Me? A copyright violator?

[HonketyHank]

The cafe's Newbies group has a tune of the month (TOM) series going. Very similar to the Song of the Week group except we take longer and try not to be so dang good.

I have been posting Youtube videos to the TOM series for two years. Today I noticed that my most recent post, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9C8cMG3Tv8, has been tagged as being a copyright violation.

The video consists of me struggling progressively less successfully through three clips of Temperance Reel at 75, 80, and 85 bpm. An outfit called AdRev has claimed that the 80bpm clip in this video is copyrighted. That is absurd. This tune has been around for over 100 years. Besides, I am dying to know why the 75bpm and 85bpm clips are OK and the 80bpm clip is not.

Anyway, they are telling me that they have the right to insert ads across the bottom 1/5 of the screen. I am going to ignore them at this point. I haven't seen any ads so far. I can't imagine there is much incentive to monetize the 20 or so views my videos get on average. But if I do see ads, I am considering taking it and all my other videos off of YouTube.

Maybe I have no reason to get huffy; I would appreciate any comments, advice, etc.

[colorado_al]

This is often an automated process using algorithms to compare sounds to ones under copyright. It is sometimes faulty. Other times it is actually a shakedown.
Regardless, I suggest deleting the video from YouTube and uploading it again, maybe with a slightly different name.

[Martin Jonas]

Anyway, they are telling me that they have the right to insert ads across the bottom 1/5 of the screen. I am going to ignore them at this point. I haven't seen any ads so far. I can't imagine there is much incentive to monetize the 20 or so views my videos get on average. But if I do see ads, I am considering taking it and all my other videos off of YouTube.

Maybe I have no reason to get huffy; I would appreciate any comments, advice, etc.

Happens all the time, especially with the better known classical tunes. Youtube's automatic content matching system can't distinguish between you recording a public domain tune and you sampling a commercial recording of that tune, so it gives false matches of your own recording with a commercially-released (and therefore copyrighted) recording. No human being has listened to your recording and decided to slap a copyright notice on it -- this is all automatic.

It's a nuisance but easy enough to overturn. Go to the Video Manager in your channel, and click on "Copyright Notices". Once you click on the notice for your Temperance Reel recording you'll see a link allowing to to appeal. Do that on the grounds that your video does not contain copyrighted material or you own the copyright to all material in your video. Give a short explanation ("This is my own recording of the traditional folk tune Temperance Reel, which is in the public domain" should do the trick). Once you submit it, the advertising will disappear immediately. The other side will be sent a notification and then has 30 days to respond. Some music publishers have an auto-response which immediately withdraws any appealed copyright notices, but most simply don't reply at all in which case your copyright notice will disappear in 30 days.

Youtube's content match system has lots of these false matches, so I end up using the appeal system a lot -- I've appealed probably about a hundred of them and not a single one was contested. It's a nuisance but I strongly recommend you do appeal if only to stop somebody else getting (a tiny bit of) money from your work.

Martin

[Baron Collins-Hill]

This happens to me regularly. I fill out the required forms to contest the copyright complaint, citing sources like the session and other tune related websites. Here's a source for temperance that I would post if I were to get that notice: https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Temperance_Reel

99.9% of the time they will remove the copyright notice (and therefore ads), but usually not until they get to the end of the 30 days they have to respond. I want to make a lesson on temperance reel, so this may well happen to me. Only once have I had them not accept my reponse, and that was a real hassle, I hope that you don't experience that. Whole 'nother can of worms and rant that I'll save you from now. As far as I am concerned, you (and anyone) are welcome to my general format for responding to these copyright claims. Of course, a lot of tunes are actually recently composed, so do your research! Also, see what tune name they give the actual infringement so you can reference it. Here's what I'd write in Hank's situation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The tune Temperance Reel, also known as Teetotaller's Reel among many others, is a traditional fiddle tune that is held in the public domain. There are multiple sources citing this. The tune was published in Ryan's Mammoth Collection in 1883 (see page 28 of https://violinsheetmusic.org/files/d...collection.pdf), and also can be found on these sites: https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Temperance_Reel and https://thesession.org/tunes/114.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I hope this helps! I am happy to answer follow up questions if I can be of further assistance. It's the least fun part of my job to deal with these copyright requests from the algorithms, but I'd rather do that than have my site splattered with advertisements so YouTube can profit from my videos. Ultimately you can get pretty fast at filing complaints.

Thanks, and good luck!
Baron

[Baron Collins-Hill]

More importantly, nice picking! Keep up the good work!

Baron

[HonketyHank]

Thanks folks. Dispute submitted. Relatively easy process.

And thanks Baron - your videos have certainly helped me.

[liestman]

I would just delight in the fact that a computer can't tell you from a pro playing that tune - way to go!

[Mark Gunter]

Welcome to the club, Henry! I posted here a while back about how they got me for The Wayfaring Stranger, a version I sang with guitar and posted a few years ago. I complained, but they never removed the ads. I'm going to try Baron's fact-based approach from now on, maybe it will help.

