Scott, thank you for looking into this! I am so happy that you got in touch with Fil! Fil fights for all things right! You are a blessing to help Fil with this! Thank you so much!
@@LawLaughsMusicYou are not a nobody! As for Fil, he is a special human being! Kind, respectful, intelligent and has integrity and honesty that is not often found these days!
Just watched Fil's Sunday video, and he sent us over here. My comment references a comment that Fil said he gets a lot. In regards to situations like this fraud that's being perpetuated, some people just say, "who cares?" Many people have a very strange attitude towards music. They would never condone stealing a painting from an art gallery or plagiarism, but they think nothing of downloading music for free, and they see no problem with content creators claiming ownership of a song they had absolutely no part in the creation of. The "who cares" people. As long as they can download and own the music they like for free, they don't care if other people pay for their downloads, they don't care if artists get paid, they don't care who's getting the copyright money from YT, and they don't care if someone fraudulently claims ownership of a song. All that stuff is just blah, blah, blah to them. It's just noise, and they don't care as long as they can access the music they want to listen to. It's a shame that integrity means so little to them. I've noticed some other Wingers in your comments. We're all very proud of your BFF too. ❤
Thank you kindly! And thank you for the thoughtful post. I released a part 2 today where, in addition to going into the law on parody, I discussed why I thought the comments he got, especially about not caring about Simon Cowell, were off base (the money would not go to Simon Cowell, it would go to the songwriters). But what's interesting to me is that people still say this even in a situation where they aren't paying, anyway. The excuses you reference are ones I remember hearing people make about downloading songs for free from Napster.
What I don't understand is how these scammers can put an entire song on RUclips and get away with it, while legit and important RUclipsrs like Rick Beato or Professor of Rock get copyright-struck if they play more than a few seconds of a song.
Great post and great point. I wish I had an answer for this. Maybe Rick Beato should pretend he's on the set of X-Factor teaching the judges about music.
Thank you for looking into these concerns. There are so many videos and channels about music that seem questionable if not outright criminal. I wish more lawyers and ethicists would notice what goes on on RUclips across all channels and content.
Thank you kindly. I have more ideas on this. But at the end of the day, the record companies have more incentive and resources than me to tackle this problem. It’s weird to me that these channels are able to stay up so long and get so many views. I would figure it would at least more whack a mole than this if nothing else.
@@LawLaughsMusic The amount of money these channels are collecting could fund an entire department of attorneys to focus on nothing but these infractions. I'm surprised the big three record labels haven't decided to jointly fund a team to do just that.
Most of the scammers were uploading the “original” recording of the hit songs in questions. As in the caseof “ unchained melody”. The exact version released by the record companies. They weren’t really “covers” in the true sense of the word. That makes it even more egregious.
I was very interested in that, too. How were they getting the Righteous Brothers' recording registered on the content ID system? Fil's theory is that they uploaded an obscure live version, probably from television. It does sound different that the famous studio recording. But I am curious if you could get the original past the content ID system and have ideas on how to test it. (One cannot upload a famous song as a test, as there would arguably be an element of fraud involved even if one's intentions are good.)
@@LawLaughsMusic In some cases one can upload the exact recordings from the record labels, and they either get no content match, or are claimed by the record label or the music publisher (or some extraneous third-party as you have been discussing), and allowed to be left up. I'm not talking about not giving the proper credit and trying to deceive anyone, or monetize it. I've noticed in the last couple of years RUclips will claim that the music rights owners are allowing it to be played on RUclips but if the channel was monetized, revenue would have to be shared with RUclips, or something. RUclips has no incentive to stop such behavior outside of enforcing a DMCA take down notice because they make money on everything whether it is legitimate or not. Another issue that doesn't seem fair is that anyone can issue a fraudulent DMCA takedown notice resulting in a strike on a channel, even if they have no claim on the copyright, and RUclips does not check that, it is up to the recipient to file a counterclaim. A problem is that the ones issuing the DMCA takedown notice need only minimal information, which can be completely fabricated, and no proof of copyright ownership, but to file a counterclaim the channel has to provide a lot of personal information which is passed onto the scammers, even if they don't respond and the takedown notice is reversed.
@@LawLaughsMusic I don't THINK I have any non-public information about how ContentID works, but I know a bit about how sound works. You can introduce tiny variations in speed (think putting your thumb on the tape wheel) and then use equal software to pitch correct those variations by the amount it was changed. This about a finely controlled version of the "anti-chipmunking" used when you click the (awesome) RUclips playback speed controller to shift the actually heard frequency back to normal. Over the course of a few bars, you won't notice the song has grown or shrunk by a whopping 794mS, but the digital representation of those bars (especially when the next few bar and a third is sped up a bit and the so on) won't look very similar to software comparing waveforms. I'd wager that Fil (or a producer or an AE...) has a whole toolbox of plugins to simulate wow and flutter, selectively stretch/scrunch "tape", that can pitch up/down selected freqs, and do other horrible, terrible things to a song that wouldn't be noticed by a human casually listening to a TV show. Is that enough to fool it? That's sure where I'd start. You've hit on one obvious way to determine if a song MIGHT be a cover - run it through a variation of the same tech that RUclips uses for captioning. We know Google licenses lyric data from LyricFind and we know that Google has tech that can identify if two bodies of text are similar. Songs get shortened to fit into TV, lyrics get cleaned up, people don't sing clearly (Weird Al has a song on that...), etc. so it's not a true/false match as much as a numeric level of confidence of a match. Factoring in cadence could also be used in that determination. I don't know if Google IS doing any of this. If they are, they're clearly doing a very bad job at it.
Thank you very much for looking into what Fil brought to light. I'm really glad that you are looking into this. My guess as to why RUclips hasn't been really looking into the scammers is because there are endless aspects of content and not just music. You brought up a great point that generally scammers don't have the financial means to sue the original artist. I also found the side notes helpful. Thanks again.
I really appreciate the comment, thank you. I have more ideas to look into this. But at the end of the day, the big music publishers have much more incentive and resources than me, and they have the ear of RUclips.
It keeps getting worse, with the behemoth companies gobbling up everything and having extremely deep pockets. Mom-and-pop companies and other small enterprises can't compete. Goliath keeps getting bigger and stronger, and continually beats the stuffing out of David.
