Youtube copyright.

[Paul R Johnson]

Although I don't do weddings at all - a recent issue I've had made me think of weddings? Maybe you all know this, but I was surprised because I thought Youtube Private meant simply Not Public - for copyright reasons.

We know that youtube is very good at identifying audio in the background of essentially video projects. I don't normally use youtube for my business because loads of my pictures have some kind of audio in the background - it was just playing with the images were shot. They identify these and slap on an advert - for many things this is fine, but occasionally a client wants something put on youtube as a private video, and you send them the link, and nobody else can see it without knowing the link url.

I got this morning, two copyright notifications - these were one year old clips from a body building competition we shot here in the UK. The audio was simply the music played at the event when they were doing all that muscle stuff. The finished product was created and used by them with the appropriate licensing of the audio - what we do fairly commonly in the UK for limited distribution products, as we have a nice scheme here that allows this to be done fairly paperwork light.

This clip was a problem clip - submitted to the client to look at due to some issues. I'd forgotten the clip was even on the youtube account (we normally use paid for Vimeo).

So it seems Youtube are going through private videos looking for music use that could be used to generate payments for copyright owners, then starting the system off. This one was solved with a very simple delete, as it's not important - but what about people who share their wedding videos with their family, where the DJ is playing tracks for the first dance - that kind of thing? This seems a bit harsh when by the private status, it patently is NOT public, which triggers the copyright.

Is this a new thing - or is it just random luck that they have obviously found two pieces of copyright music - and Snoop Dog is not something I even like!

[Noa Put]

Youtube is free so they can do whatever they please with no explanation needed, for more control you have paid accounts like vimeo where I never had this kind of issues on videos that are hidden from public view.

[Chris Harding]

Hey Paul

I have received emails for copyright ..the usual ones that say "don't worry you are not in trouble......" and I simply didn't recognise the couple's name! However looking back I actually found them ..way back in 2009 ..Sheesh ...that's 8 years ago and the couple probably already have 3 kids and the video is gathering dust in the closet!

My theory is that when new music publishers come on board with YT's paid ad scheme a search is done way, way back on user accounts to discover any previously untagged video clips with a publisher's music on it!

[Andrew Smith]

Opening "unlisted" videos to content scanning may be a step along the way of YouTube dealing with this problem: Porn videos secretly hidden on YouTube as pirates bypass Google's sexual content controls | The Independent

YouTube has rules banning both sexual content and pirated videos, meaning that none of the videos should be available on the site. But many pirates have found a way around that restriction, meainng that they are able to use Google's reliable hosting services without having them taken down, reports TorrentFreak.

Ordinarily, YouTube has a series of controls meant to banish such content. First among them is its Content-ID software, which scans videos and compares it with others to work out whether it includes copyrighted content, but it also uses reports of abuse from users and staff to find out problem videos.

But pirates are able to get around that by uploading video and not publicly listing it, which means that they can embed it on their own site. That means that it gets served to users straight from Google, but won't be seen on YouTube or by the company's Content-ID system or administrators.

There is more at the linked article which was an entertaining and informative read.

Naturally it was all news to me. :-)

Andrew

[Cary Knoop]

In most cases it is not a problem, if YouTube identifies copyrighted music or video is used it will monetize the video and give the copyright owner a cut of the profit.

It's a win win situation, you have a free distribution platform and the copyright holders get payed for their work.

But there are (increasingly rare) cases when YouTube has no contract with the rights holder or the rights holder does not want the particular music or video used and then the video (or only the audio) will be blocked.

[Mark Watson]

Not sure why YouTube is picking through private videos looking for copyright violations when you can find just about every song ever sung on the publicly available videos. Just listened to "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan. All these song performances are meeting the copyright rules?

EDIT: Looks like those pop-up ads in the video are providing a revenue stream, which goes to the original content creator.

I use Vimeo to avoid the ads.

[Cary Knoop]

Originally Posted by Mark Watson

Not sure why YouTube is picking through private videos looking for copyright violations when you can find just about every song ever sung on the publicly available videos. Just listened to "Sunshine Superman" by Donovan. All these song performances are meeting the copyright rules?

EDIT: Looks like those pop-up ads in the video are providing a revenue stream, which goes to the original content creator.

I use Vimeo to avoid the ads.

First of all their are not private videos, second they are obligated to do that.

I really do not understand people's complaints about YouTube, most rights holders allow you to post videos with copyrighted content with monetization and still people are not happy.
If you do not like ads then don't use copyrighted footage in your videos!