Youtube and Copyright
 

Due to the new restrictions on Vimeo and in view of the fact I'm not a fan of most of the music on the royalty free sites I have been considering what my options are.

If I upload a clip to Youtube and it contains a song which I don't have the rights to it will be flagged as containing 3rd party content, ads will be placed on it and it will remain viewable.

According to the link below "In most cases, getting a Content ID claim isn’t a bad thing for your YouTube channel. It just means, 'Hey, we found some material in your video that’s owned by someone else.'

It’s up to copyright owners to decide whether or not others can reuse their original material. In many cases, copyright owners allow the use of their content in YouTube videos in exchange for putting ads on those videos."

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6013276?hl=en

So my question is, is my use of the used song now legitimate? If so, what are the downsides to using Youtube other than ads appearing over the clips?

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Hi Brendan

They not only detect songs you have added but also songs in the background so unless your footage is totally music free you will get ads or sometimes they might make the video not visible in some countries.

I gave up using vimeo years ago as their servers and mirrors are useless and constantly buffer! Sure, the quality is nice but if 30 secs of video plays and then stops the bride will lose interest and move on! That's why I use YouTube only. At least brides can click the link and it plays from start to end without stalling!

If you have to have a bit of music (even from say, a PA system) and YT tags you, 99% of the time the video will be quite playable and usable and the viewer can easily close the ad window too!

However NO you do not now have legitimate use of the song at all ..it's still copyright and an ad will go up and usually that's all that happens and the copyright holder earns a bit of cash!

Trying to get permission to use music online is not only a minefield but also an exercise in futility and also if you did manage to get copyright permission you couldn't afford it.

I just upload to You Tube and let them do their thing as far as copyright is concerned...in rare cases yes they might remove the music or ask you to but in 99% of cases it's just an ad.

Chris

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Thanks for the reply Chris. What I meant by "legitimate" was that would this me I'd be free from any legal repercussions. I'm more than happy to have the ad and for the copyright holder to earn a bit of extra cash (and hopefully some of that might even make it's way to the original artist!)

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

This music copyright thing has never been a problem for me. For well over 40 years I have been putting popular songs on the videos for my clients. Songs come from purchased LP's , CD's and such. The songs are not resold by me. They are not used for commercial purposes. I have paid for them, or should I say my clients have paid for them, as I used THEIR $$$ to buy the music. The videos are not aired or put over the net by me. The clients choose the songs and they also pay for them by bought CD's fro which I have a collection. Every time I buy CD's I keep the receipt as proof of LEGAL purchase and ownership by myself/client. Also when a DJ plays music in the reception, I consider it AMBIENT sound/noise that my camera captures without being MY request to the DJ to play those songs. The songs were selected and put there by the DJ. He/she should have the roylalties taken care of as he/she is in the music business, not me, I am in the camera business. If the artists do not want me to use their material, then they should find a way to block/ cloak/ prevent/ encrypt/ the material to those who capture ( not copy intentionally) the music in any form emitted to any capturing device/apparatus/camera. There was such a thing as copyguard/Macrovision, remember ?? If the artists cannot come up with a way to copyguard or recordguard their stuff as it propagates from a loudspeaker, then it is not my problem. I did not put that noise up there.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Then there's this perspective:

And this:
Margaret Gould Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright | Talk Video | TED.com

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Thanks - this was interesting....

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I believe that if YouTube does not remove the music track & just puts ads on that the usage IS legitimised. The rights holder is able to insist on removal & the fact that they haven't means they have given a de facto licence. The rights holder could hardly make a claim for damages if they have not only allowed the use but even benefited monetarily from the ad revenue.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

That's my take on it as well and it's certainly the impression given in the video Les posted above. Which leads me to the question, why do people pay for royalty free music? It seems to me that the youtube way of doing things is perfect for everyone:

- The videographer doesn't have to eat up his already small profit on music
- The copyright holder gets both payment and exposure for their song
- The client gets the music they want

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Im in a tribute band here in the UK and thought it quite nice that one of our videos was flagged as having copyright belonging to the original band. So our sound is close enough to the original that they get the small sums generated. It's a compliment in a way? Good for ads? So close to the original even YouTube didn't notice it wasn't the original artiste .

