MY BITTER EXPERIENCE WITH YOUTUBE.
I am 86 years old and I had found a hobby that I liked and gratified me. I remembered that in the 1950s, when I was about 16, I had a crush on an English actress, Jean Simmons, very beautiful, good, versatile. So, having time available, I decided to open a Youtube channel entitled "Jean Simmons' Movies", where I began to publish all of her films starting from her first films in 1944.
It worked like this: during the publication procedure, Youtube notified me if I could release that movie or if there were copyright issues (for some countries or worldwide). So I went calmly. If there were copyright problems, instead of the entire film, I published short clips of less than 5 minutes containing scenes in which Jean Simmons appeared, and during the publication of these clips I received a warning that the content was covered by copyright, but that the owner authorized the publication.
On June 10th I reached the milestone of 1000 subscribers to the channel and 278 videos published. So, all is well. But four days later, on the 14th, the freezing shower. I receive an email informing me that "the channel has been closed due to various copyright strikes" relating to:
- a 1953 film, "Affair with a Stranger" published in its entirety as no copyright restriction had been reported to me
- various clips taken from the 1957 film "This Could Be the Night" for which I had received notice of authorization for publication despite the copyright rights.
I would like to point out that the work I did on the channel was not limited to publication alone. What I was most concerned about was the processing, revision and synchronization of the subtitles in English and Italian that I made available to visitors so that they could enjoy watching the films in the original version even if they were not sufficiently fluent in the language. Work which was particularly laborious for the short clips, with subtitles that required cutting and further synchronization. A job that kept me busy for hours every day over several months.
I immediately sent an email to Youtubecopyright, pointing out that I had never received the "various copyright warnings" they were talking about (I later realized that they had received these warnings, not me), and I made it very clear, in bold , that my complaint did not concern the removal of the offending contents (since I was not able to evaluate the reasons), but the sudden closure of the entire channel, made without any warning.
To this email of mine in which I detailed my reasons, they responded (reaffirming that the channel had been canceled due to repeated reports by the rights holder) with an email that seems to me to be an automatic response and which makes me think that the content my complaint hadn't even been read.
In fact, it is suggested to: 1) try to contact the rights holder to withdraw the request to remove the videos (when I had clearly said that I was not complaining for the removal of the videos, but for the closure of the channel). 2) Request clarification using a form accessible via a link provided to me, in which there was a mandatory field indicating the URL of the channel which, having been closed, was non-existent and made it impossible to send the form.
I then sent another email on June 20th asking, please, to read the contents of my complaint and give me an answer on the merits.
Having received no response, I sent another reminder on June 25th.
What should I do? continue sending reminders? Or do you think that they are so arrogant that they don't care if one of their users has worked and sacrificed a lot of time, for his own pleasure yes, but also to enrich the contents of their platform in his own small way, and in an instant he has seen all the his work destroyed?
I am 86 years old and I had found a hobby that I liked and gratified me. I remembered that in the 1950s, when I was about 16, I had a crush on an English actress, Jean Simmons, very beautiful, good, versatile. So, having time available, I decided to open a Youtube channel entitled "Jean Simmons' Movies", where I began to publish all of her films starting from her first films in 1944.
It worked like this: during the publication procedure, Youtube notified me if I could release that movie or if there were copyright issues (for some countries or worldwide). So I went calmly. If there were copyright problems, instead of the entire film, I published short clips of less than 5 minutes containing scenes in which Jean Simmons appeared, and during the publication of these clips I received a warning that the content was covered by copyright, but that the owner authorized the publication.
On June 10th I reached the milestone of 1000 subscribers to the channel and 278 videos published. So, all is well. But four days later, on the 14th, the freezing shower. I receive an email informing me that "the channel has been closed due to various copyright strikes" relating to:
- a 1953 film, "Affair with a Stranger" published in its entirety as no copyright restriction had been reported to me
- various clips taken from the 1957 film "This Could Be the Night" for which I had received notice of authorization for publication despite the copyright rights.
I would like to point out that the work I did on the channel was not limited to publication alone. What I was most concerned about was the processing, revision and synchronization of the subtitles in English and Italian that I made available to visitors so that they could enjoy watching the films in the original version even if they were not sufficiently fluent in the language. Work which was particularly laborious for the short clips, with subtitles that required cutting and further synchronization. A job that kept me busy for hours every day over several months.
I immediately sent an email to Youtubecopyright, pointing out that I had never received the "various copyright warnings" they were talking about (I later realized that they had received these warnings, not me), and I made it very clear, in bold , that my complaint did not concern the removal of the offending contents (since I was not able to evaluate the reasons), but the sudden closure of the entire channel, made without any warning.
To this email of mine in which I detailed my reasons, they responded (reaffirming that the channel had been canceled due to repeated reports by the rights holder) with an email that seems to me to be an automatic response and which makes me think that the content my complaint hadn't even been read.
In fact, it is suggested to: 1) try to contact the rights holder to withdraw the request to remove the videos (when I had clearly said that I was not complaining for the removal of the videos, but for the closure of the channel). 2) Request clarification using a form accessible via a link provided to me, in which there was a mandatory field indicating the URL of the channel which, having been closed, was non-existent and made it impossible to send the form.
I then sent another email on June 20th asking, please, to read the contents of my complaint and give me an answer on the merits.
Having received no response, I sent another reminder on June 25th.
What should I do? continue sending reminders? Or do you think that they are so arrogant that they don't care if one of their users has worked and sacrificed a lot of time, for his own pleasure yes, but also to enrich the contents of their platform in his own small way, and in an instant he has seen all the his work destroyed?