RUclips is crazy - I used a 1 minute audio backing track for a video lecture I did for my university students during the pandemic when all our classes went online. The video was marked "private" and I shared the link only to my class, on our university's secure Zoom connection. The video was blocked by RUclips due to copyright infringement and my students told me they couldn't view it. I had to start over, removing the audio. Meanwhile, these scammers are getting away with much, much more - monetized no less. Something is seriously wrong with RUclips's administration of music copyright and I think this tech giant should be called to account for developing better policy. Letting people rip the entire song and get paid for it!? WTH RUclips?? Maybe someone should also point out to RUclips that it might save them money in the long run - they won't be paying the scam creators easy money for their views/likes/subscribes, either.
I am really amazed that YT and record companies are not more proactive. However as you said these companies have loads of money and maybe they can take the loss - unfortunately the artists cannot and are the victims. 😢
Thank you! I hope your work on this puts a full stop to it! Music is too important to our humanity to let thieves bastardize the work of musicians. That is one way true art can be lost. It’s infuriating!!!
Thank you. But what perplexes me is why the big publishing companies aren't putting resources into this and pressure on RUclips. RUclips might not care about individual RUclipsr's much. But they sure care a lot about the big 3 record companies and their publishing arms. They would lose a lot of ad revenue if the big 3 didn't allow their music to be used on RUclips anymore and flooded RUclips with takedown notices.
I reported ALL of that guy's video's and his wife's as well to you tube (many times) as I saw people BELIEVING that guy was actually singing, I KNOW what Bobby Hatfield sounds like and I knew he was scamming after reading the comments -Sadly Bobby is no longer with us. He was one of the greats and being used. How anyone could think that dude was really singing, is beyond me. The editing is also a dead give away. I thank you for looking into this and you are absolutely right, Fil from Wings of Pegasus is a person who cares. Love his channel and believe he is one of the nicest guys on you tube. Thanks again.
From experience, I agree with your "personal opinion" to fight a scam copyright claim. I once published a video on how to create the hand-drawn art style of the "Take on me" music video by A-ha, using only free software, while singing the instructions to an official Karaoke version of the song (I took it down long ago because no one cared) and the video got claimed. I wasn't monetized so I didn't care, but what appeared at the bottom of the video description was an artist from Asia, I don't recall who. I challenged it stating that I didn't mind the claim but they didn't hold copyright, and it was soon replaced by the rightful copyright holder (and also restricted in certain territories). Thanks for this and please keep us updated if there are any developments.
Thanks for letting me know about that. I've had content ID claims on videos before from rights holders overseas that only block the video in random countries. They appeared to be legitimate. One time sticks out in my mind in particular where I thought it was probably fair use, but I didn't care enough to deal with challenging a foreign licensee about the video playing in random countries that nobody was going to watch it, anyway.
What I do not understand is how easily people are fooled...the first time I saw one of these videos, I knew it was phony...especially since the singer never moved his hand holding the mic away from his mouth. You could never see his mouth moving. My guess is that he doesn't even speak English so could not even mouth the words.
I definitely hear you and thought something similar. In some of the videos the guy is wearing pajama pants. And they are pretty clearly lip-synching. But then again, think about things that are more blatantly fake that fool people. Like people who think that obviously fake, AI photos are real.
Has RUclips and or the 3 big record companies been informed about this scam or are they already aware that this is happening and haven't pursued the matter for some reason best known to themselves?
Curious about this too. Fil's video has almost assuredly raised awareness of this topic within the music community. If I'm in the legal department of the big three record labels, I'd be pushing You Tube for answers, and compensation.
That's a good question. Jeeze, I would assume they must know. I periodically deal with Google attorneys through my day job (i.e., my only job). Maybe I'll ask. I don't know if Fil or Paul Davids contacted anyone.
Glad you are looking into this. Some actually sample real music then claim it as their own. How in the world is RUclips allowing this. Often It is copyright done in odd regions like Russia or Brazil forcing you to “share revenue”. But I doubt I’m loosing much revenue from a Russia or Brazil.
I don't want to sound prejudiced but things have happened in the Philippines, particularly things that have involved gambling and fraud. If I'm not mistaken, the musical fraud that Fil spoke about was taking place in the Philippines. I remember thinking that it was beyond incredible that people not only do this; they have this "in your face" attitude about doing it.
The thing is that while scammers are obviously morally wrong, there will always be people who scam if they can. So RUclips can’t expect things to run on the honor system.
@@LawLaughsMusic These seem like small potatoes and maybe they have been resolved, but some recent memories of copyright issues are: 1. The Wheel of Fortune theme song by Merv Griffin claimed by a broadcast company in Brazil claiming it because they show it on their network. 2. A Folgers commercial with a river dance theme that Rhett And Link claim because they “reacted” to the commercial once. 3. A Nintendo Mario 64 song “Cool Cool Mountain” claimed by some guy from Finland??? Not complete sure still, but he samples it in a song he made. It appears he has claimed several video game songs. I don’t mind giving credit to the real owner of a song, it’s just so many are clearly not the original composer so why does RUclips continue to allow this? It is such a nuisance to fight these things and delay a video’s release.
Yes, but it's hard for me to imagine that their incentive here is anything but stopping the scams and making sure the big music publishers are happy. RUclips gets no benefit from the scammers receiving the creator's share instead of the music publishers. And the music publishers should have enough incentive to devote some of their own resources to the problem. Don't the Eagles have people on staff to look for Eagles videos on RUclips? And that's just one band.
Thank you kindly. But you would think that they would have more people monitoring this so that they at least catch people with numerous videos with millions of views on the same channel. It's not like they're covering obscure songs.
@LawLaughsMusic Yes, I would have thought You Tube would have better monitoring, but you guys proved they don't. I say it's entirely up to you to put the whole thing right! Just kidding. I just hate thinking that this happens and nobody really cares.
Thank you! I just posted one. Part 2 reacts to Fil's update. I go into more depth on the law relating to parody, and I discuss the silliness about the commenters that it doesn't matter because Simon Cowell has too much money (or whatever they say, LOL).
Plain and simple, what these people are doing is a form of plagiarism, and it's terrifying and unsettling to me that people can claim songs or works as theirs, so that they get the revenue, instead of whoever holds the true copyright. RUclips doesn't care about the people who are the owners of intellectual property. They seem to only care about themselves. And now for my questions: Do these people, if they're from poorer countries, point to a lack of international law as it pertains to copyright? How is RUclips so inept at this, that it copyrights the wrong people, or demonitizes them because of YT's own arbitrary rules? Why don't they care about the songwriter/copyright holder of the original work?
