YouTube Copyright ID Scammers Must Pay Artists $3.3M Restitution | Hacker News Reader

YouTube Copyright ID Scammers Must Pay Artists $3.3M Restitution

torrentfreak.com

218 pointsgslin49 comments

I've been getting 1960s public domain Atomic Energy Commission films scanned from 16mm reels at the National Archives and posting on YouTube. I noticed they were running a lot of ads even though I had monetization off. Turns out, each one got a few copyright claims from people who apparently release "remastered" old music in the 2010s. I got annoyed and disputed them all and as of yesterday the claims have all been released. What a pain.

Yeah copyright is a mess even if you’re trying to do it legitimately. I don’t even know how you’re supposed to use licensed music without getting a strike.

You're not. Nothing about this system was designed for regular people, it was designed for media firms and Hollywood. It's absolutely archaic and the fact that the only update to it in broad terms has been the DMCA explains why it's such an unmitigated disaster.

@PhilosophyTube on Twitter had a great thread (now deleted, I think she deletes her old Tweets) about how she spent weeks getting an actual license for a track for YouTube (and paid for it!), only to get copyright striked anyways, and the resulting delays and lost revenue that followed because of it. It is effectively impossible for normal people, even ones who have significant resources to do so

> I got annoyed and disputed them all and as of yesterday the claims have all been released. What a pain.

And from what I've seen, YouTube allows Content ID to automatically claim any and all "infringing" content, but the people who post the claimed videos must dispute each one individually.

Obviously, the primary goal is to make big copyright owners happy.

Sure, but I don't think it's about companies like Google doing their buddies a favor. It's more about not wanting to fight complex and uncertain legal battles with companies that have large and well-funded legal departments. Very few of us would be above that.

Wow, cool project!

Would you mind sharing your YouTube channel? Thank you!

Sure! https://www.youtube.com/@whatisnuclear/videos

Hey, thanks for doing this. I absolutely love these old government produced science videos, and I've enjoyed some from your channel. It's nice to be able to directly thank someone who's making this content available online.

Well you're welcome! I figure it's a relatively tiny effort to digitize these compared to the work that went into producing them in the first place. It's really satisfying.

I only skimmed through the article, but if I understood correctly the scammers made $23m, now have to repay $3.3m (which probably will never happen) and some of their assets were taken. They were given 4 and 6 year prison sentences (which might be cut short for good conduct I assume).

So in 3 years these blokes come out, with probably ~5m-10m stashed away? Not a bad ROI :(.

> In addition to the jail time, both convicts had to forfeit multiple possessions related to their crimes, including bank accounts, several pieces of real estate, and cars.

Sounds like the money was already spent.

The sidekick got around 6M and forfeited around 2M [1]

[1] From the plea agreement at https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/... . Add up bank accounts, blue book car value, and redfin estimate of the house. I didn't include the Sonoran Hills parcel because it didn't have a valuation.

Generally any assets available are seized so they’ll have to successfully hide them from the court.

Finally, a real world use case for crypto.

I think people knew the crime real world use case for crypto from the beginning.

I am guessing that as part of the plea deal they would have to account for all of it. Just having assets go 'missing' would not fly.

This was federal court in the USA, so they must serve a minimum of 85% of their sentence to be eligible for release.

You have to do something crazy while locked up to go over the 85%.

Prison is no joke at any level, but they will be in a minimum "camp" I assume.

yeah, first-time non-violent offenders are typically sent to camps for sentences under 10 years.

Problem is they‘re going to be doing audits constantly when you get out to recover the money. The lawyers will never give up. Buy a house and they‘ll goto court to get the house. Buy a car same deal if new and worth a few thousand second hand. Go on a bunch of holidays get audited by IRS since you‘re meant to be broke, is that unreported income?

This is easy to bypass. Such as move to another country, use cash, use corporations, use aliases, etc.

Using cash would be found. forsensic accountants are a thing.

Moving country only works if you goto a country with no extradition.

Corporations and aliases just get you some nice fraud charges.

I think it's funny the mindset of a scammer.

I could do the things being done here as well (technically capable) but I don't want to.

As in bots that automate mass production of garbage content, voice overs, stolen content, etc... and just play numbers/wait till they're reported.

I am guessing that as part of the plea deal they had to account for all of the money.

Finally, some justice in the Wild West of YouTube copyright claims. Scammers forced to cough up $3.3M is a drop in the ocean compared to the havoc they've wreaked, but it's a start. Let's hope this sets a precedent and not just a one-off feel-good headline. Next step: overhaul the entire copyright ID system so genuine creators don't have to jump through hoops to prove they own their own work. It should be way harder to file copyright claims and actually take down content from Youtube, the amount of power these "copyright holders" have is crazy.

Fix the whole US copyright and trademark system with laws. Minimum $10k fine for abuse of the DMCA. Treat it like the FCC already treats people who fraudulently broadcast other stations call signs, for instance. Get rid of these absurdly long copyright terms disney bribed the government for in the late 90s.

This kind of technical debt in lawmaking is a huge scourge on the USA. Even if you agree with the policy stances of the Republican Party having a completely dysfunctional and incapable legislature has a huge impact on our everyday lives. At this point no law can ever be made or fixed unless people stop voting for clowns.

