/~parallax/ http://www.csh.rit.edu/~parallax/

nextparadigms 15y ago

The question here is not about Youtube's algorithm being perfected or not, but about why they are having such an automatic censorship tool in the first place? They aren't doing anything illegal by not having the tool, which means they are doing it voluntarily, and since the tool is not perfect, Youtube itself can be more abusive than the copyright owners asking for takedowns. Google needs to stop this practice.

abraham 15y ago
Because of all the lawsuits from media conglomerates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube#Content_ID

rorrr 15y ago

Small claims court. Sue them for damages (and punitive, if small claim courts allow). Also, report Rumblefish for sending fake DMCA requests, it's illegal.

brntn 15y ago
Rumblefish hasn't sent a DMCA takedown request, they've used Google's provided tool to say that they own the rights.
- AgentConundrum 15y ago
  I don't know if the video was ever actually taken down, but it's available now. Either YouTube has ruled in favour of the poster or Rumblefish is taking a cut of the advertising on the video. If it's the latter, then I believe that makes Rumblefish guilty of copyright infringement, since they're profiting off the copyright (the video) of the poster. DMCA request or not, that seems like it would be actionable.

dpearson 15y ago

What is truly appalling here is the claim that the video had been reviewed by humans, who had determined that birdsong was copyrighted music (although the birds ought to be flattered by that), and, as such, Rumblefish is either lying (about having looked at all), hoping to make a quick buck, or criminally incompetent. I wouldn't be surprised if Rumblefish was trying to make a buck or two off of ads here, but I'm guessing that that's their standard response, and they hope whoever made the video will give up.

vibrunazo 15y ago
Are there humans from Google involved in the review process somehow? Or do they just automatically accept claims from the copyright owners?
- Vivtek 15y ago
  I'd say the wording of Rumblefish's reply implies that there are Rumblefish humans involved in the review process.
- kamjam 15y ago
  >Are there humans from Google Yeah, good point, are there humans at Google? Or have their bots finally taken over?
  - loup-vaillant 15y ago
    If they had, we'd already be doomed. http://intelligenceexplosion.com/ http://intelligenceexplosion.com/
marshray 15y ago
Kill all the mockingbirds!

chjj 15y ago

Youtube is only complying with DMCA safe harbor by doing this. It requires a speedy takedown of whatever content the claim was filed against. I'm getting slightly sick of people claiming this is Youtube's fault. YT is required by law to do this.

fadzlan 15y ago
With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally. Then again, should we not say that the algorithm that processes for copyrighted audio is imperfect and therefore could be improved further to not have false positive such as this? I would bet that someone would have copyrighted sounds such as cash register's ka-ching!. Although use of such sounds from a specific recording should be copyrighted, I should be able to record a video of a real world cash register without anybody in the world claiming my work to be theirs.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- bigiain 15y ago
  "With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally." Two comments: I wonder of Rumblefish intentionally err on the side of false positives, and use that stance in marketing their service to copyright owners? Cynical-me thinks perhaps this is just some viral marketing scam - with the birdsong being used on purpose since there's no legal-entity who could be said to be "the copyright holder" who could file fraud charges? Secondly, I wonder if there's some recourse available to audit Rumblefish over this? If they're accepting payment from Google for their alleged copyright interest in the birdsong, how exactly are they disbursing that money and to which "copyright holder"?
mbetter 15y ago
I see no evidence that this incident has anything to do with the DMCA.

lukeschlather 15y ago

During the SOPA mess, a lot of people on this site were saying that the DMCA is fine, we don't need a new law. However, it seems pretty clear that the DMCA is not fine. There need to be better protections against this sort of thing - no hiding behind "it wasn't a DMCA takedown notice" when your automated takedown bot fraudulently implicates someone. Also, and this almost goes without saying, we need to modify the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA to at least legalize jailbreaking, whether the device is an iPhone, a PS3, or whatever. Though ideally the anti-circumvention provisions should be repealed wholesale, since they're unreasonably broad and create huge damages for a wide class of perfectly valid uses.

