Content-ID Appeal Guidelines Changed?

[Idec Sdawkminn]

I recently received a notification that one of the videos in which I appealed a rejected dispute is going to be taken down in 7 days if I don't cancel the appeal. The people responsible were kind enough to send me an email telling me the reason and they also mention that "YouTube's claim appeal guidelines have recently changed."

Does anyone have any information about these changes?

 

[UKHypnotist]

I haven't heard of any recent changes to the appeals process. Who is the claimant and what reason did they give you?

I frankly think they are trying to bluff you into cancelling the appeal so they don't have to take it down; if you cancel your appeal, then they get the monetization. If you don't cancel the appeal they have no choice but to strike you if they wish to uphold the claim; and a video taken down, is a video that makes neither the claimant nor the uploader any money!

Also if they take it down, you can force the issue with a full DMCA counter-notification. If you do that, then they must resolve it by taking you to court within a certain amount of time, or the whole issue is dead and your video is restored...unless the claimant is a major label who has struck a deal with YouTube where counter-notification is auto-rejected. See FairUseTube web site for details of this illegal out that the labels have; they are literally sidestepping the Law when they do this.

@XXLRay A word here from you might be instructive?

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

Thanks for the reply. I found the answer to my question through the Google forums and by receiving an answer from the claimant. Apparently, the "recent change" they were talking about is the option for a 7-day delayed DMCA takedown. I knew about this option before, so I didn't consider it a recent change.

Normally I'd agree with you about the bluff and monetization thing, but the video in question is blocked worldwide, so they aren't getting any money from it, anyway.

 

[UKHypnotist]

Must be a major label then; not good to mess with those, even with a parody. Usually only people like Sony, UMG and their ilk do worldwide blocks. That also throws your channel into automatic bad standing, in case you hadn't noticed yet. Maybe you'd better play ball this time, unless you want to try to force it to court? You still have that option, even if they do the takedown, unless what I told you before about the labels with the deals applies to this case.

This is one of the precise reasons I create my own music as a rule!

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

In this case it is [Merlin] Beggars, who said they are "a fairly big UK-based indie group of labels". They said they normally only monetize, but because it is a video by Adele and she is really big on not wanting her new album on streaming services, they are having to block those videos. They also said that their hands are tied because the video is also claimed by Sony and they said that Sony most likely won't budge at all.

I've already had one of my videos removed an hour after it went up by IFPI. If you're in the UK like in your username, I'm sure you're familiar with them. I did a counter-notification and nothing happened for 10 business days and it went back up. I've already made preparations for my channel to be taken down because I now have 6 videos, including this one, with 7-day-delay takedowns. I'm going to be uploading a video soon telling my viewers about it and to expect the channel to be back up in the beginning of March because that's when the counter-notifications should have expired. I'm read to play ball, just not on their team.

 

[UKHypnotist]

Hi, and yes, I'm familiar with Merlin. In fact after they tried unsuccessfully to target one of my Soundscapes, I put their financials on watch at Companies House here in England. If YouTube takes down your channel, you do know you aren't allowed to create another one, yes? If your whole channel is taken down, there is no expiry date at all; you are banned for life from YouTube.

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

YouTube states that if your channel is terminated for copyright reasons, you can still submit counter-notifications and your channel will be restored once you have fewer than 3 strikes on it. However, after looking at the 6 videos that have delayed takedowns, none of them have more than 1,200 views in the last 28 days, with some of them having less than 500. Plus, almost all of them let me share the ad revenue, so they just aren't worth affecting the rest of my channel over. So I have cancelled the appeal on 5 of them. The 6th one is the one this thread was originally about, which is Adele's "Hello" music video. I'm leaving that one because it is blocked worldwide and I'd like to get it viewable again. I'll deal with the counter-notification on that one and the few others that are also blocked worldwide later. Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[RyanH]

I did notice this as well. I'm currently removing a number of false Content ID claims, and one of the claimants granted me the ability to cancel my appeal, and the other took it down instantly (I prefer them to be taken down instantly so I can quicken the counter notification process) -- I'm presuming there's an option for CMS accounts to decide whether to strike instantly or to grant the ability to cancel their appeal. I will test it out on a dummy account and let you know.

 

[Idec Sdawkminn]

In case you are interested with the emails back and forth about these, here they are:

Greetings,

I understand this company will be filing a DMCA takedown on a video I have uploaded if I don't cancel my appeal within 7 days.

The video URL is ...
The claim ID is jH13gFKH5_M

There is no need to give me 7 days as I will not be cancelling the appeal and I will be filing a counter-notification if the video is taken down. You may as well just take it down now.

Hello,

You are using our copyrighted content, you do not hold any rights. What makes you think you have rights? By escalating this to an Appealed dispute the only option YouTube give us is a copyright takedown.

The block on Adele’s ‘Hello’ video is a worldwide one, so how you can claim any kind of ownership of our rights is beyond me.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

You Tube Asset Manager

Greetings,

I agree I am using copyrighted content that doesn't belong to me and I do not have any kind of ownership to your rights. That was never the question. The question is if my use of your content is of a nature that copyright law would consider fair use, which wouldn't require me to have any previous rights to the content. I believe my use is a fair use. Nothing personal.

No reply from that one in 24-hours, so I replied again because I didn't think I'd get a reply if I didn't.

Hello again,

I’m only replying again because I don’t feel right about how I conducted myself yesterday. I was defensive and short and it set the discussion into an unpleasant mood from the start.

