7 ms·

Not sure if its what the poster above is talking about, but there's definitely a hash collision type attack that's common on Youtube with regards to classical m

Not sure if its what the poster above is talking about, but there's definitely a hash collision type attack that's common on Youtube with regards to classical music. The attacker in question uploads very standard renditions of thousands of pieces of classical music, and claims copyright on them. Content ID then flags any video using one of these pieces as potentially violating the rights of the rightholder. The attacker then claims the video, and claims revenue on the video rather than taking it down. There's an appeal process which seems to work about 0% of the time, and after that the only recourse the uploader has is to submit a copyright counter notification, which becomes the start of a potential lawsuit. The attackers in question will then typically relent if challenged with a copyright counter claim, but most videos don't get counter claimed once this happened. This pattern of behavior seems so common that it has led to two interesting patterns of behavior that I've seen. 1) Any video that uses popular public domain music will be claimed not once, but dozens or hundreds of times, because there are so many channels operating this way now, and 2) If you post a video and immediately get hit with a huge wave of claims, rather than going through Youtube's process, most uploaders just delete the video, remove whatever audio caused the problem, and reupload.

flkenosad 3y ago
Wow what a mess. At what point do we move on from copyright laws? Or more broadly intellectual property, in general. Even the words "intellectual property" sound ridiculous together when you think about it.
- novok 3y ago
  If you think deeper about it, the general concept of property is similarly ridiculous too. An arbitrary piece of land being ‘owned’ is similarly arbitrary human social concept, enforced by law and a registry
  - j16sdiz 3y ago
    Music have no registry. It is much worse than land property
  - flkenosad 3y ago
    Maybe true, but one step at a time IMO.
  - rjbwork 3y ago
    If you're interested in reading about this sort of thing, some fun keywords are "enclosures", "Lockean Priviso", and "monopoly on violence".
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I agree that it's an arbitrary social concept, but it's not ridiculous at all, deeper thought or not. I think it's completely reasonable to expect that my house is my house, and others aren't allowed to enter it or live on my property without my consent. If you think we all should live commune-style and have no property or physical privacy, that's certainly fair for you to believe, but the vast majority of the people in the world would staunchly disagree with you... hence the concept of property ownership. Certainly there are issues with how we've implemented property ownership, but I don't think the concept itself is inherently flawed or ridiculous.
- opan 3y ago
  >Even the words "intellectual property" sound ridiculous together when you think about it. For this reason, many would suggest not using it. It's a vague way of combining the separate issues of copyright, patents, and trademarks. It also illegitimately tries to equate those things to property, which changes how many feel about it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Intellect...
  - flkenosad 3y ago
    Thank you for that information. In the future I'll direct my criticism more precisely. To clarify, it is mainly copyright laws I have a bone to pick with. Trademarks make sense. Patent laws sort of make sense in some circumstances, less in others.
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      As we get closer to Star Trek replicators, patent law begins to look similarly inapplicable.
gnopgnip 3y ago
That’s not what a hash collision is. Uploading popular (public domain) music and claiming you own it is just fraud
- 0xffff2 3y ago
  I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but I assume the hash collision comes in because Youtube uses some kind of fuzzy hash, so a generic music performance will flag videos using the same piece of music, but not necessarily the same performance.
- viridian 3y ago
  I agree that it's not hash collision, but the fingerprinting strategy makes precise language on this topic a bit difficult/tedious. The CSAM detection isn't proper hash collision either, in so far as I understand it. There's some fuzzy matching formula that generates the fingerprint, it's not simply a byte for byte hash taken of the image, and therein lies the comparison. The fraud in question is reliant on content ID attempting to fuzzy match audio content, in this specific instance.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    It's a hash, but it's not a cryptographic hash.
josephcsible 3y ago
I wish that willful false copyright claims carried the same $250,000 penalty that copyright infringement does.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  That would be ridiculous. But there are penalties for false claims. There is a fine for claiming copyright you don't own, and if you go further and ask for takedowns, you are also liable for damage. The problem is that these are rarely enforced. Even a $100 fine for a false claim on YouTube would be enough to weed out bots and click farms. And for the most serious cases, have the infringer pay damage and a bigger fine. No need to change the law for that, it just has to be enforced.
  - Hizonner 3y ago
    > That would be ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous, in a world where the penalty for sharing a single music file is $250,000?
    - kelnos 3y ago
      That's an argument to reduce the penalty for sharing a single music file, not for making the penalty for a false report also ridiculous. Then again, I personally do think that knowingly filing a false report of law-breaking should be treated as a very serious crime. I think the harm of filing a false report of copyright infringement is greater than the act of infringing copyright itself.
      - tuhriel 3y ago
        I mean it should be AT LEAST be handled like a copyright infringement itself. As you propose as owner of the copyright... For stuff that is actually copyrighted that probably could only be triggered by the actual rights holder.
  - LeifCarrotson 3y ago
    Consider the penalties given for a crime, and compare those to the penalties given when police or prosecutorial or judicial misconduct falsely, incompetently, or corruptly imprisons someone for that crime. The latter are overwhelmingly more rare, but overwhelmingly larger. Society in general thinks false penalties for crimes are worse than the crime itself. "It is better that 10 guilty men go free, than that one innocent man should suffer." I think that if the penalty for copyright infringement is $250,000, the penalty for a false claim should be $2,500,000. You're right that a $100 low-effort, frequently-enforced counterclaim process would weed out ContentID bot farms (just like a $0.01/email transaction cost would weed out spam). But remember that the whole ecosystem is already ridiculous; if the pro-copyright MPAA/RIAA are pushing for $250k/infringement you have to be equally ridiculous to balance counterclaims.
Bewelge 3y ago
I have some, though maybe outdated, experience with that: In 2008, I was 15 and had the idea of creating youtube videos using MIDI files of classical piano songs that had entered the public domain. They're free to use and in theory, videos stay up forever and these classical songs are timeless, so that means after uploading I'd earn passive income forever! Or so I thought... Every single video was copyright claimed. Youtube falsely thought it was a recording (which do have copyright). The second a claim was created I stopped earning money. I would then dispute the claim, explaining that it's not even a sound recording and they had a month to react to my answer. In almost all instances the claims were retracted but it would only take a couple of days until another claim would be filed on that video. Answering all those claims took up more time than producing the videos so I gave up after a while. But in my experience it wasn't really malicious actors filing these claims but youtube's filter simply not managing to distinguish between a recording of a classical piano piece and a well synthesized version of it. I actually remember most claims being filed by Sony. It's interesting to hear that it's still this way because I don't really believe that nowadays, youtube still can't distinguish between different recordings of classical music. I guess they have no incentive to improve in that regard. But I think the fact that nobody but the large labels are able to earn money with classical music on these large platforms is actually an excellent argument against upload filters and in my experience it's an argument that non-tech people can much better relate to than hash-collisions.

