When YouTube mistakenly thinks you have music that needs to be licensed

[Andrew Smith]

... and it's only a recording of a speech.

My example in question is here:

Stephanie Ross at March For The Babies 2014 - YouTube

Danged if I can hear any music playing, yet I received an email from YouTube stating "We need to verify that you are authorized to commercially use all of the audio elements in your video such as:" and lists a bunch of options for a video that definitely has music in it.

Only my clip doesn't, and it seems impossible to be able to notify YouTube that their system has made a goof-up.

It won't impact me on this video, but I'm concerned that it could possibly affect another video that is important ... and the issue is not be able to be fixed.

Any thoughts?

Andrew

[Dave Farrants]

Could it be for the music?song? in the background at around 2.25?

There is a dispute submission feature in your YouTube profile, it does take some finding though! - I've used it successfully several times.

[Andrew Smith]

LOL. That 'music' you hear is the drumming and yelling of the feral counter-protesters at the event. Not really music, if you will.

I did take a look at the "more info" form again and saw an "email us" option at the top right corner. I've used this to send some info through on the monetisation status issue with the audio. Hopefully it may even get read by a human.

See how it goes, else I'll have to look for the elusive 'dispute submission feature' you speak of.

Andrew

[Dave Farrants]

I understand but it sounds like music to me and probably YT!

Try under > Creator Studio > Channel > Status and Features > Features > Copyright

[Matt Sharp]

Originally Posted by Dave Farrants

Try under > Creator Studio > Channel > Status and Features > Features > Copyright

There don't appear to be any copyright claims on the video as of yet. Andrew's only option is to reply to that "request for more information" email.

In these cases if you are not successful it will result in monetization being disabled for that specific video. There will be no appeal once that happens. You may want to disable monetization while you write up the proper paperwork (if you have any) to send to them.

[Seth Bloombaum]

I just went through the process of copyright dispute on YT. Despite my initial misgivings about "how could YT identify this as disputed copyright?", it resolved in less than 48 hours in my favor.

At issue was a recording I'd made in Istanbul of a Turkish classical piece. Amazingly, YT correctly matched it up to a commercially released recording of the same composition; this is pretty obscure stuff. I was given the option to accept that the copyright belonged to a particular publisher, my clip would then appear with ads with benefits to that publisher.

In this case, it is a public facing piece for a non-profit, so, random ads would negatively affect the viewer experience from their point of view.

I did dispute it, using the mechanism that Dave F. points to, above in the thread. The immediate result was that sound was turned off for playback. A few hours later, it was turned back on. I assume that occured after a human review of my claims that:
This piece was written in 1684, the original composition was in the public domain.
The arrangement was by the musicians the non-profit had contracted with.
The recording was by me.

In other words, I wrote that I had a complete set of rights and permissions, including composition, arrangement, performance, and recording that shouldn't really be contested by the other publisher.

The next step was that the publisher had 30 days to review my claim of ownership. In practice, this happened in about 48 hours; I didn't receive a notification, but did see the dispute links removed from the video's listing in Creator Studio.

Through a little research on YT, I learned that the recording that YT matched with my piece was recorded in Syria by different musicians, with different instrumentation.

It was all new to me at the time last week. I had more than a few concerns that my client and I would end up losing this dispute, but this ended up being pretty straightforward and clear-cut, with exactly the resolution one would hope for.

If you are involved in this kind of dispute on YT, it really helps to be familiar with the various rights that are recognized for composers, arrangers, performers, and engineers / record companies. You need to put the info out right, the first time.

[Matt Sharp]

Lots of good info for Content ID music matches Seth.


A note for anyone else that finds this thread later, Andrew's problem is not a copyright claim or content ID match, which in most cases results in ads whose revenue pays toward the rights holders. It is just YouTube asking about rights when they detect certain things in your video. In this case monetization would be disabled. More info here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311196?hl=en

YouTube may ask you how you own commercial use rights to all elements in your video at any time after you submit a video for monetization. This includes (but is not limited to) music, photographs, movie, and/or video game footage.