Thanks for commenting. These people are subject to U.S. Copyright law. They are ripping off songs protected by U.S. copyright law, taking away money from U.S. publishers, and they are doing this all through an American platform. Also, there are international copyright conventions that apply to the vast majority of the world. A big international treaty convention is the Berne Convention, and the Philippines are a member. How is RUclips so inept about this? That's a good question. I would figure they would do more considering that they need to keep the big music publishers happy, and the big music publishers have a financial incentive to help.
Another great video! Thank you for taking a stand on this. Content creators have been getting the short end of the stick for years now and something needs to change.
You are very welcome. I hope, if nothing else, that someone who gets this kind of claim in the future will be less afraid to fight it. As for RUclips and the record labels, you would think large amounts of revenue belonging to large corporations (even if the songwriter still owns the publishing rights, the administrator has a financial stake) would be enough to at least take out the big offenders.
Paul, thank you for doing a quick dive into what is really a serious issue with RUclips (note that scamming happens quite frequently on this platform) and also briefly touching on dispelling the notion of Fair Use in any content which I think most people don't understand. I am off to look at your other videos and I love to see a video on politics and the use of copyright music.
Thank you kindly! Copyright tends not to be an issue that divides on typical partisan lines. In the most important copyright case in the last couple of years (the Andy Warhol case involving the photo of Prince), Justice Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Kagan wrote a fiery dissent joined by Chief Justice Roberts.
Perhaps RUclips needs to be taking a closer look at videos with over views and ensuring that they are not in violation of copyright laws. That would be a pretty easy algorithm to write.
Yes, I would think so. It's hard for me to imagine that there isn't enough incentive to crack down on this that channels with tens of thousands of subscribers and lots of views are able to stay active for over one year.
Call it a technology experiment. You tested a hypothesis about how the technology works, or inthis case sort of works, and you got results you can measure. It was just about 20 years ago there was a discussion of actors and performers trademarking and or copyrightibg their likeness and voices and it was considered crazy. Well, that theory is now a reality and it doesn't take an organized group to commit wholesale fraud.
Thank you kindly. I'm still curious about how easy it is to upload things on the content ID system and claim that they're your original creations, even though they obviously are not. I have some more ideas that are going to be more time consuming, but that I should hopefully complete within a few weeks or so.
i disagree; i've had comments censored by yt seconds after posting them i've seen yt disrupt presentation because the presenter said something yt disagree with they have the means, but they use it in a targeted way
I've had comments removed and been temp comment banned before, but I have no idea what I said that was wrong. I couldn't even find a way to get some recourse to see what comment I was banned for. As for targetting, MXR Plays has been perma-banned by YT and some of the their videos were incorrectly banned yet they had little to no recourse. They had over 3 million subscribers and was their primary source of income. The thing is though, the videos they were reacting to are still up and available, so it seems like there is either a double standard, or they are just vindictive.
Thank you for this and for supporting Fil. I am a lawyer, but know little about copyright. That said, if you are going to keep doing these youtube videos, I would respectfully suggest that you find a better backdrop. To be honest, it looks like you are filming in the storage room of a Goodwill store.
I actually watched some of the videos it was funny but definitely not a parody. He already had a massive following thinking that he actually participated in those singing contest.
This not only needs to be stopped, the offending content stealers should be required to pay up for money they're already received. What's disturbing is I've seen instances when YT will take down seemingly legitimate channels that provide commentary on music videos, songs and movies, yet allow these other type of scam channels to exist.
That's a great comment. I get emails from people who have their channels deleted because they got three copyright strikes, even though they genuinely believed that their content was fair use. Even if they were wrong, it sucks that their channel is deleted when they genuinely believed their content was legitimate and didn't get a second chance. But these (alleged) scammers keep their channels up with multiple videos with millions of views.
Yes, I just released a part 2 where I go into the law on parody. These videos are not parodies. You can take my word for it, or you can check out my video where I talk about what the Supreme Court has said about this. Or you could do both. Or neither.
just say “Middy” everyone just says “Middy” Although technically its M.I.D.I. although they never print it anywhere with the full stop periods in between the letters.
This is so interesting to me. I have been using midi files since I was in junior high programming very rudimentary video games, and I never knew that people pronounced it as a word.
Thanks for starting to look into this. Also, please look into famous covers already up on RUclips. I checked out Desperado by Linda Ronstadt and You Were Always on My Mind by Willie Nelson, and they both displayed the same way Vanny Vabiola’s cover of the Power of Love showed up, showing their version and not the original, but with one difference as their covers indicated the song writers in text and Vanny’s didn’t. Fil came at Vanny Vabiola hard, so it really needs to be determined if she did anything wrong or if she properly attained the rights to record her covers and put up on YT in the manner she has. Also note, Fil said it was Celine Dion singing and not Vanny in the short dubbed clip he played - but he was wrong about this, as a comparison of Vanny’s and Celine’s versions to the clip makes clear. This accusation has the effect of tying her in some manner to the fraud of the man doing the dubbing. But there is no evidence of this at all. He may have used her voice without permission (even if he does give her version credit). Also, in follow-up videos, would it be possible to show YT screen captures of exactly where and how credit needs to be given to the original rights holders? This way we each can look at other covers (both famous and obscure) to see if they give proper credit. Thanks for looking into the legal aspects of all this and I look forward to your further findings.
Thanks! For legitimate covers (which includes the Righteous Brothers' version of Unchained Melody), I assume that they are paying royalties to all rights holders, even if they aren't explicitly giving them credit.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thanks! Vanny’s covers are available on iTunes, Amazon, and other services. So my default assumption is that she is meeting her legal obligations, is paying royalties, etc. too. I’d hope music services would ensure this. She is Indonesian, but has a large presence on YT with 2.3 million subscribers. Of course, I don’t know if she - or anyone - is doing everything legally as they should, which is why I’d like to understand what (if anything) on YT I could look at for ANY cover to definitively conclude illegality. Thanks again for taking the deep dive into this.
Just the tempo of a cover song being sufficiently different could prevent recognition by the automated system. It's a bit like all the ripped-off videos & clips on here that are reversed left-right when you see any text; it's different enough to fool the system.
Good point. I have more experimenting to do. I don't want to turn this into like ten videos where I try different tactics in each, but I'm going to do one or two more where I combine a few different experiments I've thought of. One will be seeing how little I can adjust an original song to get it past the content ID system.
RUclips is really strict sometimes about things it shouldnt and then lets this kind of stuff happen. I made once a cover of Run Baby Run by Sheryl Crow and RUclips did not recognize it as Sheryl's song but as an italian song called Corri e vai (which is a cover of Sheryl's song) and it has happened to me some other times, RUclips claiming a song belonged to someone in Brazil or something like that when it was not the case.... So they pay the wrong people often. Doesn't seem fair.