Silhouette 15y ago
> There need to be better protections against this sort of thing There is always a better protection against this sort of this: host your own content. It is regrettable that as the Internet has grown, and services that offer hosting for free in exchange for attaching ads have grown, a lot of people have forgotten that you're under no obligation to host a video file on one of those services. If your blog/pictures/videos/whatever are important to you, look for a self-hosted solution. If enough people are interested in doing that, businesses will appear to help the less technically literate do it as well, just as there are numerous businesses today that will make you a web site, register you a domain, and host everything on their servers but otherwise under your control. Unless that starts happening, all the big video sites (not that there are many of them in the grand scheme of things) can impose more or less any terms they want, including claiming all kinds of rights to use any content you upload and not giving any guarantee that they will continue to host it or that they will not modify/corrupt/ad-splatter it.
masklinn 15y ago
> During the SOPA mess, a lot of people on this site were saying that the DMCA is fine, we don't need a new law. The sentiment was mostly that DMCA provided enough and more than enough "protection for the artists" (as demonstrated by the numerous fraudulent DMCA cases over the year, DMCA is already way overboard). Then again, this has little to do with DMCA, it's Youtube's content copyright management tools, producing entities don't even need a DMCA they can just go "I have the copyright on this" and down goes the video.

ryanjmo 15y ago

This just happened to me with a parody video I created. I created all the music from scratch and obviously rewrote all the lyrics. And UMG review my video and said that it was indeed their property. So, I can not run ads against the video, which at this point has probably cost me $500-$1,000. There is nothing I can do right now but wait and hope YouTube changes its mind... The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQAnamKeLs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQAnamKeLs Here is what I see: These content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: UMPG Publishing Content Type: Musical Composition These content owners have reviewed your video and agreed with your dispute: Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition Your dispute is still awaiting a response from these content owners: Entity: Social Media Holdings Content Type: Musical Composition What should I do? No action is required on your part. Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video. What can I do about my video's status? Please note that the video's status can change, if the policies chosen by the content owners change. You may want to check back periodically to see if you have new options available to you. Please take a few minutes to visit our Help Center section on Policy and Copyright Guidelines, where you can learn more about copyright law and our Content Identification Service.

nivloc 15y ago
It's different in that neither party has claimed ownership of your content. If they delayed with intent to cause damage, sure, but otherwise a court would probably defer to the extra-judicial process Google is using. It's not ideal, and I'm not really sure if there are sites with similar revenue sharing deals like YouTube you could post it on, but it's how the cookie crumbles, unfortunately.

bipolarla 15y ago

It seems big companies fold to pressure from large companies and political pressure. It is sad they see a creator as less valid then a bigger company. I think they fear the legal teams of these larger companies. Many of them have legal teams waiting around to file suit and since they are salaried lawyers it costs the companies nothing extra to sue. On the other hand music companies already lost billions on free music being used. It appears every industry is either going through or will go through a lower cost or free model. Examples are books, music, newspapers, and the list goes on. Who pay 15 for a cd when it is easy to download for 0. I am happy many top music acts still make so much that it doesnt matter. Firemen, teachers, and cops make pennies compared to Snoop Dogg? Who deserves more? That's the dizzle for schizzle my nizzle!

KristianRoebuck 15y ago

I was so furious after reading this article, I wrote to Rumblefish demanding an explanation. Anyway, it's good news, I've just received this email. Kristian, Thank you for your note, just read your email and I share your concern. The YouTube content ID system mis-ID'd birds singing as one of our artists songs. We reviewed the video this evening and released the claim that YT assigned to us. One of our content id representatives made a mistake in the identification process and we've worked diligently to correct the error once we were made aware of it earlier today. Thank you for voicing your concern. Very much appreciated. We're doing our best to improve the process as it's very challenging for our team to keep up with the massive amount of claims coming through which grow every day. All the best, Paul Anthony | Founder and CEO | Rumblefish

NameNickHN 15y ago
A ray of hope. Albeit a very small one in comparison to al. the other things that are very wrong with the system.
- KristianRoebuck 15y ago
  Absolutely, it's a shame that only cases with a little publicity get reviewed and corrected. Still, least there's a small positive to take away from this.