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I guess that's the ultimate tribute then :)

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I did a commercial video for the Government here a few years back on their electric car fleet and also an online manual for drivers using them. In the interests of copyright I decided to use a SmartSound track which is Royalty Free and YouTube immediately flagged it as copyright music.

I'm not too sure if their "detector robot" just tags music that sounds like commercial but it did get this one wrong! Multiple emails and disputes still didn't get me anywhere so I just gave up and now use whatever the bride happens to use for her walk down the aisle. It can be a CD, a 4 piece string quartet or even bagpipes and YT nails them all as copyright so I live with the ads. I was under the impression that really old stuff like the Bridal March was public domain but it seems that some enterprising publisher now has the rights to it so they get income from any wedding ceremony that occurs. At least the YT one is a workable solution

I have always wondered if bride's need to get permission to use their aisle song at the ceremony during a civil wedding in a park ..I guess being in public and in front of a group of guests it is classed as a public performance?? Anyone know if the bride is required to do anything?

Chris

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I"m pretty sure they should pay for playing a song in church for their wedding but I"m also pretty sure noone ever will pay it or even mention it to any music rights organisation, at least not around these parts.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

The original composition, perhaps, but each new arrangement brings new copyright as does each new recording. It's a mess, a total mess, but some would argue it's the only way people can get paid for their work.

Some world wide licensing agreements would be awesome but I fear will never happen. YouTube is about as close as it gets at this time.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

In the UK each and every church needs to pay a copyright license fee each year to cover music played during ceremonies.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

i've had music that wasn't tagged/challenged or whatever, some of it was from a CD, some was live. On the other hand I've had a good few that was - tend to delete these. I dont post wedding vids much because of this.

One video i uploaded was of this years St Patrick's Day parade, they objected to two tracks portions being played by the participants, actually two different dance groups, YouTube removed the the whole 22 minutes of the audio of the vid, I eventually deleted it and re-uploaded with the two offending tracks removed, it wasn't made clear who exactly complained? The songs were How Long Will I Love You Ellie Goulding and "Trumpets" by Jason Derulo, the unusual thing is, that there's lots of uploads featuring these two songs and artists.
I have no idea how YouTube adjudicate what is a breach and what is not! I think it's a whole hit and miss affair.

I've had some videos with backing tracks flagged as not available in Germany, obviously they have a different set of copyright laws there.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

(In the U.S.).
With YouTube, if the music has been flagged, you never know when it *might* be pulled because the rights holder decided to no longer allow people to use it. Meaning your clients' wedding video could suddenly be left with no audio.

ALSO, if you get noticed as a commercial enterprise, using their song(s) to promote your business (like with, say, a demo reel) you may end up owing six figures. Joe Simon wrote a great article about it a few years ago, after the trailer he made for Dallas Cowboys QB Tony Romo's wedding went viral. The guys who did the first slow-motion photo booth were using "Blurred Lines" to soundtrack it... until they weren't, shortly after it went viral.

Don't make the mistake that just because YouTube didn't automatically take something down that you're not in violation. You might still get served, and it might take a long time til someone notices, or follows through. Some companies actively search out copyright violations, others seem more lax, but you never know when things might change and go pear shaped.

Personally, I'd rather pay the $20-$50 for the license.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

The YouTube licence doesn't cover commercial use. So you as a company do not get exemption. Joe simon, David Robin and others have been sued for YouTube vids which were permitted by the robot to use the music but were actually in breach of copyright.

The rights holders all have a dashboard where they can see all vids using their music including number of hits. So if you go viral and get on their top 10 then you can expect a letter from a lawyer.

It's a total mess. Here in the uk we can buy a PPL license and use ANY music we like on a DVD. This however doesn't cover Blu-Ray and Internet use is a no no. The music labels still want to sell on disk. They don't like the internet and still try to pretend it doesn't exist.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I have several hundred songs up on YouTube, most of them are kids from the School of Rock performing popular music. Roughly half of the songs have been identified as copyrighted material. Of that group, 99.9% of the rights owners assert the claim, but only put an ad for the original song next to my video. In a rare few cases, the audio is muted - usually by Led Zeppelin. Only one artist has ever gone through the process of issuing a DMCA "Takedown Notice" against a song on my YouTube channel, the creepy little dude known as "Prince". He issued two of them in one night. You get three DMCA "hits" and you lose all the content on your channel. And you have to watch a deeply insulting "Copyright School" video before YouTube will let you access your channel again.