Thank you for commenting. It definitely is unfair. I hope that you were able to dispute the claim. Obviously if a claim is made on behalf of Sheryl Crow/the legitimate publisher, then that makes sense, and it is fair. However, money should not be going to a scammer under any scenario, and any claim by a scammer is illegitimate and should be rejected.
A while back I used a track with permission from the original artist under licence, but the content id system attributed it to a cover version. I tried to get that corrected by contacting RUclips but it still remained unchanged meaning the cover artist was getting the revenue instead of the original artist. Which I thought was pretty poor. But at the time I thought it was an isolated error by RUclips but now I realise it's a much bigger problem.
@PhilippinesFarmLife - Was the copyright take-down for the song itself or for the performance? Surely the performance was more recent than the 17th Century and therefore under copyright protection! When multiple artists are involved with a performance or video, copyright gets more complex.
@MossyMozart hit the nail on the head. If I record a Mozart piano work, I do not own the work, but I would own my particular recording. I am not sure if that's the issue here, though.
There are two relevant forms of copyright: the authorship and the performance. For example, the music and lyric copyright has expired for "Danny Boy", but Sinead O'Connor's performance of it is likely owned by her estate or publishing company and will still be in play for a very long time. So it's possible in a case like yours to be OK on the first, but still use a recording with an active copyright on the PERFORMANCE.
Yes, I thought about that. My concern was that it was a slippery slope if I started putting links, because I didn't want to put links to any videos that I implied might be a scam. While I don't think that someone could sue me for defamation even if I were wrong and they weren't scammers (since I made it clear it was my opinion and I wasn't completely sure), I felt from more of a moral sense that I shouldn't implicate someone if I wasn't sure. I'm like 80% sure for each video, but since there were four videos that I think were scams, that means it's more likely than not those one of the four videos was legitimate. And so I thought that whatever value there was in showing my work was outweighed because my experiment was still unscientific. If anything, I thought showing my work would give a sense of scientific legitimacy that would be misleading. While I'm not sure my decision was correct, that was my thought process.
LOL, I thought the same thing. I think I had a text blurb making that joke, but I don't think it made it into the final edit. I've got some future experiments I want to do where singing is important. One of my kids can sing well, and he wants to participate. But I still would like to experiment with auto tune. My guess is I'm missing the notes so badly, autotune wouldn't help. Probably I would need massive manual pitch correction.
I’d like to hear your take on the Ren/Kujo dispute over “Sick Boi.” Whose responsibility is it to be sure all the samples used to create a beat have been cleared, the buyer or the seller? How far back is reasonable for an artist to retroactively offer a split when the producer of the beat doesn’t disclose that there is a licensing problem for over a year after a track has been released? We lost a great piece of music there, not to mention the TITLE track for Ren’s whole album! ✌🏼
I have received multiple comments on this. I might make a video about it if I have time. In general, copyright infringement is a strict liability tort. That means that Ren would be liable for copyright infringement even if he believed in good faith that he had licensed the beat from the true owner. It sucks for people who get screwed by that like Ren. I guess there is some lesson about caveat emptor for buying music off the internet.
Can it be possible that in some cases RUclips content ID algorithms is confronted to concurrent claims on the same song and doesn’t know how to process them ?
Great question. If multiple songs are used, then yes, there can be multiple claims. As for any single song, I think the answer is yes, but I have to hedge my personal knowledge here. In my experience, I would get a claim that would list a bunch of copyright owners. However, it looked like they were all related to each other, for example, Universal's publishing unit and entities that administered the foreign publishing rights likely alongside Universal. And it would just show up as a single claim. I wasn't getting any that they appeared as separate claims. So, there were none where the was what appeared to be a claim for a scammer and another claim for a major publisher, for example. And I don't recall ever getting multiple, independent claims on a single video before. But I have a lot less experience then someone like Fil would have. So, I can't give a definitive answer.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thanks for the answer. As a side subject study, here in France we had in the eighties an interesting case regarding song rights cover : an artist named Laurent Voulzy made a song called « Rockollection » which was an hommage to all the great songs that he grew up with from childhood to adulthood. In this song, the chorus was replaced by short covers of each song he talked about in the preceding verse, including for example « hard day’s night » from the Beatles or « satisfaction » from The Rolling Stones. But Laurent Voulzy didn’t think about the legal rights to use these song before releasing it… This song « Rockollection » was one of his greatest hits and to this day he actually loses money each time it’s aired because he have to pay more rights to the original song owners than what he’s earning with this song.
Glad you challenged. At least on RUclips, if you keep fighting you win unless they sue you. Of course, that’s a very tough and costly way to lose. But personally I wouldn’t be afraid of some scammer.
Wow, I have been saying M.I.D.I. for over 20 years. I didn't know that. If I'm unsure of how to pronounce something, I'll usually look it up, but I didn't even think there was a question there. Thank you for pointing that out.
It would be refreshing if one of the scammers would try to sue you, since the discovery process would be extremely enightening and useful. I am amazed that someone could't pick up a cover of Hotel California, but therein lies part of the problem. In theory, if someone has enough knowledge of how these algorythms are structured, they could make just enough changes to bust the system...identical to those email scams from Ban of Americ.
Thank you. That would be fun if they tried suing me. And you hit the nail on the head. If there are ways to exploit the content ID system to make money, people are going to do it.
Yes, good post. If it were easy, RUclips and the music publishers would have stopped it. They have plenty of financial incentive. But I would think they could do better and at least takedown the biggest channels and culprits.
Thank tou for the video. Do you do videos on demonization? A RUclipsr by the name of Deyo was demonitized. In my opinion unfairly. Allegedly he was demonized for having bot or fake traffic on his channel. Again his name is Deyo and he also has a video somewher on his channel about the topic. Thank youbfor your time.
I have made some videos on fair use on this channel. However, I have not made videos about demonetization for other reasons. I haven't looked into those issues as much.
It seems to me that if the channel has few subs and a particular video few views, then anything goes. I have seen things that I KNOW are infringements but they are usually on small channels. It is the popular channels that get very close scrutiny.
Good comment. These aren't big channels in terms of subscriber count, but I just clicked on one of them, and he's got over 34k subscribers and 18 videos with over 200k videos over the last year. That's not big, but it's not exactly flying completely under the radar either.
