Washing machine chime scandal shows how absurd YouTube copyright abuse can get | Hacker News Reader

Washing machine chime scandal shows how absurd YouTube copyright abuse can get

arstechnica.com

69 pointscoloneltcb33 comments

Social media companies need to be required to have a way to reach customer support. The only reason he got any help was that he was a big enough content creator to be able to raise a stink.

Not just that, but the person issuing the false copyright claim should be responsibl for all the damages and predicted lost income in case of a false accusation, and that should include the operators of automated systems.

Will your false copyright claim cause someone to lose money? Well, you'll have to pay them back if they prove the claim is false, so better triple check the content for fase positives, fair use, etc., before claiming anything.

Yes, it really blows my mind that this isn't the case. It really shows how unbelievably powerful the "rightsholder" interests are, that they can not only demand one-way accountability, but also get one of the biggest and most powerful corporations in the world to enforce and operate it for them.

Well, there is some accountability penalty in the DMCA, but it's just against people who issue takedowns for content they know they aren't responsible for. In other words, the only penalty is for impersonation, not for totally frivolous and excessive claims.

There is some merit in limiting who-can-file-for-what, however it also annoys me since it also closes off a route of activism which could help force a consistent application of the rules. (Thus exposing both how bad the system is and also forcing rights-holders to curb their overreach.)

For example, imagine that AcmeCorp lawyers were to abuse takedowns to remove negative reviews of their product, while ignoring positive reviews that are equally-or-more "infringing." Or if multiple companies arranged a kind of ceasefire-cartel while using the law to persecute others. If a citizen could "help" them with removing all that content they "missed"...

It is very asymmetric. The supposed rightsholder just has to fill out an online form or make an automated API request to take down content in an often automated, guilty-until-proven-innocent system. But to dispute a claim the supposed violoter has to go through a much more arduous process with limited information. To seek accountability of a false claim, they must go to the courts which are innocent until proven guilty, and will take significant time and money to pursue. And the claimant can just claim it was a mistake. That may even be true. After all there isn't an incentive to put any effort into making sure your claim is valid before making it.

Incorrect

> Incorrect

Insufficient

Correct. https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

Idk, on one hand I hate corporations and suit and tie MBAs and lawyers working to enable the 1%.

But the prerequisite to the above argument is that people have a right to upload to YouTube; we don't, but it would certainly be a better service if its users weren't plagued by false copyright claims.

Youtube should immediately hold any revenue generated by the video in escrow till the dispute runs its course. It sounds like creating a Contentid claim on a video, especially for a popular streamer, will sap all the revenue from the new/fresh video to the claimer, with no recourse for the streamer to get it back if the claim was false.

That’s exactly what they do.

I mean... If you think it is hard to compete with them now, just wait til you have to field the size team this would require.

I'm sympathetic. I think I even agree. Policy will be tough to craft here, sadly.

What if the law says "social media companies with more than [quantity] in revenue" ?

Or, something to that effect?

This is what I would immediately suspect to start. Probably a good start, even. Does run into complications of jurisdiction and hazards of growth. None reasons not to do something.

Customer service is something that doesn't scale well, so requiring good customer service is probably an advantage to small players.

This is also the intersection of customer service not really working at large scale, and residual payments (royalties) not working at absolute scale.

I think this is a major (the only?) reason these internet companies are even successful. Because they just ignore all these costs that don’t scale well that ordinary companies should have.

I think that is a touch strong. Though, I agree that largely nobody really factors in costs of scale, as absurd scale just isn't something that makes sense. This is true in physics as much as it is in economics. Things that work in one scale do not in another. Things that work in changing scale don't work in fixed scale.

Why single out social media companies? All companies need to be required to have a way to reach customer support (that's not a bot).

> "A guy recorded his fucking washing machine and uploaded it to YouTube with Content ID," Albino said in a video on X. "And now I'm getting copyright claims" while "my money" is "going into the toilet and being given to this fucking slime."

It's not really clear to me this is an intentional attempt to game anything; that seems like a legit album, and one song is the washing machine chime. Probably just for the fun of it or whatever. It has "Provided to YouTube by MGM", so probably just the general MGM copyright matcher thing doing its thing.

In a way this is even worse, because bad actors gaming the system is always expected to a degree, and can be dealt with. Random obscure videos being marked as "copyright owner" means the entire system is just broken.

>and one song is the washing machine chime.

A song he neither composed nor played.

Wait for my album of Taylor Swift's greatest hits.

Eh? It's public domain, as the article mentions. They're allowed to do that and there's nothing wrong with it.

And of course the melody is public domain as well, just to add insult to injury.

That's not how public domain works though. Just because you perform a song in the public domain does not mean that I can use your recording of the performance without your permission for whatever I want. You own the copyright to that performance (if you recorded it yourself). So if I posted something YT and was monetizing the video, I would be making money off of your work. Maybe you wouldn't care, but others will be in their right to care.

And before people simplify this to think it means you own recordings of yourself, contract law is a thing.

That is less elucidative than I suspect you think it is.

I thought it would get people to imagine ways things could happen. Not that it was an easy answer in itself.

You totally missed the nuance of the parenthetical part of the comment. "if you recorded it yourself" are the magic weasel words. Left unsaid is that if someone else recorded it where you were asked to perform for the person doing/paying for the recording whether you were paid or not means they own the copyright.

That isn't nuance... Even if you recorded it yourself, you may still not have rights to distribute...

1. It's not that simple. There must be sufficient originality in the performance. If you record your orchestra performing the song, that's probably the case. If you mechanically convert a composition to MIDI and then have standard MIDI instruments automatically perform it, that's probably not the case.

2. The copyright claimant wasn't even Samsung. So either the copyright claimant actually infringed Samsung's copyright on the performance (to the extent that such a copyright exists), or their performance is separate from the performance in the video that was detected as copyright infringement, in which case the only thing the two videos had in common was the public domain composition.

> The song was composed in 1817 and is in the public domain

so google doesn't acknowledge the existence of public domain on youtube

No it doesn't

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/5/24026433/mickey-mouse-stea...

Those who worship the copyright system deserve all of the pain that comes with it. Maybe try not monetizing your video if it is so important.

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