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Comment by bl4k | Hacker News Reader

The more interesting next step is that the matching is being used to send advertising revenue to the copyright owners. So instead of taking down your video, the copyright owner can opt to leave it up and collect on the ad dollars.

The recent example of this was the clip from Mad Men about the carousel (if you haven't seen it, look it up). Uploaded by an ordinary user but AMC left it up and instead collected on the ad revenue.

So the tech isn't just being used to prevent any clips from reaching the web - it is actually enabling copyrighted content to be shared and quoted on the web with a sustainable business model - a whole point that Jeff missed.

The Economist wrote about this a while ago.

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And everyone wins in this scenario, don't they? The content owner collects revenue, and the general public gets to view the video they were (probably) searching for.

The content owner collects revenue

And free publicity. Must be nice to have your cake and then get to eat it, too.

It's worthwhile in this situation to note that they baked the cake too.

content owner != creator

Fine, paid for the cake to be baked, or bought it from whoever baked it, or financed the baking in return for some percent interest in the resulting cake's profits, if we must be technical. But this type of objection really, seriously doesn't add to the discussion.

and what if you added just a little bit of your own creativeness into the video/sound clip? shouldn't you be paid also? will machine be also determining how many percent of the revenue you should be getting?

Depends. If you were really creative with it then it would be fair use and the original content owners technically shouldn't get anything.

If I buy a can of tomato soup and pour it in the ocean, do I not own the sea?

According to Andy Warhol

Now that is Pandora box of creativity. It sounds nice if algorithm finds you improved the artwork - you're getting paid your share. In case if it finds that you ruined it ...

There's always a dark side to every argument which is why we see so many companies simply deciding to abandon everything as the easiest solution.

"Uploaded by an ordinary user but AMC left it up and instead collected on the ad revenue."

So, the computer program looked at the facts, passed the judgment and collected upon it. Looks like a very efficient RoboCop and no bloodsucking lawyers involved.

Er, no. AMC owns the studio that produces Mad Men, so their contact with Youtube would have chosen to collect the ad money - not a computer making that decision.

No to your no.

"If Content ID identifies a match between a user upload and material in the reference library, it applies the usage policy designated by the content owner. "

That's what the parent said. The system didn't decide, the content owner did.

TGIF - it is the only reason i could think of to explain the fact that there are at least 2 people who couldn't make distinction between the act of creating law/policy by Congress/"content owner" and the act of application of said law/policy by judge and police / Youtube software.

Isn't this the "Monetize" option that copyright holders can exercise on a video that matches their own in the content id system?

Or do you mean something else?

NYT wrote about exactly that earlier this month: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/technology/03youtube.html

from my article: "The particular content provider whose copyright I matched chose the draconian block policy. That's certainly not Google's fault, but I guess you could say I'm Feeling Unlucky." No, I don't think I missed that point.

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