How we may request additional information
We may alert you via Video Manager and also send an email notification to the email address associated with your YouTube account. If more information is needed regarding your video, you may notice this icon [ ! ] in your Video Manager, next to the video in question. If you see this icon [ ! ] with caption text of how many days you have left to provide us with the requested information, please note that your video may be disabled for monetization if you don't provide information within the time allotted.

Here's how to submit that information
To submit that information, simply click the icon [ ! ] . You can provide information about your video using the suggested text and linked resources.

We are not able to provide you with legal advice regarding commercial use rights, but you can find general guidance here.

What happens next?
Your video(s) may be reviewed again once you've submitted additional information. In some cases, we may send a follow-up email to request further information.

Providing this information does not guarantee that your video will be approved. A variety of factors, such as video performance, may affect review time. We may not be able to process every submission, but we continually monitor these factors and prioritize accordingly. YouTube reserves the right to make the final decision whether to monetize a video, and may disable monetization for users who repeatedly submit ineligible videos.

[Andrew Smith]

Well, I have received a response to my email:

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for submitting your video for monetization. We have disabled monetization on this video because you have not provided adequate documentation that you have the necessary rights to commercially use all the video material and music, including background music.

If you would like to monetize your content in the future, learn what kind of content is monetizable on YouTube at http://support.google.com/youtube/bi...answer=2490020.

Please note that we reserve the right to make the final determination on whether to enable monetization for a video.

Please note that repeated submission of ineligible videos and/or insufficient documentation may affect your ability to monetize videos in the future.

Thanks for your understanding.

Sincerely,
John
The YouTube Team

We don't seem to be making it through to someone who can actually spend a minute checking the video. A copy-pasta answer, I suspect.

Andrew

[Steven Davis]

Maybe Youtube is just throwing a fit over ESPN pulling their videos of YT.

Seriously though, this is why the music industry needs to address our needs and concerns as independent media producers. We're not like some country producing 120 thousand copies of Madonna's Like a Virgin. We're just trying to make a living and sometimes copy write music crosses our paths.

I suspect the 'form letter' you got is pretty much standard. Sad you had to go through all that.

[Andrew Smith]

Actually, on a second reading I noticed that "background music" in the letter was bolded. So I have replied with:

Hi John,

There is no background music on this one, but there are protesters yelling and beating on a drum.

if it helps, videos of other speakers at the same event are:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hg5oi9eK-c (Jan Kronberg at March For The Babies 2014, protesters referred to at 5:24 in video)

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9Dbv8GG16I (Christopher Monckton at March For The Babies 2014, with similar protester drumming heard in background at 1:27 and onwards)

I don’t know what else to do in order to document that this is not music that is in the background of the video.

Andrew

Let's see how we go. We may have encountered a human at YouTube after all. :-)

Andrew

[Dave Farrants]

The background music was my initial response, to me it sounds that along with the drums etc someone might be playing a music track or song through a megaphone or speakers to drown out the speaker - this is what I suspect the YT recognition system has picked up on. Good luck, I hope someone at YT finally sees sense!

[Andrew Smith]

Good news. Having the other two speaker clips from the event seems to have paid off.

Hello Andrew,

Thank you for confirming that you own the rights to commercially use all video material. Your video has been approved for monetization.

We look forward to the next video you submit for monetization.

Sincerely,
John
The YouTube Team

Andrew

[Rob Cantwell]

the rules they impose are generally all over the place anyway, why didn't they state what the music was? instead of making a vague statement that it was music!

anyway one the reasons i dont use YT much is that it's so hit and miss, I put up a few clips from a recent visit to Belgium, just for for the people that were with me, YT identified one bit of music that was made a hundred years ago there is no monitisation on this I'm not interested in making anything out of it, they didn't flag other music that I thought they would.

ironically another piece of music entitled 'Belgium put the kibosh on the Kaiser' is allowed in all countries except one Germany lol

I also have a slide show up of the same visit but YT silenced it because Dire Straits thought it didn't deserve their precious music, oh well!!
so much for my holiday snaps

YouTube (Short URL)

:-)