So I created a second channel and no longer put up Prince videos and urge the various School of Rock locations to not do Prince songs. Because, obviously, the fact that videos of children performing his songs are available on YouTube is the primary reason why people are no longer buying his music.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

What are the 'changes to Vimeo' as mentioned by OP? Are they tightening copyright or scanning content?

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

https://vimeo.com/blog/post:626

Pete

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

This is very true. I filed 16 DMCA complaints on Youtube and 11 on Vimeo against 4 account holders who stole some of my video footage. Youtube and Vimeo closed their accounts and removed 213 of their videos. One of the two opened another account and used more of my video footage. I contacted him any gave him a price for using my footage. He wasn't interested so I made 3 more DMCA complaints. No more problems since this. I have this guy and his alias accounts on my favorites list so I can routinely see if he is behaving himself. I am very pleased about how fast Youtube and Vimeo responded to these complaints.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I never challenged the fact that Mr. Rogers-Nelson owned the songs, but I think the whole DMCA Takedown "three strikes" approach is, to use Frank Zappa's immortal phrase "the equivalent of treating dandruff by decapitation". If 99.99% of rights holders have agreed with a particular way of doing things, Mr 0.01% looks like an utter tool. Taking down his songs was no problem. The problem is that if he had succeeded in getting my channel removed, several hundred other songwriters who were benefiting from the ads next to covers of their songs would be losing out.

Mark Williams, your situation is vastly different than mine, but I still feel the DMCA is a terrible tool, one that I would never use.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Well, when you pour all you skill and focus into producing something you think has value, even if only to oneself then one can feel pretty violated when someone steals your work. Additionally, in my situation the persons involved were making considerable ad revenue off my work. I have no problem with the DMCA take down process nor Prince's actions to protect his property.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I do. It's a scorched earth policy, and as far as I'm concerned it is behavior that violates the Golden Rule.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Nobody has ever been sued for copyright breach for a video posted on YouTube. They have been sent letters by lawyers but that is a very different thing.

An action in the UK at least would never fly as it's a general legal principle that before suing anyone the claimant always has a duty to mitigate their losses which doesn't sit with giving permission & accepting ad revenue. If the rights holder has the option of preventing the breach but doesn't & in fact benefits financially from that breach then they can have no cause for action.

Yes it does. The Limited Manufacture licence covers any physical product including Blu-ray discs & USB sticks.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

You are, actually, the moment you use the song without permission. That's the whole point. You're ignoring the fact that someone else owns that song.

I actually feel that 3 warnings of violation before they take any action is pretty reasonable. They're under no obligation to do so, they could just go straight to suing.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Don't you want to be paid for your work so that you can take care of your family? Shouldn't the other guy be paid for his work so he can take care of his family too? Which Golden Rule allows me to take something someone else has worked to create without paying for it unless he himself has chosen to give it away for free? It's his work, so it should be his choice whether to charge or not. Not mine whether or not to pay.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Actually, there are three levels of response an owner of a song can take to a cover on YouTube:

1: Allow the song to be used, and placing an ad for the original next to it.
2: Mute the audio
3: Issue a DMCA takedown notice.

In the case of Mark Williams' work, the reasonable thing (to me) would be to require that the infringing video or videos be removed. That is NOT what the 3rd DMCA "warning" does. Each "warning" results in removal of the claimed video, the 3rd "warning" results in the deletion of the entire account and all other videos including others that are not infringing. That's what I mean by a "scorched earth" policy. That's not about asserting copyright. It's giving one copyright holder an excessive ability to "punish" those who have violated. It is as if a photographer had discovered that someone had printed one of their photographs and hung it up in their home, and instead of just being paid for it and insisting that the copy be destroyed, that their home be burned to the ground.