Here's my theory: I don’t think RUclips is looking for covers at all. I think their content ID system is just looking for the copyright in the actual performance, not the copyright in the words and music. Perhaps they expect you to have a licence and account for the royalties yourself if you are doing a cover.
Is there any way when you register your performance as a cover to indicate the copyright holder of the song (words/music) as opposed to the original performer's version?
I think it's more to do with the AI that's monitoring it, looking to match Content. This is why people reverse or mirror Video And pitch shift audio. to try to fool the AI. A cover seldom sounds close enough to the original to be mistaken as such. And this is what happens when a platform has more input than can be managed by Human moderators and the whole thing is handed over to poorly trained AI
@Lamster66 Yes, but as I said, I don't think they are even intending to look for covers. I am suggesting that they are only looking for actual performances i.e published recordings and videos. Perhaps we should ask RUclipsrs who put up videos of covers what the procedure is?
To take a non-contentious (ha!) example: the dispute between the Trump Campaign and various musicians is over the use of original artists' own recordings. Which is why Lara Trump (who really, really cannot sing!) recorded her own cover version of one song in the hopes of using that instead.
Looking at Lara's video on RUclips, she seems to be claiming copyright in her own cover of "I won't back down" and only crediting Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne as lyricists...
YT legal question. Why do some reaction vid folks say they have to pause, multiple times, because of copyright issues and others can play the song all the way through before they react?
The people who have to pause songs are worried about de-monetization of their uploads. They are making money from their channel. People who can play the whole video are not monetizing their channels.
Great question! I think the reason is that the content ID system will not put in a claim for very short clips. I am not sure if it's technical reasons or de minimis reasons that it works that way. I say that because very short clips are not necessarily fair use. Length of individual clips also is something that would be considered in a fair use analysis (along with the total amount of the song used). But I think the reason is preventing the content ID system from placing a claim in the first place. Now about the dog training... :-)
If most countries have their own copyright laws what applies to RUclips since it has content from different countries? Does only American law apply since the company is in the USA? In Australia copyright for any artist (music, painter, writer etc) is automatic from the moment it is created and does not have to be registered in any way.
Thank you for the good question. American law would apply. The songs they are singing are copyrighted in the U.S., they are administered by American publishers, and the wrongdoing would occur on an American platform. If someone actually took the time to sue these people in the Philippines, I don't know which law the court in the Philippines would apply. That said, the Philippines is a member of the Berne Copyright Convention, so the law there shouldn't be that much different. Also, FYI, in the U.S. copyright ownership is automatic as well. Copyright registration is just a good idea for various reasons. And if someone wants to sue to enforce their copyright, he or she must register the copyright first.
How are they cover versions in the scammy videos? They're the original artists singing and a random person lip synching. That's not a cover. A cover would be a random person actually doing the singing.
In several of the videos cited by Fil's original post, these hosers WERE re-performing the songs, then using ProTools, Melodyne, Antares, and other pitch-correction to "fix" the performances ("She hit all of Celene Dion's notes! ZOMG!") and using that as the audio source. Fil, of course, like any studio tech, has the tools to analyze it. It's easily recognizable when he puts the audioscope on screen when a human voice holds a note at precisely 277Hz for nine and a half seconds. (Hint: human voices don't work that way. Not even Celene, Ann Wilson, or Whitney or whomever.) The audio is also isolated from the music so it's easy to just recognize that it's not Bryan Adams (or whomever) that's actually singing it. So it IS a cover being used. It IS a random person actually doing the singing. In one case, that singer was identified, but it's not at all clear if they're in on the RUclips Channel's naughty behaviour (though they would have profited from that performance) or if their performance copyright was used as carelessly as the other copyrighted materials by that channel. (Music is governed by two copyrights: one by the author of the music and one by the performer. It's pretty rare in modern, high-profile art for either of those two owners to be actual individuals. Songs are increasingly "written" by teams of dozens of writers, for example.) TBC: the point isn't that the vocals are "fixed" via technology. (That ship has sailed...) The point is that it's somebody other than the original artist (who holds the copyright on the performance) singing it at all. It's just a bonus that this performance is thing lip-synced onto a green screen, has the studio's copyrighted artwork and scenery used behind it, the (copyrighted) likenesses and performances by the judges, and the scammy nature of claiming all of this as reality, notably responding with a "thanks" instead of a chance to actually say "well, LOL, that wasn't actually me". That totally undermines the parody claim, too. As a disclaimer, since it's possible this will be read by an actual lawyer, I'm not one and I might be slightly wrong above. But I HAVE created works governed by copyright for decades and I've spent way more time learning about the process than I really ever set out to do.
Correct, I believe I said cover version or obscure live version. I asked Fil about Unchained Melody, as it sounded like Bobby Hatfield, but it didn't sound like the original studio recording. Fil thinks it is a live performance by Bobby Hatfield likely a performance on TV.
Sometimes the channels that do this, the scammers are children, teens, or just people who are poor, in poor regions. Sometimes it comes out of desperation, for people to have a successful channel by any means. I also was wondering, how long it would take for someone on RUclips to deal with this. If I complained about every single channel I have issues with, that are doing illegal things, I would be complaining all day. RUclips doesn't always address these issues properly, and never let you know the outcome of a lot of the videos. Including if they are downright offensive. It is also better for someone like you who is a lawyer and deals with music to deal with it and address it. A lot of the time, people don't say anything is because they have no audience or voice, they are expected to be silent and in silence you learn and you see what happens.
The channel(s) that they are addressing here are not coming out of poor children or desperation. Though you can argue that everyone is desperate when it comes to money. Some will do ANYTHING to get it, laws and ethics be damned.
Serial dobbers reporting channels and creators because they disagree or are offended by a word is pathetic. If viewers are stupid enough to watch and pay for theses fake music videos, why would youtube shut them down?
Their being poor doesn't justify what they're doing. In fact, that makes it worse. If something was done, and they stopped earning money from those videos tomorrow, while I don't know if they'd have to pay any portion of it back, they'd still end up poor, unless they found another way.
RUclips's biggest concern is not getting on the bad side of the big music publishers. And probably these videos take away views from actual Got Talent or X-Factor clips. I don't think they are adding total views for RUclips.
I would really like to pay for a private consultation with you. I wish to make RUclips videos, and have serious questions, whether or not I would be allowed to do it.
Feel free to email me: scott@lawbylg.com. If it's just some questions that wouldn't take a lot of leg work for me to answer, it shouldn't be an issue of needing to pay for a consultation.