[MikeEdgerton]

This is just a way that someone has figured out to game the system and make some money off Google (Youtube).

Next time consider deleting the video and uploading it the next day with the backup information right in the description. That cuts the source of revenue for the scammer. If Youtube actually checks the video before it's tagged they should get enough info off your description to deny the scammers claim of copyright.

The again, Youtube makes money off those ads as well, probably more than the copyright holder.

[DerTiefster]

Opinions following are the author's, and come from my own potentially flawed understanding of the presently enacted copyright laws. I'd be very happy were I mistaken, but I've read too many tales of venues shaken down for copyright fees. Correct me where appropriate, please.

The absurdly written copyright laws blow a big hole in the anti booby-trap parts of common law in that no one need (any more) actually assert in a sworn and legally binding way his ownership in anything. He needs only to assert it, or his guess that some (preferably deceased) relative owned it and he now does by inheritance. Nothing like perjury or anything risky looms over their heads (to my iimited knowledge). BUT there is a statutory damages clause in the law, which is what is reportedly used to bludgeon owners of small venues into paying copyright license fees. This is the route that I would like to see used against organizations such as these which steal revenue under color of the copyright laws. Those laws have good reason for existence, but (in my opinion) not in their present form.

You, as a victim of the violation of your personal performance copyright, should be able to sue for statutory damages, which involves a potential boatload of money given the huge "seat count" of the venue that is youtube. The "statutory damages" from abuse and misuse of your copyrighted material (unlawful and wrongful misuse of your copyrighted performance) are carefully in the law not excluded in the case of negligence.

As I understand it, a wrongful appropriation of your work constitutes a copyright violation, charging money for display of your work without your consent. Each such violation potentially involves a statutory amount of money as damages, not requiring determination of "actual damages" but being a fixed amount (possibly a fixed amount per seat, but I'm not a copyright attorney). Setting up a computer to send such orders without review and without actual ownership of anything in the material constitutes deliberate fraud, in my opinion, and the statutory damages feature of the law should be applicable to anyone doing this. Hopefully I haven't just run afoul of the "making stuff up" phrase in my sig.

Michael

[Bertram Henze]

I had that, too. I remember being quite angry and once again cursing all copyrighting.
I found the way Martin describes, and it worked for me. More hours of my life I want back from these legislators.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Hank - Purely stating a point - Whilst a tune may have been around for 'centuries' (LOL !) - a specific ''arrangement'' of that tune,can be made copyright,not the tune itself,in the same way that 'improvements' in any item can be patented,despite the fact that the 'improved' item may have been around for ages. We have to differentiate one from the other.

I know that it might sound a tad 'off the wall',but i've often wondered why we,as viewers,aren't paid to allow TV adverts to be shown on our TV's ?. If a TV Co. wished to put up a billboard in our living rooms,they'd have to pay us - right ?. So why don't we get paid to allow the same ads. on our TV's ???. Just a thought !!,
Ivan

[CarlM]

You, as a victim of the violation of your personal performance copyright, should be able to sue for statutory damages, which involves a potential boatload of money given the huge "seat count" of the venue that is youtube.

I am not a lawyer nor do I even play the Philadelphia Lawyer, but I am quite certain that you misunderstand the law here. Performance rights apply to live music in venues and are covered under a court judgment from the 1940s when BMI was set up alongside ASCAP. That is what is used to address live performance venues, like bars, festivals and cafes. That is based on the seating count. Replay on radio stations has its own set of rules.

What happens on Youtube is covered under mechanical licensing which is a separate part of the law with a separate royalty structure for streaming content. In theory you might have a case against the trolls for stealing your rights but the cost of pursuing it would vastly exceed the tiny revenues from streaming rights.

[DerTiefster]

CarlM: I'm asking, not claiming expertise -- are you saying that were I to start charging for the right for others to watch a copyrighted movie, say a recent Disney adventure epic, using an internet mechanism, that the recovery and penalty would be a pittance and not be years in jail and tens or hundreds of k$? Forgive me if this seems inappropriate somehow. I'm anticipating something approximating a yes/no answer, or a few explanatory words of guidance in addition.

I'm truly not a lawyer, and don't pretend to be one. I just remember a bunch of the things I read, even when they're incomplete.

Michael

[CarlM]

I am saying that in the case of our personal performances, with only a few dozen or even a few thousand views the expense of exercising our rights, tracking down the trolls and enforcing it would cost more than the few cents you might get from streaming rights. The streaming rights are based on the actual number of views you get, not the potential audience of all the viewers on youtube. And the amount per view is pretty low.

In the case of full length movies or major copyright holder commercial musical works there are often a lot more views than a few hundred as well as more money at stake from the initial production cost. The major entertainment companies and performance rights organizations employ full time lawyers whose job it is to enforce those rights. And even in cases where the cost might not seem worth it they say they are protecting the work from being declared public domain which would cost them royalties from television broadcast and the like which can be significant even if the streaming royalties are not. It can be declared public domain if they are aware of the violation and do not act to protect it. That all changes the cost vs benefit of acting to protect it.

