Copyright claims on YouTube Bach videos

youtube.com

69 pointscunidev35 comments

Nothing to see here. These performances are from 1984, which means that the recording companies that own their copyright have the right to block them in the US and other countries.

False claims are endemic for classical youtube uploads. AI systems and human agents alike conflate different recordings of the same work more as a rule than as an exception. Both ability and incentives create a massive bias in favor of this state of affairs.

How do you know that they are performances from 1984? Where did you get that?

I just found something before clicking submit. From another video:

> Confutatis K.626 - Scrolling Score

> Performer & Album Info - 7:35

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMwaiA581AQ&t=455s

This is the one I'm referring to. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Fugue-Bach/dp/B00000E2U0

I thought this was a reference to 1984, but nope. I checked the other videos on the channel, and it was indeed (professional) performances in recent decades, which has a separate copyright. In this case, as law stands now, UMG (Universal Music Group), with the agreement of the performer*, owns the rights of the performances.

* Whether the performer have regrets (seems unlikely though in this case) is for outside discussion.

Well, if the uploader's using copyrighted recordings rather than a midi or performing the pieces themself or using a more liberally licensed recording, it is understandable. Bach's pieces may be free but musicians' performances of them aren't.

Youtube is _filled_ with classical musicians getting shafted by this, from amateur ensembles to semi-pros and even some professional groups getting silenced or defunded by these algos. The trouble is that Bach played well sounds like...well, Bach. If you're not "the first owner" of the copyright (and a big music company), you tend to get screwed financially (and the big companies do a LOT of screwing). YT's algorithms are designed to detect "I took this whole TV show up a tone in pitch and put a fake pair of curtains on the front to evade content ID". The Bach will sound "the same" to a copyright algorithm.

I only listen to classical music, and I've noticed that where YT used to once be a great source of legally-free brilliant performances (often with scores!) it's been going downhill and I've slowly been redirected to copyrighted Big Media recordings of old classics (which usually I do not prefer).

Yeah I am a classical music listener and I have noticed the same decline in availability in rare and interesting recordings on YT

My mom got bitten by this. After my dad died, she uploaded a video of him playing his violin with a baby on his lap. The music is in public domain, and it was demonstrably an original recording of a (sorry, dad) rank amateur. It got blocked so fast that my adult cousin, the baby in the video, couldn't watch it. This isn't understandable, it's ridiculous overreach.

Why didn't your mom just put it on a flash drive or something?

She used youtube so she could share it with family spread across six states and three countries. How's the flash drive gonna help?

It turns the recording into a physical object and can be shared privately. Obviously YouTube is not the place for these kinds of family recordings because they aren't for a general audience and should not be subject to YouTube's various destructive treatments

Across 6 states and 3 countries? We're talking a couple hundred bucks in postage and a malware vector. Thanks for the practical advice.

And, fwiw, the remainder of the old movies she put up didn't get flagged, so you're wrong about the fitness of the platform for dorky family videos.

I sincerely doubt that it would cost a couple hundred bucks for that amount of shipment. Further, if you're worried about an attack vector, put the videos on a mini-DVD or some other format that is also small and read-only.

And yeah, the remainder of the videos might not have been flagged, but we're talking about the one that did. Please keep the focus placed on the problem that you brought up.

You’re downvoted but I have a similar point / question.. there are many ways to share personal videos privately (text message, cloud photo sharing service etc.); YouTube is a terrible choice for this (despite some forays into that world long ago).

Given the ubiquity of YouTube, that may have been the best option for uploading she had. Yes, “we” know there are many options, but when there is a bright, shiny, button that says “upload to YouTube” then why not use that? After all, that should also work for sharing videos with family members.

> when there is a bright, shiny, button that says “upload to YouTube” then why not use that?

This was already answered by klyrs further up the thread: because the videos are subject to YouTube's policies which commonly involve altering or destroying parts of the media without warning.

I once got a copyright claim for a classic song (copyright expired) that I played with Timidity++ (both software and voice is free). YouTube is somehow good at detecting a similar-sounding tune that isn't the exact copy of the original. It's such a discouraging experience.

I am not sure of the example that this video pointed out in particular, but most others seem to have "Public Domain Compositions" of many sorts as the "music in the video" tagged by YouTube.

While I agree that it lacks some context, it seems like smaller mislabeled clips were the source of this "violation" rather than the usage of whole copyrighted clips.

> musicians' performances

It's kind of nonsensical that performances based on a public domain piece of art can be copyrighted. That would be the similar to making the Linux kernel proprietary again just because you change the way the code is formatted.

Also, let's not even pretend it's impossible to imitate someone's way of playing while still doing your own interpretation. How would algos know?!?

Agree. Recordings of compositions in the public domain should never be eligible for copyright protection at all.

Doesn't youtube have an option to allow the copyright holders to monetize the videos in these cases? i.e. Get a cut of the AdSense revenue that would otherwise go to the uploader? Did this user choose not to split that revenue and instead opt to take down the videos, or did the record label force the takedown? It seems to me that it would be interest of the record label to take a cut of the profits off of recordings that would otherwise not make them a dime.

That doesn't fix the issue of the copyright holder being incorrectly identified. A musician uploading their own music should not have to give up their revenue to a company that holds a copyright on a different recording of the same public domain score.

It does, but things like that are legally opt in

Seems like a great class action lawsuit waiting to happen.

Except you have no legal right to be served by YouTube under current law.

If they're a public space, then you should have that right. If they're a publisher then yeah agree.

I think a case could be made that they have to pick a lane.

Not against YouTube. Against people making false copyright claims, for treble damages and systemic fees

Nope, because they aren’t making a legal claim, just a commercial one (a route YouTube setup specifically because the dcma misuse provisions are harsher than they’d like).

Get permission to play clips from a generalist record label like Naxos. Typically they're more than happy to oblige, for obvious reasons. People do this...

Why would they happily oblige? Or is it sarcasm that I fail to detect?

No sarcasm. Many classical music fans shop based on recommendations. A solid recommendation along with hearing a clip increases sales, so it's in labels' best interest to give popular reviewers permission. David Hurwitz on YT is a good example.

Yet another reason to either create your own video site or move to one of the hundreds of alternatives available.

Who are UMG?

Universal Music Group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Music_Group

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