Responses #1 and #2 are plenty. Response #1 allows the copyright owner to benefit. I'm sure plenty of songs have been sold by ads placed next to and before my videos of cover versions. Response #2, I've only encountered twice, in the case of Led Zeppelin covers - they mute the audio. Usually, I delete the video, because what use is a cover song without the audio? It accomplishes the objective without being a jerk.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

My kids are dancers and my son is a street dancer. Of there videos I have always used the microphone on the camera to pick up the live music at the venue or on the street. Of all the videos,90 +, I have had a mixture of music results. One video was muted, a few have been either blocked in other countries or blocked on mobile devices and a few have had adds to buy the songs. I have never sold any adds on the videos, even when it has been suggested by YT, and it is artistic expression of the material. So just be aware that anything can happen.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Joe Simon (U.S.) would like a word about that, I bet. (The Music Licensing Chickens Have Come Home to Roost in Wedding and Event Videography | Dare Dreamer Magazine)

So would YouTube channel FullScreen, who is getting sued for users posting song covers. (Cover a song, upload it to YouTube, and you may get sued | Consequence of Sound)

The main difference seems to be whether a person from the copyright holder notices your video (like when it goes viral); versus when a computer algorithm flags it.

In either case, if they chose, they could sue with a single infringement. Most companies simply choose not to.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Joe Simon was NOT sued. He had a letter from a lawyer & chose to settle. Big difference. His case also dates back to 2011 which was before the option of revenue sharing had been negotiated with the rights holders.

The other case is of FullScreen who are effectively running a TV station using YouTube as their delivery medium. The alleged infringement was to do with cover videos which YouTube actively encourages with the promise of revenue sharing https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3301938?hl=en


FullScreen have settled so while strictly they were sued the case never actually came to court.

Fullscreen Settles Copyright Infringement Lawsuit - TheWrap

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

For the purposes of this discussion isn't the end result still that he used copyrighted music & lost out financially due to the legalities of doing so?!

There was a poster here who a year or two ago was caught using a minor hit from a local musician near him (he never stated who) who happened to come across the use of his song in a video of his. He recv'd a cease & desist letter from the agent or attorney & the factored out fees, damages etc. Came to a couple hundred or thousand or so dollars, modest, but somewhat reasonable. Better than hiring an attorney of his own to defend him possibly. Anyway lesson learned.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Yeah, I don't see much difference beyond semantics. Only a very few people have taken these sorts of civil cases to trial. These letters function as a statement of intent to sue, unless people pay damages/compensation. The end result is functionally the same.

In the U.S., at least, these are also Federal crimes, but I have yet to hear of a case of prosecution. Only civil cases.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

For a while we seemed to be breaking new ground in this thread. But now I'm none the wiser. Damn :- (

Pete

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

.
I think the best way to view it is that just because Youtube allows it, doesn't mean it's legal. I think it'll be an evolving policy too as artists see how much, or little, they really receive off these video ads, and if they benefit them... or us.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

As I recall reading on Youtube, if Youtube puts an ad on a video instead of removing it is by the copyright holder's choice, so it is legal in that instance. Copyright holders are offered a choice on how to respond to infringements.

This is all clearly explained by Youtube. If you dig around on the site they explain it pretty well.

The way I remember it is is that Youtube's algorithym picks up matched content. If a potential copyright violation is found, then Youtube notifies the copyright holder, who in turn decides what to do: have the offending video taken down, have the audio removed, place ads, whatever.

In real life, with the thousands or more potential violations per day, I suspect that Youtube has standing orders for the larger companies, say Disney for example, as to what to do for their music. There are certainly too many potential violations for most to handle each incident separately.

I have had matched content notifications twice, and each took months to happen for some reason. In each case the songs were relatively obscure.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

I've had completely bogus copyright claims as well. There are some who are trying to lay claim on classical works by composers who have been dead more than 100 years. I've challenged them, and they have backed down in each case.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

The question is not the composition, but the recording surely? Each new recording carries a new copyright.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Sorry to drag this out, but can Addidas use an ACDC song that they put into a Youtube ad, and since youtube allows for ACDC music to be played then that'll be legal? A step further can a local hair salon or mechanic use a Katy Perry song or Metallica song respectively, and it'll be 'legal' and within the law due to Youtube's policy. I don't think so. Again, using it in demo reels likely carries a risk with it.

Re: Youtube and Copyright
 

Yes, exactly. Most people don't quite grasp how the notion of copyright works, the OP being a prime example. What's fun is finding some of the more "copyright righteous" people to be infringing in ways they were completely ignorant about (i.e. filming a live performance of a copyrighted piece by a cover artist, even if the cover artist has the license to perform the piece).