I have a few cover songs on my Music channel. RUclips only figured out 1 of 6 covers. Granted my cover versions are somewhat to extremely different than the originals. RUclipss A.I. is NOT very good.
Good question. I did not. There's a few more things that I would like to do, and then I'll report everything, I think. I doubt it will do much, but at least I can say that I told them.
i think yt needs to add a radio button to upload section which you have to tic indicating if you are posting someone's music, an original composition, or a cover. In this way, the algorithms can immediately spot it and analyze its contents then compare it to the radio buttons, and if something is amiss, it then passes it on to a human to look at.
I wouldn't be so sure scammers wouldn't go to court. Once the have enough money for their own lawyers, they're liable to try it. Squatters go to court to steal houses - why wouldn't scammers go to court to steal copyrights? Anyway, isn't it up to the actual author/songwriter/performer to register their works so that YT picks it up as copyrighted material? When I get a copyright claim on some of my videos, it says that the copyright owner allows the music to be used on RUclips. Or, if not, it would say it is blocked. This shows that there had to be some initiative on the part of the copyright holder. And if there are "no issues", that tells me that either the music is old enough to be in the public domain, or the copyright holder hasn't registered it. I always get a warning that they could change their mind at any time and I should always keep an eye on it.
Thank you for commenting. As to the first point, to go to court, they would need copyright registrations (as in real ones with the U.S. Copyright office, not just a content ID registration). They don't have them. And they have money, but not enough to pay an attorney hourly to pursue a loser case. As for your second point, the real songs are in the content ID system. I confirmed that for the videos in Fil's video. The problem is that this isn't preventing very similar cover versions or live versions being entered into the content ID system too.
Music is only one aspect of RUclips content. Just imagine, if humanly possible, how much criminal activity is given the green light on this platform? I'm angry enough when I have comments constantly removed on Channels from a variety of topics, including beauty content! Why are YT wasting so much time on innocents like myself and leave the criminals free accessibility to whatever they choose to do? I have interests in a varying amounts of topics and they all are targeted by censorship. Content Creators are having to make up words to cover this censorship for words that are in common use in the English language. It surprises me that these Content Creators go along with this type of censorship. I gave up on a video just the other day where someone was reading an article from the MSM. I was unable to even make sense of what she was saying and turned off. One Creator from TabooEducation came up with a rather smart way to show how they are targeted. Just look at her latest video and you'll see how far this has gone. Considering that the Internet was invented by the British and Australia invented Wi-fi, it makes me wonder why it's the US who are causing all the problems, most especially wokery and censorship.🇦🇺
@@LawLaughsMusic Yes, definitely an algorithm. What is so frustrating is that words that are used on a regular basis in the English language are forbidden to be used in the comments and by content creators. A common practice in beauty related videos, especially ones that discuss the latest products/releases, is for the content creator to ask what products we use, whether we will be interested in buying the latest release and our opinions. YT most definitely doesn't like us discussing a product or the price. I once went to turn on YT to find that I had received a penalty of non-usage for 24hrs for spam and deception! There was no option to appeal either. If I didn't click onto where it stated that I understood that I would be banned from commenting for 24hrs, I was unable to view anything due to this page remaining that blocked the content. I wasn't even told what comment was involved so that I could dispute it. I never upload videos. Often, it is required to change ones currency to US Dolliars, as Aussie Dollars mean nothing to those from the US. Another thing YT do not like, especially complaining about the price of an item. When the content creator asks our opinions about what we use or feel about a product to be discussed in the comments, how is it my fault to mention the item that the content creator spent an entire video talking about? Often, if I mention the products I may use for skincare, when asked to do so, my comments will be removed. I literally have comments that state that I can't tell the brand that I use or YT will remove the comment to the creators astonishment. The word that is used to describe what can go on in the school yard or in adult life that has to do with a male cow with a why added to this word, it is forbidden. There is no such thing as 'Sue aside' as 'she' will be changed to unaliving or self exit! When a life is removed from this earth, it can't be called by the word we hear every night on the news. Instead, they have been unalived by another. A certain most irritating couple made a recent trip to Colombia, with one who has admitted to use 'talc' on a regular basis and any hope of making a joke is completely gone. It's okay for this person to broadcast to children in the public domain how he condones the illegal use of 'talc', yet we can't even allude to what he is doing - spruking the illegal usage of this type of 'talc'. Everyday words spread across the English language are banned. If that's not censorship, I don't know what is. Only today, a video from a Channel that reports on crimes in Asia had the original video removed of this very well known case, the country involved is banning this case from being mentioned via any platform, MSM or social media. The reporter re-uploaded it again and so far it is still there. As it deals with corruption in a few high profile areas, this country wants to sweep the crime under the rug. Also, due to this country being allies with the US, and YT being owned by a US giant in social media, they will be complicit in the cover-up. The world has simply gone mad, especially when we have to make up words to attempt to get our meaning across to try and discuss a topic. It's like the childhood game of Chinese Whispers in reverse.The woman from TabooEducation wasn't going to let the big boys win and when you hear of the topics that she speaks on, that are permitted, then why can't she make an off the cuff joke about the US Military? It gets even more complicated when from a different culture than the US. We Aussies have a very different way of speaking to Americans, yet have to adjust our own language to fit in with American-English. I can't even speak in my own cultural language, which would be a crime under our laws for denying me the use of my own language. Although, I've stated that the algorithm is responsible for censoring comments, it's hard to then say that this will know when a human is allegedly deceptive. I have no idea what any of this was all about, yet it is now stuck to my record. I recently had my reply to one whom responded to my comment removed just for discussing a gemstone and how beautiful it was! It's beyond a joke the lengths of YTs censorship has gone. Nowadays, everything is woke. You either somehow find a way to go along with it or cease to comment. This platform has gone mad!
I hate how they just delete it and don't even let you know which comment or word was targeted. You have only one option, which is to click that you understand. There's no option for, no, I DON'T understand... Please explain. It took me forever to go through recent posts to see which one it was. Turns out it is automatically generated when you hit save, so it was the last thing I posted. I had a comment deleted for using the word eggs. How is that hate speech? I just reposted it and added the word frying and suddenly it was OK. Huh? As you can see it is also OK in this context. The original post was: I think they were [...]. No room for confusion, it was the only word which could possibly have been flagged. The context for the post was a discussion about the sizzling sound in the song Cook of the House by Wings. It's ridiculous.
