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For those who create original music, or those who legally feature music or video games in their YouTube videos (or if you support people who do), please read and share this thread:
Many people believe YouTube's copyright process is broken. Today I want to bring attention
Many people believe YouTube's copyright process is broken. Today I want to bring attention
to an issue that substantially contributes to this. There are many 3rd party distribution companies (CD Baby, The Orchard, etc.) that enable musicians to sell their music in online stores like iTunes and Spotify. In the past, proof that you had the right to distribute the music
was required to put a song on iTunes. Now, through these 3rd party companies, you merely have to check a box claiming in good faith that you own the copyright. There are so many problems with this. For example, someone can steal a song, claim ownership, and sell the stolen track
in online stores. Worse still, these 3rd party distributors offer an option to purchase content ID matching for YouTube. What this means, is that videos found to contain audio that matches the stolen track, will be copyright claimed. Wanna know what happens to the revenue?
The revenue is rerouted to the person who STOLE the music. Let me give you a real life example. Starting at 3:21 in the attached music video ("Whoop"), you'll hear a straight rip of "Zombies on Your Lawn" from Plants vs. Zombies. The whole song.
I'm guessing their distributor recently offered YouTube content ID matching, because people are starting to receive copyright claims on their Plants vs. Zombies videos. Not from me or PopCap but from the people who STOLE the music via their 3rd party distributor.
Another example: I made the song Cube Land. Between the two music videos, it has over 30 million views. Someone uploaded an illegally ripped copy to CDBaby (lying that they owned it), and I (the creator of the song) received a copyright claim. I then had to contact
CDBaby's legal team, and it was me (the person who MADE the song) who had to prove copyright ownership before anything was done. This is absolutely unacceptable, and it's one of many examples.
Let's talk "safe harbor" (the clause companies hide behind when justifying all this):
Let's talk "safe harbor" (the clause companies hide behind when justifying all this):
3rd party distributors might try to claim "safe harbor" from vicarious infringement liability in copyright law. This means they believe that (like storage sites), they have no way to supervise the infringing activity. I'd argue they definitely have a right and ability to do so.
They also have a direct financial incentive in these activities: If they barely regulate any incoming music, they make a lot more money. Instead of requiring artists to merely "check a box," they can require what was required of me to prove I owned Cube Land:
I sent a link to a search result from the Copyright Office website that showed my name as Cube Land's copyright holder. I sent identification. It was THAT SIMPLE. If the distributor did this (as was done in the past), this would prevent so many cases of stolen creations.
It would prevent YouTube creators from getting copyright strikes and losing their revenue on Let's Play videos that feature music that was illegally uploaded to 3rd party distributors with the option to enable content ID matching on YouTube.
Please encourage 3rd party companies to require proof that the artist is legally allowed to distribute the music they upload. It's easy to do, it was done in the past, and it would prevent so many fraudulent music copyright claims on YouTube.
