Video Banned in All Countries for Using Movie Trailers

[Colyn]

Okay, so to make this short, on YouTube, I do movie reviews, and in celebration of 2014, I decided to dedicate an entire video to my top twenty films of 2014. In this video, I used a total of four tracks that are featured in some of the movies' soundtracks/scores that appeared on my list, which, if I might add, wasn't even detected by YouTube; however, what was detected was the use of the movies’ trailers in the video. Now, I've used trailers for these best of videos in the past, but the sole difference that’s not present in my 2014 video is that I would show the trailers with the trailers' sound at a relatively inaudible level with my voice being played over them, and with this approach, YouTube would still detect copyrighten materal, but it wouldn’t do any real harm. I would just simply acknowledge the claim, and my video would still continue to be shown on YouTube internationally. However, this time, I decided to use the trailers as an introduction to the film I'm discussing. For example, in my latest video, I announce a film that is in a certain spot in my countdown, then the video cuts to a 10 to 40 second portion of the trailer, then the sound of the trailer fades out or cuts abruptly to make way for my voiceovers. Perhaps this is why YouTube reacted so harshly?

My intent was to never make any profit off of this video I created, which I have worked ever so strenuously on. I just want my video to be seen. Simple. I have an option to dispute the claim, but I fear by doing so I would not be in the right, which would make matters much worse. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Another option I’ve been contemplating would be to change the pitch of the trailers, or merely speed them up. Would that do the trick? Or, I’ve also thought about stripping the trailers away of their intros and outros and just leaving them inaudible with my voice being played over them like I’ve done previously. Regardless, I don’t want to make my next move until I’m sure.

Any feedback is largely appreciated!

 

[Tarmack]

YouTube is much better at matching audio than it is at matching video. Take that for what you will.

If you normally do reviews of movies, there's a certain amount of logic behind a fair use defense of that content. However, ContentID doesn't care about fair use and the issue is only ever raised if you receive a third party match and have to explain in the dispute that it is a fair use application. What I'm saying is that reviews are certainly justified, but your content not getting matched has nothing to do with that justification, they're coincidental.

However, a top 10 list is not a review and won't have much luck with a fair use defense. So you could dispute it, but you will lose. I'm sure that you could try altering the pitch or something along those lines but that takes the realm into an active TOS violation making an effort to circumvent the rules which IMO would be a pretty stupid thing to do unless you don't care about your channel.

Honestly, I would restructure the top 10 list. Turn it into a review of sorts. Each movie gets a 1-2 sentence review summary, so that you can justify muting the trailer and keep it proper fair use.

 

[Riddikore]

It could also be that someone else saw your video and reported it as a copyright violation. It might give you the option to keep the video up but YouTube will put ads on it and the copyright owner will get the money, not you. Even if you weren't going to monetize it to begin with. Also if this is the case, then even changing the pitch or speed won't help and could reduce the quality of your video and to you as a YouTuber.