Comment by slapshot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by slapshot | Hacker News Reader

I do not work for Google/Youtube (or BMF), but I have experience with their systems. The short version is that YouTube has an automated tool that scans for duplicates of copyrighted videos that have been uploaded by verified creators. It looks at every upload and compares it against a library of known videos for video and sound issues. When it gets a hit, it automatically classifies the video as containing potentially copyrighted content. Sounds like this got hit by the automated scanner.

Nothing in the notice means that BMF made a claim against this video in particular (in fact, it sounds like it's a private video, so there's no way BMF could review it). It's not a DMCA issue at all -- this is a system that YouTube chose to put in place completely unconnected to any DMCA claim system.

Sounds like this automated scanner result is wrong. I believe there is an appeal process, where a human will look at the video. Also note that the video is not being blocked in the meantime; it's still available.

The bigger problem that comes up is how can YouTube deal with the flood of video copycats (ever notice how every popular video leads to 20 copies of the same thing?) without stifling independent artists whose work gets a false positive in the scan system? It's an interesting challenge to get the right mix of false positives and negatives.

Please post what happens after you try the appeals process -- this could be a simple fix and I'd be curious to know.

Edit: Here's an overview of the automated "Content ID" system: http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid

It is still available alright, but someone, not the content creator, is making money off the video due to the ads being placed on the video. That is unfair to the content creator.

How long will it take YouTube to review the video? What possible actions are there? I understand that YouTube provides video hosting free of charge (and makes money from advertisements) and that this stuff can happen, but it seems entirely unfair... how can I get my content added to their content ID system so that people don't re-upload my stuff?

Ahh, I think I see the confusion you have. In America, the term "content creator" does not in fact refer to people who create entertaining or informative things (aka content), but to legal entities which have enough money to buy laws, bribe law enforcement to do their bidding, and extort large and small companies into absurd revenue share schemes. It has nothing to do with people actually doing work. The quaint notion of "artist" and "copyright protection" are just abstracte technical terms with clever misnomers, that exist to excite and confuse the masses into supporting this arrangement.

In America? First of all, I'm impressed that you're able to speak on such a grand scale as to paint a very large, very diverse nation with such a simplistic and sarcastic brush.

Second, what exactly was the value in posting that? As a means of making a point, it's obnoxious at best, and useless at worst. Surely there's a better way to contribute to the conversation.

There are many problems with the north american intellectual property systems. The post certainly could have communicated in a far clearer manner though.

I will try in the orignal posters place.

1) Copyright law. It is indefinitely extended. Is this right? It is certainly true that the term "content creator" extends past the point where the actual content creator lived. Ok, so the law says that corporations are people. They own the content! But since they do not die, is copyright truly indefinite?

2) Lobbying in the US. Corporations can "donate" to politicians and essentially buy their positions on copyright and enforcement matters. This is a problem. The government should not be able to be bought.

3) Extortion. A combination of copyright and patent laws, that are perhaps overly broad, allow those with established positions and a lot of money to force innovative newcomers into the systems the incumbents put in place which exists only to funnel money into the incumbents pockets. Small companies do not have the funds to be able to adequately defend copyright or patent infringement cases, regardless of the merit of the claims.

None of these are easy problems, but they are none the less problems.

2) Lobbying in the US. Corporations can "donate" to politicians and essentially buy their positions on copyright and enforcement matters.

I often hear people in the US complain about this, and sometimes make reference to US Supreme Court rulings that allowed companies to donate as much as they want, and these activists want this laws repealed.

You note that political corruption is not unique to the USA right? You know bribery and donations can take many forms even if you remove 'corporate personhood'? Lots of countries have a problem with corrupt politicians.

And your point is?

My point is that its not totally the law's fault. Changing the law without changing the culture will not totally solve the problem.

And how corruption being worldwide makes it less of a problem?

It doesn't make it less of a problem. But it shows how the specific laws in the USA are not the root cause of the problem. Change the culture, don't just overturn Citizens United.

Laws are (among other things) a reflection of culture. You can change the law and trigger culture changes.

As was shown during prohibition in the US. The challenge isn't changing the culture by legislation, that's easy. The challenge is changing it in a particular desired way.

Of course political corruption is not unique to the USA. Really, we have a much better situation than many parts of the world.

What's different though, is that the US law will often serve as a sort of template or "social proof" when it comes to something like extending copyright. The next step is enshrining it into treaties or law in other nations.

But American laws are important because America claims jurisdiction over .com, .org, and others. And people who do something that is not a crime in their country but is a crime in America, even if they are not in America and their servers are not in America and their users are not in America can be deported (or face severe actions) in their home country; or can have the US forever closed off as a destination.

The UK has a few problems, but we're remarkably free of corruption. Most of ours is stupid people offering "access" to a government official in return for a donation to a party, or not declaring expenses correctly. Certainly nothing like the transparent buying of influence available in other countries.

The UK has a few problems, but we're remarkably free of corruption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry

Yes, that would be one of the few problems.

Looking at the results of leveson we see a lot of sleazy illegal behaviour from journalists, and we see too-close relationships between politicians and press, but we do not see people paying bundles of cash to influence policy.

Who knows how deep the rabbit hole goes.

And if a newspaper says "Promote this policy and our newspapers will help you win the election" ("it's the sun wot won it"), then that's hardly any different from a big pile of cash.

> hey own the content! But since they do not die, is copyright truly indefinite?

There's actually a fixed statutory period on corporately owned works, given that the life + X years scheme wouldn't work very well there. But yes, they have extended it and can be expected to lobby for further extensions, most likely by trying to convince different countries to leapfrog each other in the terms they offer.

This is pretty much the conclusion and central tenet of Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, and in it you can see the genesis of his next book, Republic, Lost, exploring the corrupting power of money in politics.

Free Culture is itself freely available online, highly recommended reading: http://manybooks.net/titles/lessiglother04free_culture.html

> In America? First of all, I'm impressed that you're able to speak on such a grand scale as to paint a very large, very diverse nation with such a simplistic and sarcastic brush.

He's commenting on federal law, which indeed applies to the United States as a whole, or do you claim otherwise?

'diverse nation'? Last time I checked, America consisted of twentysomething nations, one of wich in the habit of speaking for all of them.

America is the widely used casual name for the United States of America. Context matters.

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

"America usually refers to either:

"The Americas, a landmass comprising North America and South America

"The United States of America, a country in North America"

This actually is reasonable since US is the only country with `america' in its name. Other countries have fancier names that can be used to easily recognize them.

> how can I get my content added to their content ID system so that people don't re-upload my stuff?

There's a signup form here: http://www.youtube.com/content_id_signup

Is there any penalty for adding content you don't actually own to the content ID system?

I don't know, but it has happened. News companies post videos that they actually find on youtube because it is part of a story, then the original video gets a copyright claim made against it.

I DO work at YouTube, and for some time I've been working on CMS, YouTube's frontend to ContentID that allows copyright owners to claim their content, set automatic policies, etc. I can confirm that what Slapshot wrote was essentially correct.

This case was an automatic audio match. Somebody from BMF has looked at it, and the claim has been released. Note that this happened around 5 hours after the dispute, and less than 8 hours after the automatic claim was created, which I believe is a pretty great turnaround time on a weekend.

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