Google's New Scheme To Avoid Unlicensed Music 213
An anonymous reader writes "Complaints about copyright infringement on YouTube keep Google busy. If you have any doubts, just look at the Viacom copyright suit. But the problems aren't just about uploaded videos, but sometimes the music accompanying the videos. A patent application shows that Google has worked on a system to automatically identify infringing music by comparing a digital signature of a soundtrack to signatures of existing music. Users who upload videos could opt to completely remove the video, swap the soundtrack for something approved, or to mute the video. Of course, there doesn't seem to be a provision if you're using existing music with permission."
Re:Fair use? (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems that it's not even fair use if you have express permission from the artist. My fiancée has had DMCA takedown notices from recording companies even after having express permission to use music on her blog from the artists themselves. The blog is a music blog reviewing bands, somehow using short clips of music attached to a positive review is seen as copyright infringement.
I don't see how this is not fair use. Then again, record companies seem to love to twist the DMCA to mean anything they want. This stupid act is a waste of time and money, it protects no one and persecutes people doing the right thing. I have no doubt that these laws were developed to remove power from artists and fans.
Youtube isn't useful anymore (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a bunch of really old student student news shows up on my personal account. The opening used at best 15 seconds of some random pop song du jour. The audio on the video is now completely muted because of god forbid 15 seconds of fair use music.
It's not even worth the effort to edit and upload the videos. Youtube is no longer useful for what its intended purpose was.
Google goes copyright absolutist (Score:5, Interesting)
Google has gone positively copyright absolutist - not just in YouTube (which, of course, grew up on a steady diet of infringement), but also in Adwords and maybe Adsense.
Adwords now disallows ads with phrases like "music videos" or "Internet TV [americafree.tv]," under the theory that any site advertising such must be guilty of, not just infringement, but "hacking and cracking." As their standard of proof is "guilty until proven innocent," arguing with them is fairly frustrating...
Re:Is this new? (Score:5, Interesting)
The system may not be new, but the policies described most certainly are. What is proposed from the article is "presumption of guilt". Ignoring for the moment the awesomely infuriating and wholly unethical statement of "presumption of guilt", there will be some serious problems for such a system once live if these new policies are put into effect.
Personally, I deal with hundreds, sometimes over a thousand, of these notices per day. What is absolutely batshit crazy is that we don't know who the hell these people are and what their music is. Google's (YouTube) system has made thousands upon thousands of mistakes already with just the system I manage. All of the content that is being uploaded has fully licensed music in it. Fully Licensed. We have disputed it a couple dozen times and attached proof. We have yet to hear ANYTHING from Google or YouTube. Nothing. Completely Ignored. We already gave up a long time ago.
My impression is that if you were to walk into YouTube's offices there would be hundreds of phones ringing, emails appearing on desktops, and no human beings anywhere. Like some post apocalyptic movie scene where all human flesh dissolved and the world was left turning without us. A completely automated system running happily on it's own. Like SkyNet, except mentally challenged.
Now if they really do move to this policy where our only options are to swap music or delete the video we might just have to close up shop. I am sure their music selections are going to suck something awful and be wholly unsuitable for us. You know that and.... we actually paid for our fucking music we won't be able to use.
What about songs that are self released? (Score:1, Interesting)
This seems like it will be a moot point when most artists inevitably start self releasing. Zoe Keating's cello album debuted at #7 on the billboard classical charts entirely from bandcamp.com sales with no label. As a media producer, this is really exciting, because theoretically all I would have to do is contact her to use her songs in my creations. No labels involved. The tide is definitely shifting in the direction of self releasing, making the RIAA increasingly irrelevant. Since self released songs are also theoretically protected by some kind of copyright, how will YouTube handle this, or are they only concerned if you use the dribble that major labels put out?
Re:Knowing which screw to turn (Score:2, Interesting)
Many people like you confuse the hard work that put into making the album (which is not easy) and the split second it takes to copy the resulting work (which any moron on the Internet can do)
And many people, like you perhaps, seem to think its ok to attach the payment to cover the cost of making the album on the point at which you make a copy of the resulting work.
That is a failed business model. The hard part, as we all agree, is making the album. ~That~ is where the valuable and difficult work took place... ~that~ is where payment must be extracted. Pushing the payment out to distribution of individual copies worked when it was actually work to make individual copies.
But over the last couple decades the difficulty, effort, and expense of making those copies has gone to zero, and its no longer a rational or viable point at which to extract payment.
There are other ways of covering the cost of making the album. Its high time to start looking at them.
Bypass it (Score:1, Interesting)
Just load up the music you want to (fairly) use in Audacity and change the pitch up or down by .5 semitones, enough to be imperceptible by the human ear but just confuse the digital fingerprinting enough to not get picked up.
Ironically enough, there are hundreds of videos about how to do this on YouTube, of all places.
Some personal experience (Score:2, Interesting)
Your video, Xxxxxxxx, may include content that is owned or licensed by these content owners:
Content owner: UMG Type: Audio content
What should I do?
No action is required on your part. Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video.
The video's been online for over two years.
It's already in use and does not work (Score:2, Interesting)
I used my video camera to film a circus performance. The video was disabled because the sound from the loudspeakers was on my video and that sound was copyrighted music.
At the same time, the same music title was spread around youtube in full glory with accompanying original video clip in dozens of copies and was not blocked. Why is my analog recording blocked and the digital 1:1 copies are not?
Faire use, my ass!
Re:Knowing which screw to turn (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, go on then.
And please don't re-hash the "musicians should only be paid when they perform live" argument, it makes no sense. After all, once you have the sunk cost of setting up a gig, there is zero marginal cost for each additional member of the audience, so why should they pay anything?