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Comment by gbuk2013 | Hacker News Reader

gbuk2013

I have a youtube channel where I post videos of dance competitions. Because it involves music, I frequently get copyright claims from whatever rights group that wants to take my ad revenue (which is 0 anyway because I disable monetisation on principle).

When you get a claim, there is an option to appeal it, all the way to a formal counter-notification which will remove your strike and require the claimant to institute court proceedings against you.

I have even used that a few times, years ago when I still got fired up by this. Now, I just appeal it once on fair use grounds and if it doesn’t get dropped I move on with my life.

Has something changed that doesn’t allow this particular channel owner to challenge the claim? (Genuinely interested as a channel owner myself.)

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> which is 0 anyway because I disable monetisation on principle

I also disable monetization on principle, but I think if a video is claimed by a copyright holder, then YouTube will add adverts in it, even if you disabled it.

As to your other point, a claim is different from a strike from what I understand. A strike is a more serious offense that may lead to blocking the account entirely. A strike can come if you dispute a claim and the claimant is considered to be in his right.

I know the distinction between a claim and a strike - I have direct experience of both. ;)

You can appeal a strike and it will be removed unless the claimant provides documents that they have instituted proceedings within a fixed period of time.

You have to provide your contact details if you appeal a strike.

Description of the various stages of the process: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797454

From what I understand, YouTube doesn't review challenges to claims, the actual claimer, the blackmailer will review the claim. And when the claimer rejects a claim the youtuber will get a strike. 3 Strikes and you are banned.

See my reply above.

But from copyright point of view, do you actually have right to post those videos with audio? I'm not convinced that it would fall under fair use, so wouldn't you need explicit license to publish the videos?

Under UK law it may fall under the protection of coverage of a current event (this being international competitions organised by a OIC member body) and also the grounds of it being partial recording of a track and low quality (to establish no commercial loss).

It is a very shaky argument, hence I give it one try and move on (it does work about 20% of the time).

I believe the difference is that you “move on with your life” which I assume means you take down the video. If you had written/produced the song and were trying to monetize it, it would be a different story. There was an article on HN recently where someone remixed a song they found on youtube and then used the remix to claim they had the copyright. YT assigned the rights of the ad revenue to the claimant despite the fact that the rightful author denied all allegations.

Your belief is somewhat misplaced. ;) I just mean I leave the video with the claimant monetising it. It is very rare that they would chose to block the audio (except for some that are blocked only in Germany which has really insane copyright laws). So I just leave them as they are, without taking them down.

But you are right in that because I do it for love rather than money, I am in a much more comfortable position.

As I mentioned in the comments below, there is the option to appeal it to a point they would have to sue you. If you are sure that you own the copyright that is an option. This may be of limited comfort if you happen to live in a jurisdiction with a f’d-up legal system (e.g. the US) but that’s not Google’s fault.

That said, there is apparently some sort of underhand agreement between Google and some major music publishers that Google will just take down the content privately with no appeal. That sucks, but it’s not what is happening here, I don’t think.

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