Washing machine chime scandal shows how absurd YouTube copyright abuse can get ( arstechnica.com )

TL;DR: for a whole decade YouTube allowed a copyright troll to claim all the rights on a recording of a washing machine end cycle chime

The account of the copyright troll is still standing and it's not permanently banned

IMHO in this case YouTube should permanently ban at the first offense any copyright troll that maliciously claim as their property something that's in the public domain

Also: if it wasn't that it affected a big streamer with lots of followers, YouTube would have ignored the problem

winterayars ,

I wish this article would have delved into the details of the system because it's even more incoherent and insane than you think.

brax ,

What they should do is properly DMCA - then the copyright trolls would be out an extensive amount of money, but no they'll keep on using this completely broke system because the billion dollar major licensing companies aren't negatively affected by any of it.

Kissaki ,

In 2021, YouTube announced that it had invested "hundreds of millions of dollars" to create content management tools, of which Content ID quickly emerged as the platform's go-to solution to detect and remove copyrighted materials.

Content ID was introduced in 2021? Only 3 years ago? I thought it was significantly older.

Wikipedia says 2007.

Dunno if they meant something different or typoed the year.

emeralddawn45 ,

Or they just made an announcement in 2021 about their existing content management tools and how much they've spent on them over the years. That's how I read it anyway.

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

Our water is now free of trans fats. “Wait you mean it had trans fats before??” Well… no.

Thordros ,
@Thordros@hexbear.net avatar

Meanwhile, I am permanently banned from YouTube for uploading a 45 second clip of an episode of Star Wars Rebels as a private video to share with my kids, after we just (legally) watched it and they thought it was cool.

Such a good system.

Paradachshund ,

What does someone have to do to prove to youtube they own it?

Moonrise2473 OP ,

From what I saw that you just need to claim it by stating that's yours, only risking to get sued by the original owner.

B0rax ,

Brb, claiming bird voices

ultratiem ,
@ultratiem@lemmy.ca avatar

Too late. Get your own grift bro!

WarmApplePieShrek ,

Say they do

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

That's it! When I grow up I won't become an astronaut or firefighter. I'm going to become a copyright troll!

I recommend people to read the comments in that thread, too. A lot of them are rather insightful; they get it - the problem is not just Google being a cheapstake, but also the copyright laws themselves.

This one is IMO specially insightful:

... and that is the strategy, right? It is cheaper for them [YouTube] to have a botched process that most people will not even try to fight, then to become more sophisticated (i.e., involve more actual humans) in order to preempt complaints. Alphabet / Google / YouTube are so big they can literally just ignore their users and still get away with it.

nilloc ,

Yeah the DMCA really fucked things up for creative work. It’s way too easy to take down things you don’t like fraudulently.

conciselyverbose ,

The DMCA process is pretty good. All you have to do is counterclaim and the host/platform can put your content back up unless the claimant actually files in court. Also, without the safe harbor protections, it would be almost impossible for sites to allow user content at all, because they'd potentially be liable for infringement of users.

ContentID goes way past DMCA requirements and proactively allows copyright holders to have content automatically taken down, without a clear and fair process to appeal, and without due diligence that holders actually legitimately own the content they're claiming.

winterayars ,

Google also lost a court case and had this system forced onto them by the law. I believe it would literally take a change in the dmca (ideally just repeal it or strip all the anti consumer bs out of it) for them to be allowed to do anything different.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

The thing is that they're complying with the court case by letter, but not by spirit. Sure, there is a system to report and remove copyright infringement; but the system is 100% automated, full of fails that would require manual review, and Google can't be arsed to spend the money necessary to fix it.

autotldr Bot ,

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Albino, who is also a popular Twitch streamer, complained that his YouTube video playing through Fallout was demonetized because a Samsung washing machine randomly chimed to signal a laundry cycle had finished while he was streaming.

To Albino it was obvious that Audego didn't have any rights to the jingle, which Dexerto reported actually comes from the song "Die Forelle" ("The Trout") from Austrian composer Franz Schubert.

Albino suggested that YouTube had potentially allowed Audego to make invalid copyright claims for years without detecting the seemingly obvious abuse.

"Ah okay, yes, I'm sure they did this in good faith and will make the correct call, though it would be a shame if they simply clicked 'reject dispute,' took all the ad revenue money and forced me to risk having my channel terminated to appeal it!!

YouTube also acknowledged in 2021 that "just one invalid reference file in Content ID can impact thousands of videos and users, stripping them of monetization or blocking them altogether."

"That rings hollow," EFF reported in 2021, noting that "huge conglomerates have consistently pushed for more and more restrictions on the use of copyrighted material, at the expense of fair use and, as a result, free expression."

The original article contains 981 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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