Copyright flag and takedown on YT for a cover [Warning: Rant]

William Williamson

I'm so furious right now - and I know I have no real justification - but it just seems so unfair.

I decided to learn a song for halloween, so picked 'Bark at the Moon' by Ozzy - it took me about two weeks of solid wood-shedding to get it to a decent level. I then decided to record myself: after seven bodged takes of what wass previously flawless I have a rough approximation. I decide to match it up to the actual song and realise that I'm missing a bar here and there - and my takes aren't even aligned so I can switch between them - so that's another few hours of audio editing.

I realise I forgot to turn my camera on, so I do another two takes with some video up. My camera refuses to allow me to copy the video files, so I decide to call it a night and just upload to Soundcloud.

A few hours later I find the video files have copied - so another few hours of video editing, splicing, then an hour or two of doing spooky effects then 30 minutes of rendering, and Photoshop for half an hour to make a nice thumbnail. Another 30 minutes to upload the file - and by 11:30pm last night all is well.

Wake up this morning to "Your video has been blocked for all countries due to a copyright claim by Sony Music Entertainment". I KNOW that it's within their legal right, but it just seems so punitive - there are dozens if not hundreds of other cover videos out there - and somehow my head was over the parapet.

At this point, I can't even listen to the song again - let alone finding fan-made backing tracks and splicing my guitar lines into it. I'm just bloody done with it.

On the bright side, I have learned a few things:-
 - Have a clapper to align video and audio
 - Run the audio through takes in Reaper (instead of separate tracks) so you can switch between them
 - Crowd-source  the backing track instead of relying on the official tune.

Gosh, I'm so angry.

joeyowen

That properly sucks 

But, congrats on learning the song properly . It's little consolation , but that is what matters 

lustycourtier

I did a live video of me talking in a pub. The jukebox was on and within minutes the vid was gone due to copyright infringement 

William Williamson

How is it that people can have videos of them literally playing with full volume tracks ripped from a cd? There must be some middle ground, as I find it hard to believe they've all gotten licenses to use it  

Benson

I did a Prince instrumental once, same thing happened, gone within minutes. 

DulcetJones

I don't know what they look for, or how something gets flagged, I've never uploaded a cover song, but a friend of mine uploaded some of his original music and they took it down for infringement.  He made contact and attempted to reason with them to no avail, but, as mentioned, there are thousands of covers all over the site.   Maybe it's because all these songs have a lot of the same notes in them...... 

paul_c2

William Williamson said:

How is it that people can have videos of them literally playing with full volume tracks ripped from a cd? There must be some middle ground, as I find it hard to believe they've all gotten licenses to use it  

I guess it depends on which underlying record company owns the rights to the song. Some of them have very active departments which search for copyright infringements, while others are less active/more sporadic? I wonder if its now automated, either by Youtube or the record companies, where they use some kind of tool to scan each new video as it comes onto Youtube etc? Obviously there was some kind of deal which allowed for copyrighted music to be played on Youtube (ie by the companies themselves), I vaguely remember a news story about it.

Maynehead

You should have called it "Snark at the Baboon" instead...

Vaiai

Usually you can just allow them to monetize the vid and they let you leave it up. Almost all my vids of gigs etc have been flagged - funniest was one where the DJ had a Bad Company song on just before we went on and it got flagged for that. So if there is anyone out there who wants to hear a muffled echoey version of said song with a DJ chatting over it - guess my vids are the place to go!

It is automated and they pick it up from the title of your vid too.

You sure there is not a bit that says if you allow us to monetize it you don't need to do anything?

Cirrus

I thought covers were ok, as long as any applicable mechanical royalties were paid to the rights holders/ songwriters etc. In the case of a youtube video, that'd be nothing unless you were monetising it. That was my understanding of it anyway, though happy to be corrected. It does make it double baffling considering there are so many youtube vids that are the actual legally protected recording,  and they seem to get by with no problems.

In truth, the tech companies just want to redefine copyright to be whatever suits them. Especially in the states it's pretty amazing how boldly Google for example have infiltrated the gov't to be able to write the laws to suit themselves.

carlos

paul_c2 said:

William Williamson said:

How is it that people can have videos of them literally playing with full volume tracks ripped from a cd? There must be some middle ground, as I find it hard to believe they've all gotten licenses to use it  

I guess it depends on which underlying record company owns the rights to the song. Some of them have very active departments which search for copyright infringements, while others are less active/more sporadic? I wonder if its now automated, either by Youtube or the record companies, where they use some kind of tool to scan each new video as it comes onto Youtube etc? Obviously there was some kind of deal which allowed for copyrighted music to be played on Youtube (ie by the companies themselves), I vaguely remember a news story about it.

It's automated and each copyright holder decides how they want to go about it. Some put ads on it and get the money, others prefer to just have it blocked, others allow it. It sucks for OP but he's on the wrong side of the law in this one.

William Williamson

Oh I don't disagree I'm "on the wrong side of the law", but I'm sure there are ways around it which fall squarely into the grey area rather than outright fraud. If it were automated based on sound samples, how do the other chaps get their covers to stay up?

fretmeister

"grey area" - no such thing.

If an un-authorised version stays up it's either because there is something in the track that makes the software miss it, or that the copyright holder has a policy of not removing obviously educational / obviously amateur versions.

That isn't a grey area, that is indulgence by the owner.

William Williamson

Hmm.. but it can't be indulgence if takedowns and analysis are automated (and we're talking about the same track) so there must be something causing the software to miss some and not others.

At this point I can't even face listening to the bloody song so I'm in no danger of putting it back up, though...

Danny1969

I've got about 60 videos of my band doing covers on YouTube , it's a good way of getting exposure outside your normal area ... No probs so far which is odd as we are definitely in infringement 

guitarfishbay

Danny1969 said:

I've got about 60 videos of my band doing covers on YouTube , it's a good way of getting exposure outside your normal area ... No probs so far which is odd as we are definitely in infringement 

If it's not original tempo or tuning it probably bypasses the audio detection algorithm. This is also why there are loads of commercial tracks uploaded at altered speeds. 

axisus

I always planned to not have ads on my videos as they annoy me with other peoples stuff. Anyway, I did a cover of a Christian worship song as an instrumental, did my own arrangement and played all instruments. By the time it got up to 60K viewings (a long time!) I got an email saying that I had infringed copyright. It wasn't taken down, but they stuck a bloody ad on it!!!!!!! 

Danny1969

guitarfishbay said:

Danny1969 said:

I've got about 60 videos of my band doing covers on YouTube , it's a good way of getting exposure outside your normal area ... No probs so far which is odd as we are definitely in infringement 

If it's not original tempo or tuning it probably bypasses the audio detection algorithm. This is also why there are loads of commercial tracks uploaded at altered speeds. 

Ah, that's it ... we tune down a semi so it's not the correct pitch and the tempo wouldn't be right as it's live!

axisus

guitarfishbay said:

Danny1969 said:

I've got about 60 videos of my band doing covers on YouTube , it's a good way of getting exposure outside your normal area ... No probs so far which is odd as we are definitely in infringement 

If it's not original tempo or tuning it probably bypasses the audio detection algorithm. This is also why there are loads of commercial tracks uploaded at altered speeds. 

No, it's not that. I did some tests few years back with a commercial track that I wanted to play bass along to. It recognised the track when I just played a section, it recognised it when I slapped noise all over it and it recognised it at a different speed. I never figured out exactly how it was doing it.