@@krisushi1 I applaud your extremely frank post and strategic use of euphemisms and alternative words. 😂 You bring up serious and legitimate points, including the fact that you can't express yourself in culturally Australian language but instead have to kowtow to YT's tyrannical insistence on American-style English. I'm also not American. YT has a global audience which it does nothing to recognize or accommodate.
I got a bunch of comments about this. I appreciate the correction. I have been dealing with midi files for over 20 years. I didn't know that was the common pronunciation.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thanks. I should have read through the comments before posting. It's an interesting generational thing. In the 80's when I first saw the midi devices EVERYONE called them midi...mihdee...middy. I never heard anyone call it M.I.D.I. Maybe you were coding and doing engineering things and we were doing music? Can that be it?
LOL, I would program simple games when I was in junior high and high school (yeah, I was a really cool kid), and I would use midi music. That means I have been familiar with midi files for way more years than I want to imagine. And yet I never knew the correct way to say it apparently. I had been saying it so long, it didn't occur to me that I was saying it wrong, so I didn't look it up. Like when I made a video about Udio and Suno AI, I checked how other people were pronouncing them (and found that there wasn't consistency).
I really find it strange that youtube have allowed this after complaints maybe its the huge view and likes yet they are quick to go after other things like a comment that may not be political correct.
I think there's big incentive for RUclips to end this if it were easy to do so considering that they need to make sure they are able to re-up their licensing agreements with the big 3 record companies.
I have an issue with scammers claiming vocal tribute covers that I have done. For example, I did a vocal cover of Unchained Melody a few years ago ruclips.net/video/0-BROPcxmpo/видео.htmlsi=9CsH6LhhFsgnIaSo and it was claimed by: Unchained Melody Ahmed Mouici Tribute to goldies It annoys me because if anyone should be receiving any pennies off my performance of the song, it should be Alex North and Hy Zaret's estates, who wrote the song in 1955. Should I dispute this Ahmed Mouici's claim? Or just let it go?
@@LawLaughsMusic The problem I immediately run into is that RUclips gives me multiple choices of disputing the claim, but none of them are to report the fraudulent claim. If I use any of the rationales listed, I am making a false representation myself. Catch-22. There needs to be a mechanism by RUclips to report false copyright ownership claims.
Scott, thank you for looking into this! I am so happy that you got in touch with Fil! Fil fights for all things right! You are a blessing to help Fil with this! Thank you so much!
Thank you very, very much. I cannot emphasize how nice Fil has been to me. I have a tiny channel. I'm a nobody. Yet Fil treats me like I'm Rick Beato.
@@LawLaughsMusic you are not a nobody 🤗
@@LawLaughsMusicYou are not a nobody! As for Fil, he is a special human being! Kind, respectful, intelligent and has integrity and honesty that is not often found these days!
@@veramilton833 Fil also has lots of talent.
@lizar5341 Absolutely, he has so much talent !!
Came here for Fil
Stayed for the video
Commenting for the algorithm monster.
Thanks for the info!
Thank you for the promo post!
Just watched Fil's Sunday video, and he sent us over here.
My comment references a comment that Fil said he gets a lot. In regards to situations like this fraud that's being perpetuated, some people just say, "who cares?"
Many people have a very strange attitude towards music. They would never condone stealing a painting from an art gallery or plagiarism, but they think nothing of downloading music for free, and they see no problem with content creators claiming ownership of a song they had absolutely no part in the creation of.
The "who cares" people. As long as they can download and own the music they like for free, they don't care if other people pay for their downloads, they don't care if artists get paid, they don't care who's getting the copyright money from YT, and they don't care if someone fraudulently claims ownership of a song.
All that stuff is just blah, blah, blah to them. It's just noise, and they don't care as long as they can access the music they want to listen to. It's a shame that integrity means so little to them.
I've noticed some other Wingers in your comments. We're all very proud of your BFF too. ❤
Thank you kindly! And thank you for the thoughtful post. I released a part 2 today where, in addition to going into the law on parody, I discussed why I thought the comments he got, especially about not caring about Simon Cowell, were off base (the money would not go to Simon Cowell, it would go to the songwriters). But what's interesting to me is that people still say this even in a situation where they aren't paying, anyway. The excuses you reference are ones I remember hearing people make about downloading songs for free from Napster.
I appreciate that you and Fil tell us about these unfair channels!
Thank you kindly! Fil was the leader on this. I'm just following up.
Fil is legit. Great guy I've followed for years.
I agree!
What I don't understand is how these scammers can put an entire song on RUclips and get away with it, while legit and important RUclipsrs like Rick Beato or Professor of Rock get copyright-struck if they play more than a few seconds of a song.
Great post and great point. I wish I had an answer for this. Maybe Rick Beato should pretend he's on the set of X-Factor teaching the judges about music.
Getting to actually see The Lawyer Friend of Fil is outstanding.
Thank you! I hope my wife feels that way too.
Here from Pegasus….thanks for all the work you’re doing on this subject. New subscriber here. Cheers mate…
Thank you kindly!
Hello lawyer friend! Thank you for looking into this.
My pleasure! I got curious and went down the rabbit hole, and I'm still going further.
A lot of good insight. I was unaware that this was a thing. The side notes were helpful too by the way.
Thank you kindly! I appreciate the support.
Thanks for looking into this and helping Fil. Subscribed to your channel.
Thank you kindly! I appreciate the support. And koalas are awesome! This is a very pro-cute animal channel.
Just FYI, We pronounce MIDI as "middy". Nobody pronounces it as separate letters.
Thanks. I've been saying M.I.D.I. for over 20 years. I didn't realize I was saying it wrong.
Yeah they do!, I've heard it as MY-DIE, ,M.I.D.I., MIDDY, ETC, Don't matter how it's pronounced, 👍
Thank you for looking into these concerns. There are so many videos and channels about music that seem questionable if not outright criminal. I wish more lawyers and ethicists would notice what goes on on RUclips across all channels and content.
Thank you kindly. I have more ideas on this. But at the end of the day, the record companies have more incentive and resources than me to tackle this problem. It’s weird to me that these channels are able to stay up so long and get so many views. I would figure it would at least more whack a mole than this if nothing else.
@@LawLaughsMusic You are teaching us and that is invaluable.
@@LawLaughsMusic The amount of money these channels are collecting could fund an entire department of attorneys to focus on nothing but these infractions. I'm surprised the big three record labels haven't decided to jointly fund a team to do just that.
Most of the scammers were uploading the “original” recording of the hit songs in questions. As in the caseof “ unchained melody”. The exact version released by the record companies. They weren’t really “covers” in the true sense of the word. That makes it even more egregious.