flkenosad 3y ago

Wow what a mess. At what point do we move on from copyright laws? Or more broadly intellectual property, in general. Even the words "intellectual property" sound ridiculous together when you think about it.

novok 3y ago
If you think deeper about it, the general concept of property is similarly ridiculous too. An arbitrary piece of land being ‘owned’ is similarly arbitrary human social concept, enforced by law and a registry
- j16sdiz 3y ago
  Music have no registry. It is much worse than land property
- flkenosad 3y ago
  Maybe true, but one step at a time IMO.
- rjbwork 3y ago
  If you're interested in reading about this sort of thing, some fun keywords are "enclosures", "Lockean Priviso", and "monopoly on violence".
- kelnos 3y ago
  I agree that it's an arbitrary social concept, but it's not ridiculous at all, deeper thought or not. I think it's completely reasonable to expect that my house is my house, and others aren't allowed to enter it or live on my property without my consent. If you think we all should live commune-style and have no property or physical privacy, that's certainly fair for you to believe, but the vast majority of the people in the world would staunchly disagree with you... hence the concept of property ownership. Certainly there are issues with how we've implemented property ownership, but I don't think the concept itself is inherently flawed or ridiculous.
opan 3y ago
>Even the words "intellectual property" sound ridiculous together when you think about it. For this reason, many would suggest not using it. It's a vague way of combining the separate issues of copyright, patents, and trademarks. It also illegitimately tries to equate those things to property, which changes how many feel about it. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Intellect...
- flkenosad 3y ago
  Thank you for that information. In the future I'll direct my criticism more precisely. To clarify, it is mainly copyright laws I have a bone to pick with. Trademarks make sense. Patent laws sort of make sense in some circumstances, less in others.
  - timschmidt 3y ago
    As we get closer to Star Trek replicators, patent law begins to look similarly inapplicable.

