Youtube copyright claim filed on me

[Stonent]

Apparently some big music company filed a copyright claim on a video I posted because in the distance you can hear a muffled version of a song.  It was filmed in a public place. SERIOUSLY?! #WTFU

[EEVblog]

Yup, welcome to the world of Youtube automated content ID

[Brumby]

Apparently some big music company filed a copyright claim on a video I posted because in the distance you can hear a muffled version of a song.  It was filmed in a public place. SERIOUSLY?! #WTFU

While I agree the action is worthy of a WTF, as I understand it, they do have you on a technicality.

The fact that it was played in public would require those who played it to have paid a fee for the rights to do so.  When you publish that on Youtube, you are also playing it to the public, but you haven't been given licence to do so - so you are actually in breach of copyright.  The fact that it's muffled and in the background and played by somebody else is irrelevant, even if it is of no importance to the clip.  The fact that it is a performance which is covered by copyright means you have to watch out.

Whether it is a recording of a licenced performance is no different to someone playing it in their home and having a friend record it on their own device.

In fact, when thinking about it, you have probably done the wrong thing by just recording the performance ... but that's being really picky.

[Rerouter]

so where does fair use end, would someone covering a band in the background with there own flair still be liable to the original copyright claim (more for my own general curiosity)

[Brumby]

I'm no expert - but I think when the clip was published on Youtube, it entered dark territory.

If you have a copy of the original track and you have some skills with audio editing, you can try cancelling out the track.  This can be a real pain to try and do - but it's the only way I can think of to push the offending song down towards the noise floor.

[Stonent]

To be honest, I was never aware there was any music playing in the background, it just never even entered my mind.  I had recorded a video of a test equipment display at a store a year or two ago to post on this forum and never got around to talking about it.

A few years prior I had recorded a video of a fireworks display and uploaded it to share with friends and family and the upload was rejected immediately because youtube detected recognizable music.

This all came after watching Thunderf00t and his video this morning on how Taras Kulkov (Crazy Russian Hacker) filed a takedown him for pointing out that evaporating a few KG of dry ice in a room could kill you.

[Stonent]

I'm no expert - but I think when the clip was published on Youtube, it entered dark territory.

If you have a copy of the original track and you have some skills with audio editing, you can try cancelling out the track.  This can be a real pain to try and do - but it's the only way I can think of to push the offending song down towards the noise floor.

Yeah unlikely I'd find it really. I have no idea when the video was flagged. I don't recall ever getting a notification. I just happened to ebe looking at my analytics page and noticed one of my top 10 videos by views had zero revenue where other videos in the top 10 were earning 50 cents to a dollar a month.

I thought I had either forgotten to monetize it or had somehow made it private.

[borjam]

If your voice is slightly louder than the background music (I hope it is!) you can use a noise gate to mute the background music.

Hopefully your voice will mask the background music while you speak, and the noise gate will mute it when not speaking.

If you have trouble to adjust the levels, try to make it frequency selective.

This is an explanation of what a noise gate does. It's just a dynamic range expander.

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

[StuUK]

Apparently some big music company filed a copyright claim on a video I posted because in the distance you can hear a muffled version of a song.  It was filmed in a public place. SERIOUSLY?! #WTFU

While I agree the action is worthy of a WTF, as I understand it, they do have you on a technicality.

The fact that it was played in public would require those who played it to have paid a fee for the rights to do so.  When you publish that on Youtube, you are also playing it to the public, but you haven't been given licence to do so - so you are actually in breach of copyright.  The fact that it's muffled and in the background and played by somebody else is irrelevant, even if it is of no importance to the clip.  The fact that it is a performance which is covered by copyright means you have to watch out.

Whether it is a recording of a licenced performance is no different to someone playing it in their home and having a friend record it on their own device.

In fact, when thinking about it, you have probably done the wrong thing by just recording the performance ... but that's being really picky.

NO! what it really is is lack of complete common sense and a clear example of the society we live in today....

[RGB255_0_0]

It's even worse if you had a right to music 5 years ago and today you don't and you get a strike.

[EEVblog]

Youtube works on 30 second (or so) blocks. keep any audio under 30 seconds and it usually won't get flagged. I got flagged recently and had to edit my video to actually cut the track up which confused the detection algorithm.

[Brumby]

That must be some algorithm - and the database to support it.

[edy]

One other word of warning....   

I downloaded "copyright-free" music from a royalty free music site. I forgot which site it was, but it was supposedly a well-reputed one and the track was just some old classical music. I put it in as the background for my video and YouTube tagged it! 

One thing I have noticed a lot of people do, even with full movies/videos, is to SPEED UP or SLOW DOWN the video slightly. This will also screw up the algorithms for detection.

[sony mavica]

That must be some algorithm - and the database to support it.

on facebook its only lets you have 20sec of copyrighted music so if there is more then 20sec of copyrighted music once your video is uploaded its taken down with in seconds

only way around this is to slightly change the audio pitch

[MrSlack]

Nice. The relentless march of technology...

Sharecropping always goes in favour of the landowner and the landowners have either dubious motivation for whatever they are doing or submit to a higher power. The latter here are lawyers.

YMMV but this content delivery method won't last forever under the current climate. It's too volatile, doesn't consider longevity of material, isn't permissive and pretty much shafts you on the privacy front. There's nothing to like other than ad revenue and the incumbent search engine being tied to it.

[Zero999]

so where does fair use end, would someone covering a band in the background with there own flair still be liable to the original copyright claim (more for my own general curiosity)

Yes, as it would be classed as a derivative work.

Copyright has gone crazy in my opinion.

[AntiProtonBoy]

While I agree the action is worthy of a WTF, as I understand it, they do have you on a technicality.

I would argue technicality would be in favour of OP in this case, because of fair use laws.

There was a similar case where DMCA was filed against a youtuber, because they had a music in the background while filming their baby. EFF fought back on their behalf and won.
https://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal

[amyk]

only way around this is to slightly change the audio pitch

Then people found out a lot of music actually sounds better sped up/higher pitched... leading to the creation of a whole genre known as "nightcore".

[Stonent]

I'm not sure which company did that. But most Japanese CD publishers and Anime publishers allow their contents being used in other non commercial hobbyist videos providing they got secondary created (such as creation of some cut clips to express a new story, or the music got transcribed and played with a musical instrument).

It was a/an (presumably) American music company, the song was by a fairly well known American pop singer.