Regarding the video, you mentioned that I don’t have any rights. This is true. I don’t own any of the rights to anything in any of Adele’s videos. But the “fair use” part of the law allows anyone to use anyone else’s copyright content for their own purposes, without any permission from the rights holders, as long as the overall style, feel, mood, purpose, and/or impression is different enough from the original, and it doesn’t attempt to replace or compete with the market or potential market of the original. Heh, I highly doubt anyone who wants to listen to Adele’s “Hello” song would find mine and be satisfied. My wife can definitely attest to that!

I understand and respect that you are just doing your job and that my use of your client’s content, even if legal, only makes your job harder. That said, I request that you make sure to give due consideration to the possibility of my use of Adele’s content being “fair use” and I would like to remind you that copyright law, at least the US one, requires that due consideration be made for that before any DMCA takedowns are issued.

I hope you have a nice day. And consider asking your IT department to switch to ESET Antivirus instead of Symantec. We recently switched to that and it is much better.

(the end of their email indicated it was scanned by Symantec)

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your longer email.

The main problem here is that you’re in the US, and Sony controls Adele over there - the chances of getting a reply from Sony about this is pretty slim… they’ll be dealing with a higher volume of claims than us (as we’re a fairly big UK-based indie group of labels with just the two of us working on it, vs 600 or so people at Sony).

The other problem is YouTube’s systems - they recently changed them, as often I’d send an email to a user to explain the procedure with this then close and re-claim the relevant claim. I don’t enjoy issuing Takedowns, but now they’ve introduced the Delayed Takedown (where you get seven days to talk to each other and try and resolve things) they’ve changed the Appeals procedure too and you can no longer do this.

So we’re kind of tied here… if I set your video to monetize (which I can’t do at the moment), it would still be blocked in the US, and I can’t see Sony budging on this. As it is right now there isn’t a lot I can do. Probably not a lot of help though. Adele is a tricky one thanks to all the issues with streaming we’ve had with this album, and her not wanting to be on streaming services. I can’t do anything because it is in ‘Delayed Takedown’ mode, so the next action would be the takedown (which could be cancelled if you cancel your Appeal - not ideal for you as your video is still blocked.

(by the way, your Frozen ‘Fixer Upper’ video is bloody terrifying!! As is Adele!!)

I’m not sure what to do here. I get Fair Use, and across most of the things we release, this would just be monetized. But because of the block policy at the moment my hands really are tied. Videos don’t tend to get unblocked over time, plus we have the issues that the US (where you are) is covered by Sony anyway.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks again for this reply, ha, and I’ll pass on to IT about the Antivirus too

I replied to them, but haven't received anything back.

Now here's the one about both my Justin Bieber - Baby one and Melanie Martinez - Dollhouse video, which was claimed by Warner Chappell:

Hello,

I understand that 2 of my videos on YouTube are to be taken down in 7 days from now. Both of these had this email address as the correspondence email. The URL and Claim ID of the 2 videos in question are as follows:

(URL)
j3PMfjcDiII

(URL)
677lNF-CaLY

I’d like to avoid these videos being taken down, but see no reason to cancel my appeal in order for that to happen, since, as I’ve mentioned in my dispute and appeal, I believe they are “fair use”.

Please respond back regarding these videos and I hope you have a nice day.

Hi Jason,

Please appeal these videos again and I will release the takedown. We will be keeping our claims on the videos since we own the rights to the composition, but I will not takedown the video. Although you are slightly altering the song in your videos by slowing them down, you are still using the original composition and thus these videos are seen as covers of the original. With our claim on, you don’t have to pay any fees, we will just monetize off of the adds that are put up. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Best,

Sean Matusich

Hi Sean,

Thanks for getting back to me. YouTube gives me the option to cancel the current appeal and it will avoid the takedown. However, the reason I disputed and appealed in the first place was because of the monetization. Had I been okay with that, I would never have disputed, and especially not appealed further, in the first place. I understand that because of the compositional nature that they are considered covers of the original under your company policy and guidelines. I won’t argue with that. But I do not believe that they would be considered merely covers in a legal sense. A cover is typically an artist performing a song that was originally performed by another artist, for the same purpose. In contrast, the purpose of my use is not the same as the original. It attempts to comment on the original by changing the originally intended mood into a very different one. All compositional elements of the original are also changed in meaning because of this. My use is closer to a parody than a cover.

I understand if you, as a representative of your company, do not or cannot accept or agree with my view. But I would like to remind that due consideration of the possibility of my use being “fair use” is required by law before any DMCA takedowns are issued, whether it follows your company’s policy or not. Nothing personal of course. Also, just as a head up, I intend to respond to any takedowns with counter-notifications.

Thanks again for your reply!

Hi Jason,

Thank you for the quick reply.

We will continue to claim for any of our songs that you cover on your youtube channel. You are using the original compositions to create your videos, and thus you are using our property without permission. If you do not want ad monetization on your videos, then I can have you contact our Synch department whom would be happy to help out. You would be able to purchase a synch license for any songs you use that would only include a one-time fee and would stop any ads from showing on your video.

If you would like to continue appealing any claims we make to stop monetization on your videos, then we will be forced to take down your videos.

Thanks,

Sean Matusich

Well, I tried, but apparently "fair use" either doesn't matter much in these cases, or is misunderstood even among professionals.

 

[DJBenz]

In case you are interested with the emails back and forth about these, here they are:

Out of interest, when do you get a message that gives you a contact email? Currently going through a Content-ID claim at the moment and have just filled in the 'final' appeal via YouTube to argue against it, but I would prefer if I could actually communicate with a real person.