gnopgnip 3y ago

That’s not what a hash collision is. Uploading popular (public domain) music and claiming you own it is just fraud

0xffff2 3y ago
I don't have any direct knowledge of this, but I assume the hash collision comes in because Youtube uses some kind of fuzzy hash, so a generic music performance will flag videos using the same piece of music, but not necessarily the same performance.
viridian 3y ago
I agree that it's not hash collision, but the fingerprinting strategy makes precise language on this topic a bit difficult/tedious. The CSAM detection isn't proper hash collision either, in so far as I understand it. There's some fuzzy matching formula that generates the fingerprint, it's not simply a byte for byte hash taken of the image, and therein lies the comparison. The fraud in question is reliant on content ID attempting to fuzzy match audio content, in this specific instance.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  It's a hash, but it's not a cryptographic hash.

josephcsible 3y ago

I wish that willful false copyright claims carried the same $250,000 penalty that copyright infringement does.

GuB-42 3y ago
That would be ridiculous. But there are penalties for false claims. There is a fine for claiming copyright you don't own, and if you go further and ask for takedowns, you are also liable for damage. The problem is that these are rarely enforced. Even a $100 fine for a false claim on YouTube would be enough to weed out bots and click farms. And for the most serious cases, have the infringer pay damage and a bigger fine. No need to change the law for that, it just has to be enforced.
- Hizonner 3y ago
  > That would be ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous, in a world where the penalty for sharing a single music file is $250,000?
  - kelnos 3y ago
    That's an argument to reduce the penalty for sharing a single music file, not for making the penalty for a false report also ridiculous. Then again, I personally do think that knowingly filing a false report of law-breaking should be treated as a very serious crime. I think the harm of filing a false report of copyright infringement is greater than the act of infringing copyright itself.
    - tuhriel 3y ago
      I mean it should be AT LEAST be handled like a copyright infringement itself. As you propose as owner of the copyright... For stuff that is actually copyrighted that probably could only be triggered by the actual rights holder.
- LeifCarrotson 3y ago
  Consider the penalties given for a crime, and compare those to the penalties given when police or prosecutorial or judicial misconduct falsely, incompetently, or corruptly imprisons someone for that crime. The latter are overwhelmingly more rare, but overwhelmingly larger. Society in general thinks false penalties for crimes are worse than the crime itself. "It is better that 10 guilty men go free, than that one innocent man should suffer." I think that if the penalty for copyright infringement is $250,000, the penalty for a false claim should be $2,500,000. You're right that a $100 low-effort, frequently-enforced counterclaim process would weed out ContentID bot farms (just like a $0.01/email transaction cost would weed out spam). But remember that the whole ecosystem is already ridiculous; if the pro-copyright MPAA/RIAA are pushing for $250k/infringement you have to be equally ridiculous to balance counterclaims.

Bewelge 3y ago

I have some, though maybe outdated, experience with that: In 2008, I was 15 and had the idea of creating youtube videos using MIDI files of classical piano songs that had entered the public domain. They're free to use and in theory, videos stay up forever and these classical songs are timeless, so that means after uploading I'd earn passive income forever! Or so I thought... Every single video was copyright claimed. Youtube falsely thought it was a recording (which do have copyright). The second a claim was created I stopped earning money. I would then dispute the claim, explaining that it's not even a sound recording and they had a month to react to my answer. In almost all instances the claims were retracted but it would only take a couple of days until another claim would be filed on that video. Answering all those claims took up more time than producing the videos so I gave up after a while. But in my experience it wasn't really malicious actors filing these claims but youtube's filter simply not managing to distinguish between a recording of a classical piano piece and a well synthesized version of it. I actually remember most claims being filed by Sony. It's interesting to hear that it's still this way because I don't really believe that nowadays, youtube still can't distinguish between different recordings of classical music. I guess they have no incentive to improve in that regard. But I think the fact that nobody but the large labels are able to earn money with classical music on these large platforms is actually an excellent argument against upload filters and in my experience it's an argument that non-tech people can much better relate to than hash-collisions.