Help! Copyright claimed by a random company?

[The Humming Boy]

First of all pardon me for my total ignorance as I'm completely new here (in fact I've decided to join this wonderful forum to get help on this issue).

I made a cover on the song "Love Yourself" by Justin Bieber in Feb 2016. However just yesterday a company named ONErpm decided to claim copyright of "sound recording" on behalf of a person known as Lucas Estevam.
When I press "play match" it only sounded like my own recording. I've watched the cover of the same song by the aforementioned person but could not observe any matching there.

Now any revenue on my video will be directed to this claimant (ONErpm, a company associated with YouTube), who did not even create this song.

My question is, how should I go about this?

Thanks for any help in advance!

 

[Hi!MyNameIsJan]

They are trying to f**k you over. You can cover songs legally. If im right, not even Justin Bieber could claim your video. Lucas Estevam sure as hell can´t. Dispute the claim, write them a nice (irony) email, use some legal words, tell them your lawyer is onto this or something in this context.
It´s probably a bot that content claims videos for this company, hoping to steal your revenue. f**k them. Youtube has no real counter to this, and they know its happening, but support big companys (the ones that make the legit claims) and therefor also allow this abuse. Dispute it, dispute it, dispute it. You are in the right.

 

[The Humming Boy]

They are trying to f**k you over. You can cover songs legally. If im right, not even Justin Bieber could claim your video. Lucas Estevam sure as hell can´t. Dispute the claim, write them a nice (irony) email, use some legal words, tell them your lawyer is onto this or something in this context.
It´s probably a bot that content claims videos for this company, hoping to steal your revenue. f**k them. Youtube has no real counter to this, and they know its happening, but support big companys (the ones that make the legit claims) and therefor also allow this abuse. Dispute it, dispute it, dispute it. You are in the right.

Hi there, thank you so much for your understanding.
However, I'm not too familiar with the irony, legal words and things like that that you mentioned. Is there a sample as to how I can dispute it? I'm afraid that if I dispute it in a casual way I get myself banned instead.

 

[Hi!MyNameIsJan]

Hi there, thank you so much for your understanding.
However, I'm not too familiar with the irony, legal words and things like that that you mentioned. Is there a sample as to how I can dispute it? I'm afraid that if I dispute it in a casual way I get myself banned instead.

This is serious and i won´t give you legal advice. I guess this would be your first strike, so you won´t loose your channel or anything. I would write them(the company that claimed you) a email saying that you broke no law or guidelines, and they are in the wrong. Also add that you won´t hesitate to consult your lawyer.
That should do the job.

 

[Shakycow]

The karaoke guitar backing is being used in another video and that's what Content ID picked up on and flagged you for.

You should have no problems countering it by saying that the background track was used under Creative Commons (include a link) and the remaining is completely your own.

That said, YouTube should flag it on their own as a cover (as they do with all music covers) and a portion of the revenue will be justifiably taken from you and given to the people/ companies who hold the original song's rights.... but that is a separate issue than what has happened here.[DOUBLEPOST=1479408854,1479408566][/DOUBLEPOST]

This is serious and i won´t give you legal advice.

...but that's exactly what you attempted to do with your first post. If you don't know the legal answer for something in the copyright forum, you should refrain from offering any answers or suggestions. Doing so is not only extremely dangerous, but the repercussions could be disastrous including copyright strikes, a channel being closed, or actual legal penalties and fines.

 

[The Humming Boy]

The karaoke guitar backing is being used in another video and that's what Content ID picked up on and flagged you for.

You should have no problems countering it by saying that the background track was used under Creative Commons (include a link) and the remaining is completely your own.

That said, YouTube should flag it on their own as a cover (as they do with all music covers) and a portion of the revenue will be justifiably taken from you and given to the people/ companies who hold the original song's rights.... but that is a separate issue than what has happened here.

I originally have half of the revenue shared justifiably with the people who hold the original background track's right. But what happened here few days ago is unjust as neither ONErpm nor this random Lucas dude owns the copyright of this song/backing track.

 

[Sin B]

I originally have half of the revenue shared justifiably with the people who hold the original background track's right. But what happened here few days ago is unjust as neither ONErpm nor this random Lucas dude owns the copyright of this song/backing track.

Filing a counterclaim is the correct course of action, Philly D did a video about it somewhat recently but I have not been able to find it, but overall he talked about how a lot of fake companies/people are claiming videos just to try and get money off it, since if you don't dispute within 5-7 days I believe they get the profits. So just make sure the point of your whole "reason" is THIS IS ABSOLUTELY 100% MY CONTENT, MY FACE, ETC!! The person that filed the copyright has 30 days or so to waste your time but most of these fake claimants give up after a while.

You should also @ him on Twitter, maybe the dude has no idea and someone's just bs'ing using his name.

 

[subversiveasset]

The karaoke guitar backing is being used in another video and that's what Content ID picked up on and flagged you for.

You should have no problems countering it by saying that the background track was used under Creative Commons (include a link) and the remaining is completely your own.

That said, YouTube should flag it on their own as a cover (as they do with all music covers) and a portion of the revenue will be justifiably taken from you and given to the people/ companies who hold the original song's rights.... but that is a separate issue than what has happened here.[DOUBLEPOST=1479408854,1479408566][/DOUBLEPOST]

...but that's exactly what you attempted to do with your first post. If you don't know the legal answer for something in the copyright forum, you should refrain from offering any answers or suggestions. Doing so is not only extremely dangerous, but the repercussions could be disastrous including copyright strikes, a channel being closed, or actual legal penalties and fines.

I wanted to amplify this comment (since it's correct) as well as note what is happening mechanically since some of the other comments make it sound like this is a malicious thing, and it really isn't.

Lucas Estevam has apparently registered his cover which uses the same background track in content ID (which distribution services like OneRPM do, in addition to putting things on itunes, spotify, amazon, etc.,). That's not "fake" copyright in and of itself -- cover artists do have the right to distribute their covers and to protect the copyright on the "derivative" aspect of their work (to the extent that their derivative is approved by the original copyright owner, which in this case, oneRPM also ensures that the appropriate licenses are paid for, so it is)

Lucas's derivative uses shared creative commons material (the backing track), and that also isn't a problem. It also isn't necessarily a problem for Lucas to seek copyright for his derivation (that is, his voice).

The issue is with content ID's automatic system. Either content ID isn't really granular enough to tell the difference between Lucas Estevam's voice (which is what he has copyright to) and the backing track (which he doesn't), or OneRPM wasn't able to block the creative commons aspect in its reference content. So, it's overactively picking up other songs (like yours, topic creator) using the same backing track.

You *should* be able to counter this without an issue. However, I have heard horror stories of rights management companies sometimes being a bit resistant to release the claim (even though they don't have a good case).

My one possible quibble is in the screenshot you provided, I don't think you've provided the right dispute reason -- you don't want to claim fair use, because you're not using Lucas's content in a transformative way. Instead, I think the one you want is "I have a license or permission from the proper rights holder to use this material" (and that's where you go into the Creative Commons stuff, as per Shakycow.)