Tyrannosaurs 15y ago

So there are two things here. The first is Google's algorithm incorrectly identified something as another work. This is bit is a bit "yeah, whatever". False positives will happen, what's important is the processes that are put in place around the algorithm to help resolve the errors. And that's the second bit and the foobar bit, where a "human" check has confirmed it. Now, I may be skeptical but it feels very much like no-one ever looked at this, that Rumblefish basically automatically reply "yeah, that's ours" to any request or question and then leave it up to the poor video owner to show otherwise. What I'd suggest needs to happen here is, at the very least, Google, Rumblefish or whoever need to state the piece of work that's being infringed. On Google's part this should be trivial - it's algorithm must have got a match against something specific which is cataloged. The "copyright owner" at that point has a far more straight forward check (if they bother with it) and the video producer at least knows more about the claim rather than ending up in a slightly Kafka-esque position.

bnr 15y ago

Rumblefish CEO responded on Slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2693545&cid=39168105 http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2693545&cid=3916...

GFischer 15y ago
And a Rumblefish employee (Lead Architect actually). They at least appear to be answering questions, that's a start. Edit: apparently an AmA on Reddit too. From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3640452 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3640452 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_rumblefish_i_guess_were_the_newest/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_ru...

extension 15y ago

This is a massive problem on YouTube right now. Essentially, there are a few large troll operations that abuse Google's "Content ID" system to steal ad revenues from random accounts, while Google shows no interest in fixing the system or shutting down the fraudulent accounts. The targetted videos often contain original music or no music at all. It's so common that it seems to be a fact of life for anyone as soon as they start monetizing their videos, and it's enough to remove any desire I have to do business with Google.

cgmorton 15y ago

Geezus internet. How and why are so many people getting so damn angry about this? Rumblefish presumably gets thousands upon thousands of copyright infringement claims every day. And so far, there has been one guy who had birdsong mistaken for music. Instead of just writing an email and getting it fixed, he decides to make a post about it to make people angry, and then once Rumblefish hears what happens it gets fixed. Let's look at the key elements here. 1) It got fixed! 2) Of course they use an automated system for confirming copyrighted audio content. It's a second line of defense after Google's initial scan. The third line of defense is called customer support, and in any other situation that would be the obvious and trivial solution. 3) It's one guy! This happened ONCE! 4) It got fixed!! And if you're still worried about your own stuff being falsely identified as copyrighted music, rest assured you can always make an internet s*storm about it and your problem will be solved (this is clearly the ideal solution, yes?) Now can we please get on with our lives?

dkarl 15y ago
Of course they use an automated system for confirming copyrighted audio content. It's a second line of defense after Google's initial scan. It's good to pay attention to cases like this, if only to flush other such cases out of the woodwork. You say it's once, but it's more accurate to say it's at least once. I also say that if I were greedy, I'd make my "automated system" confirm everything as a violation. I'm not making that up as a crazy consume conspiracy theory. That's exactly what robosigning was: mass-production of claims that put the burden on consumers to figure out, and show evidence, of whether the company was making a valid claim or not. Robosigning (or simply returning "true" in this case) is extremely cheap, gets the job done in cases where the company is in the right, and gets the job done in many cases where the company is wrong because some people fail to jump through the hoops placed before them. In either case, it softens people up a bit before the company has to do any real work. In the case of robosigning, it might actually have been profitable, even though they got caught at exactly the wrong time, when people were mad as hell about the crisis. At any other time, the penalty for getting caught would have been lighter, and it's certainly profitable when you don't get caught. If the strategy comes close to making money even in the worst possible case, I'd call it successful, and any established means of gaining an advantage at somebody else's expense merits a certain amount of vigilance. We put locks on our doors, we have laws against fraud, and in cases like this: rest assured you can always make an internet s_storm about it and your problem will be solved (this is clearly the ideal solution, yes?) Exactly. I'm not any good at it myself, but I have to admit, it's the best way to get things done as a consumer.

murrain 15y ago

The CEO of Rumblefish did an AMA on reddit as a result of all the press this story received: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_rumblefish_i_guess_were_the_newest/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_ru...