- Joined
- Nov 25, 2012
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- Channel Type
- Musician
The YouTube "Late Spring Copyright Claim Profit Hunt Season 2017" has officially begun, and I herewith give notice:
If you monetize YouTube videos and have single video content which has in excess of 2k lifetime views, your videos may become targets for this type of CID claimant. Here is how such claims tend to work; read carefully the parameters listed below...
1. The claimants in question are usually either individual creators new to the CID system, Rights Management Companies who enter media into the CID Database without checking whether the submitted samples contain Royalty Free Media or not, or they are RMCs who seek to illegally gain sub-level royalties from RF Media. The third claimant type is small to medium sized MCNs who again enter samples of member content without checking whether any contain RF media.
Note that Royalty Free Media is not eligible for Content ID protection; due to the fact that the CID System was created for media under exclusive copyright ownership. To enter RF media into the CID database is an abuse of the system, and punishable by YouTube.
2. Both audio and visual content may be targets for a single video by multiple claimants; their goal is to divert the monetization of your videos to themselves. For visual media matches, user-shot Nature scenes and RF computer motion backgrounds seem to be common targets. If you shoot your own nature scenes for use on YouTube, remember to keep a raw copy with the timecode stamps from your camcorder clearly showing so that if you are struck you can offer to provide it as proof you shot the footage yourself.
3. RF content disputes may be placed by using the "This video is my own content and I own all the rights" dispute selection. Using the "I have permission from the proper copyright owners" is not the correct way to go as you have licensed the material in question; you do in fact own the rights as you have purchased them, or they were freely given by the stock site you used. Link to both the actual on-site license, and the stock clip in question; whether it be audio or video, and state that the claimant is attempting an abuse of the CID system, by submitting non-exclusive content which doesn't belong on the system in the first place.
4. Be prepared for a multi-level fight in some cases: some claimants, knowing they are the only ones to see a CID dispute, will deny the first dispute, and force an appeal. I've had one or two go all the way to takedown level; but knowing I was in the right, I filed a DMCA Counter-Notice, and waited to be told I was going to court.
Those summonses never came.
Finally, some claimants even knowing they are wrong; yet wanting to inconvenience their targets as much as possible, having filed multiple claims against a single channel, will release the least valuable of the properties and let the more valuable sit out the entire 30 day waiting period. In historical times, this would at least give them the monies from the claimed videos for a month. However in early 2016, YouTube created an "escrow" system which places the earned monies from CID claimed videos into a "hold" account until the dispute is settled. So at the end of the 30 day period, lacking any response or escalation from the claimant, your money will be restored to your Adsense or MCN earnings pool.
Therefore if you are targeted in this "Hunting Season" don't give in to either panic or anger; both are quite useless. Keep a cool head and you will prevail!
I welcome all commentary to this post.
If you monetize YouTube videos and have single video content which has in excess of 2k lifetime views, your videos may become targets for this type of CID claimant. Here is how such claims tend to work; read carefully the parameters listed below...
1. The claimants in question are usually either individual creators new to the CID system, Rights Management Companies who enter media into the CID Database without checking whether the submitted samples contain Royalty Free Media or not, or they are RMCs who seek to illegally gain sub-level royalties from RF Media. The third claimant type is small to medium sized MCNs who again enter samples of member content without checking whether any contain RF media.
Note that Royalty Free Media is not eligible for Content ID protection; due to the fact that the CID System was created for media under exclusive copyright ownership. To enter RF media into the CID database is an abuse of the system, and punishable by YouTube.
2. Both audio and visual content may be targets for a single video by multiple claimants; their goal is to divert the monetization of your videos to themselves. For visual media matches, user-shot Nature scenes and RF computer motion backgrounds seem to be common targets. If you shoot your own nature scenes for use on YouTube, remember to keep a raw copy with the timecode stamps from your camcorder clearly showing so that if you are struck you can offer to provide it as proof you shot the footage yourself.
3. RF content disputes may be placed by using the "This video is my own content and I own all the rights" dispute selection. Using the "I have permission from the proper copyright owners" is not the correct way to go as you have licensed the material in question; you do in fact own the rights as you have purchased them, or they were freely given by the stock site you used. Link to both the actual on-site license, and the stock clip in question; whether it be audio or video, and state that the claimant is attempting an abuse of the CID system, by submitting non-exclusive content which doesn't belong on the system in the first place.
4. Be prepared for a multi-level fight in some cases: some claimants, knowing they are the only ones to see a CID dispute, will deny the first dispute, and force an appeal. I've had one or two go all the way to takedown level; but knowing I was in the right, I filed a DMCA Counter-Notice, and waited to be told I was going to court.
Those summonses never came.
Finally, some claimants even knowing they are wrong; yet wanting to inconvenience their targets as much as possible, having filed multiple claims against a single channel, will release the least valuable of the properties and let the more valuable sit out the entire 30 day waiting period. In historical times, this would at least give them the monies from the claimed videos for a month. However in early 2016, YouTube created an "escrow" system which places the earned monies from CID claimed videos into a "hold" account until the dispute is settled. So at the end of the 30 day period, lacking any response or escalation from the claimant, your money will be restored to your Adsense or MCN earnings pool.
Therefore if you are targeted in this "Hunting Season" don't give in to either panic or anger; both are quite useless. Keep a cool head and you will prevail!
I welcome all commentary to this post.
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