At least that is my understanding which may be incomplete. And I am certainly not defending the system. It has lots of flaws but arose out of Stephen Foster dying penniless despite his writing works that sold millions because he could not enforce his copyrights.

[DerTiefster]

Thanks for the clarification, Carl. My intent was not to recommend to the poster that he could make money from protest, but that presently in force laws might be usable to make the practice about which he rightfully complained painful enough for the perpetrators that they might "stop doing that." I don't like the booby trap features of the present law, which appears not to require registration or assertion under penalty of perjury of ownership of copyright. Any sufficiently large pile of money protects itself, and the legal system (apart from small claims court, which is where I _thought_ this could be pursued in the fashion most thorny for the perpetrators) is exceedingly expensive and discourages all but deep pockets from engaging it.

As I said earlier, there are good reasons for copyright to exist, protecting reasonable property rights for authors and composers. I thoroughly sympathize with the Stephen Foster case. I am not sympathetic to perpetual copyright, which is where modern monied interests will push. Any defensible system should provide something in the way of a path to learn what thing or what component of a thing is actually under copyright. This was part of earlier law. The copyright claim provided to the O.P. was not quoted as saying whether it was melody, lyrics, or arrangement which was protested, giving no identifiable information as to what copyright was being infringed. Just as an example. But I actually thought that small-claims court pursuit of statutory damages would open a route to discouraging frivolous practice used to disturb the O.P.

I think we don't really disagree, and I appreciate your pointing out to me that I may not understand details and classes of copyright infringement which may prevent simple application of my suggestion in small claims court. Yes, I didn't explicitly mention small claims, but that was the venue I thought possible for an individual citizen.

Michael

[Minorkey]

I'm working on a piece of music on my classical guitar and I uploaded a picture of a piece of the sheet to a classical guitar forum, and it was pulled. Even tho the piece was Beethoven's Ode to Joy, which is well out of copyright, the piece was simplified by the site where I found the sheet and had ©2013 on the bottom (which I didnt see at first).

[Seter]

I had a copyright notice issued for me strumming cowboy chords and singing Silent Night in English and then German, which I had specifically chosen as being well-known for being in public domain now. I never bothered to contest the copyright notice, but maybe I will now.

[Seter]

I just checked and there is also a copyright notice on a Gregorian chant recording I made that I uploaded, surely those are public domain or does the Pope hold dominion?

[Minorkey]

Geez, Happy Birthday is copyrighted. You technically need permission to sing it at a venue.

[MikeEdgerton]

Geez, Happy Birthday is copyrighted. You technically need permission to sing it at a venue.

Not any more. The copyright that Time-Warner was claiming was invalidated in court in 2016.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/th...million-863120

[Jeff Mando]

I haven't seen it in years, but in the movie "The Glenn Miller Story" Glenn, played by James Stewart, tries to explain to his father-in-law how music royalties work. I can't remember the exact numbers or dialog, but Glenn shows him a record and he asks, "what do you get paid for this?" Glenn says "three cents." The father-in-law scratches his head, then asks "how many of these can you sell?" About a million of them! The father-in-law pauses, then says, "hey, that's $30,000, I'm beginning to catch on!" (obviously, this was back when $30K bought a very nice house, for example)

For the average guy today, dealing with a few hundred or even a few thousand copies -- it ain't much of a money maker, IMHO.....

I don't know if any of this applies to youtube....

[Tenzin]

The cafe's Newbies group has a tune of the month (TOM) series going. Very similar to the Song of the Week group except we take longer and try not to be so dang good.

I have been posting Youtube videos to the TOM series for two years. Today I noticed that my most recent post, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9C8cMG3Tv8, has been tagged as being a copyright violation.

The video consists of me struggling progressively less successfully through three clips of Temperance Reel at 75, 80, and 85 bpm. An outfit called AdRev has claimed that the 80bpm clip in this video is copyrighted. That is absurd. This tune has been around for over 100 years. Besides, I am dying to know why the 75bpm and 85bpm clips are OK and the 80bpm clip is not.

Anyway, they are telling me that they have the right to insert ads across the bottom 1/5 of the screen. I am going to ignore them at this point. I haven't seen any ads so far. I can't imagine there is much incentive to monetize the 20 or so views my videos get on average. But if I do see ads, I am considering taking it and all my other videos off of YouTube.

Maybe I have no reason to get huffy; I would appreciate any comments, advice, etc.

That will go down in your permanent record young man!

[Stephen Perry]

An interesting aspect is that the copyright office considers streamed files, where no copy exists on the recipient's computer, to not be "fixed" and therefore not covered by copyright law. Make sense of that!

[Seter]

I followed Martin's advice and now the copyright notices for both Silent Night and Credo III De Angelis have been withdrawn!