For others, “Even if you agree with the policy stances of the Republican Party,,,,,,,,,,, having a completely…”

Why doesn't Google have to pay the artists the full amount since the original payments were made to the wrong person?

If you think the current system is too favorable to content creators (i.e. too unfavorable to DMCA complainers), then you should go ahead and make Google pay the full amount. That would get us to a world where you have to prove that you're not violating copyright, or have to put money in escrow or something.

I'd like to go the other way. Current copyright laws are way too imbalanced in favor of copyright holders.

I'm from a gambling state (Nevada) and every 6-8 months, there's a story about a small business employee that is caught embezzling around $200k-$400k from their employer. It's usually not stated in the articles, but it's a very good guess (based on the demographic and asking "where did the money go?") that the stolen funds were played (and lost) in a casino. It always bothered me that casinos never have to pay this stolen money back, but if you or I buy stolen property, it will be immediately confiscated even if we had zero knowledge that it was from a crime. That's what this case makes me think of.

In your example there is no legal or otherwise requirement to verify to provenance of money spent in a casino. I think many would agree it's an overstep to start checking that. Going to the casino would require an invasive inquiry into every gambler's personal finances. I cannot imagine that kind of thing happening in our current world.

If I buy a bike, or any other good from another person, it is an unfaire burden on myself as well. That said, we at least have the ability to do some screening that may be otherwise impossible for a casino. I can ask at least for a copy of the receipt or proof of how the good was originally purchased. It's not perfect, and I've never personally asked or been asked for such a proof when buying/selling, but it's definitely possible.

I'm not asking for invasive credit checks to go gamble, just like there's no invasive checks to buy a bike or car stereo (back in the 90's) from a shady character on the sidewalk. Maybe my interpretation of the law - "possession of stolen property is illegal and subject to forfeiture" - is incorrect? I just think that when these cases break, the casinos should be required to return the stolen property (and maybe that's the crux of it, is money not "property"? I know it has separate laws that apply to it). Especially because most gamblers use "player's cards" that track every dollar you play (to build rewards comps). I could see the difficulty in trying to surmise how much cash was played and lost if you didn't have player tracking cards. But when there is a clear paper trail of the money, take it right back and give it to the victim. What's the problem?

My guess is that money is fungible (as a concept, ignoring serial numbers on bills) and you can't prove the money lost to a casino is the same money stolen from those employers.

> you can't prove the money lost to a casino is the same money stolen from those employers

see my sibling comment below re: player's cards

I fully agree with you in principle. It's the Law of Unintended Consequences here that would make this impossible and counterproductive to do in practice. If we could figure out a way around that I'd be for it, but I can't think of a way

Civil Asset Forfeiture, perhaps? "We're not suing YOU (the casino), we're suing the money. If you can prove the money was not obtained from illegal sources, you can have it back".

Not that i know how Content ID works, but it should red flag new content id signatures that already exists on youtube..

Indeed. For example, the video "Bruckner 8 trombone training" by Kevin Hertlein was uploaded to YouTube in 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0m2cLH1m8

Back in 2021 it bore a note saying "Music in this video: song: Calling You (Live), artist: FUN. Licensed to YouTube by TuneCore (on behalf of FUN)", and a link to another video entitled "Calling You (Live)" that was uploaded in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-577Wp8yBQ (that has subsequently been taken down).

I contacted TuneCore about this shady use of their platform to make false copyright claims; I got a reply a couple of days later basically saying that they would only respond to reports made by or on behalf of the copyright holder; they seemed uninterested in the fact that they were (or at least appeared to be) accessory to copyright fraud—presumably at least in part because there was nothing to be gained financially by investigating and putting a stop to such fraud on their platform.

I'm glad to see that the false copyright claim was eventually dropped, but this whole thing could have been avoided if YouTube's content match system was a little more skeptical about claims made about music which has already been on the platform for some time.

So, they made 24M but had to pay 3M and serve 70 months.. Idk but that doesn't sound half bad.

They also had to give back everything that was left of the 24M of course (all their assets were seized)

I am guessing they had to pay more than that, or that was left

The whole industry is a con, and only the music/performance is real.

Disputes about Fiscal and Promotional gains from content duplication go back to before Johannes Gutenberg. Up till very recently, there was a clear distinction between the act of duplication for profit, and monetizing peoples gaze.

Indeed, the copyright industry has had a windfall due to successful lobbying, and no one dares mess with Disney. The criminals were just late to the Securitization of pop-culture.

The main tragedy is most companies no longer respect the mediums or content quality. Ripping off Mark Hamill with ML technology CGI was just the final insult to the profession, and a ludicrous perversion of Copyright law.

Have a wonderful day =)

Misleading title. Pay RIAA $3.3 millions.

Not paying artists.

Based on the article that's not accurate. The article states:

"The RIAA’s claim totals $1,247,719.76 and is based on falsely claimed music of hundreds of artists."

The rest of the ~$3.3M in claims were made by other artists/labels.

The RIAA exists to collect copyright royalties on behalf of artists...That $3.3 million will make its way to the artists eventually.

Sadly this isn’t about how the „rightful” IP owners use DMCA to scam YouTubers, only about some small fish.

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