I was very interested in that, too. How were they getting the Righteous Brothers' recording registered on the content ID system? Fil's theory is that they uploaded an obscure live version, probably from television. It does sound different that the famous studio recording. But I am curious if you could get the original past the content ID system and have ideas on how to test it. (One cannot upload a famous song as a test, as there would arguably be an element of fraud involved even if one's intentions are good.)
@@LawLaughsMusic In some cases one can upload the exact recordings from the record labels, and they either get no content match, or are claimed by the record label or the music publisher (or some extraneous third-party as you have been discussing), and allowed to be left up. I'm not talking about not giving the proper credit and trying to deceive anyone, or monetize it. I've noticed in the last couple of years RUclips will claim that the music rights owners are allowing it to be played on RUclips but if the channel was monetized, revenue would have to be shared with RUclips, or something. RUclips has no incentive to stop such behavior outside of enforcing a DMCA take down notice because they make money on everything whether it is legitimate or not.
Another issue that doesn't seem fair is that anyone can issue a fraudulent DMCA takedown notice resulting in a strike on a channel, even if they have no claim on the copyright, and RUclips does not check that, it is up to the recipient to file a counterclaim. A problem is that the ones issuing the DMCA takedown notice need only minimal information, which can be completely fabricated, and no proof of copyright ownership, but to file a counterclaim the channel has to provide a lot of personal information which is passed onto the scammers, even if they don't respond and the takedown notice is reversed.
@@LawLaughsMusic I don't THINK I have any non-public information about how ContentID works, but I know a bit about how sound works. You can introduce tiny variations in speed (think putting your thumb on the tape wheel) and then use equal software to pitch correct those variations by the amount it was changed. This about a finely controlled version of the "anti-chipmunking" used when you click the (awesome) RUclips playback speed controller to shift the actually heard frequency back to normal. Over the course of a few bars, you won't notice the song has grown or shrunk by a whopping 794mS, but the digital representation of those bars (especially when the next few bar and a third is sped up a bit and the so on) won't look very similar to software comparing waveforms. I'd wager that Fil (or a producer or an AE...) has a whole toolbox of plugins to simulate wow and flutter, selectively stretch/scrunch "tape", that can pitch up/down selected freqs, and do other horrible, terrible things to a song that wouldn't be noticed by a human casually listening to a TV show.
Is that enough to fool it? That's sure where I'd start.
You've hit on one obvious way to determine if a song MIGHT be a cover - run it through a variation of the same tech that RUclips uses for captioning. We know Google licenses lyric data from LyricFind and we know that Google has tech that can identify if two bodies of text are similar. Songs get shortened to fit into TV, lyrics get cleaned up, people don't sing clearly (Weird Al has a song on that...), etc. so it's not a true/false match as much as a numeric level of confidence of a match. Factoring in cadence could also be used in that determination. I don't know if Google IS doing any of this. If they are, they're clearly doing a very bad job at it.
Thank you very much for looking into what Fil brought to light. I'm really glad that you are looking into this. My guess as to why RUclips hasn't been really looking into the scammers is because there are endless aspects of content and not just music. You brought up a great point that generally scammers don't have the financial means to sue the original artist. I also found the side notes helpful. Thanks again.
I really appreciate the comment, thank you. I have more ideas to look into this. But at the end of the day, the big music publishers have much more incentive and resources than me, and they have the ear of RUclips.
It keeps getting worse, with the behemoth companies gobbling up everything and having extremely deep pockets. Mom-and-pop companies and other small enterprises can't compete. Goliath keeps getting bigger and stronger, and continually beats the stuffing out of David.
RUclips is crazy - I used a 1 minute audio backing track for a video lecture I did for my university students during the pandemic when all our classes went online. The video was marked "private" and I shared the link only to my class, on our university's secure Zoom connection. The video was blocked by RUclips due to copyright infringement and my students told me they couldn't view it. I had to start over, removing the audio. Meanwhile, these scammers are getting away with much, much more - monetized no less. Something is seriously wrong with RUclips's administration of music copyright and I think this tech giant should be called to account for developing better policy. Letting people rip the entire song and get paid for it!? WTH RUclips?? Maybe someone should also point out to RUclips that it might save them money in the long run - they won't be paying the scam creators easy money for their views/likes/subscribes, either.
Thank you for commenting. That sucks.
Here after watching Wings of Pegasus video 🎉😊
Thank you kindly!
@@LawLaughsMusic ✌🏼👋
I am really amazed that YT and record companies are not more proactive. However as you said these companies have loads of money and maybe they can take the loss - unfortunately the artists cannot and are the victims. 😢
Thanks for the comment. Since the interest is so high, I'm going to try to see if I can get some answers on this.
Thank you! I hope your work on this puts a full stop to it! Music is too important to our humanity to let thieves bastardize the work of musicians. That is one way true art can be lost. It’s infuriating!!!
Thank you. But what perplexes me is why the big publishing companies aren't putting resources into this and pressure on RUclips. RUclips might not care about individual RUclipsr's much. But they sure care a lot about the big 3 record companies and their publishing arms. They would lose a lot of ad revenue if the big 3 didn't allow their music to be used on RUclips anymore and flooded RUclips with takedown notices.
I reported ALL of that guy's video's and his wife's as well to you tube (many times) as I saw people BELIEVING that guy was actually singing, I KNOW what Bobby Hatfield sounds like and I knew he was scamming after reading the comments -Sadly Bobby is no longer with us. He was one of the greats and being used. How anyone could think that dude was really singing, is beyond me. The editing is also a dead give away. I thank you for looking into this and you are absolutely right, Fil from Wings of Pegasus is a person who cares. Love his channel and believe he is one of the nicest guys on you tube. Thanks again.
Thank you very much for the support. I hope someone at RUclips paid attention.
Thanks for jumping in to protect original artists. Long time supporter of Fil. Have liked and subscribed your channel.
Thank you kindly.
From experience, I agree with your "personal opinion" to fight a scam copyright claim. I once published a video on how to create the hand-drawn art style of the "Take on me" music video by A-ha, using only free software, while singing the instructions to an official Karaoke version of the song (I took it down long ago because no one cared) and the video got claimed. I wasn't monetized so I didn't care, but what appeared at the bottom of the video description was an artist from Asia, I don't recall who. I challenged it stating that I didn't mind the claim but they didn't hold copyright, and it was soon replaced by the rightful copyright holder (and also restricted in certain territories). Thanks for this and please keep us updated if there are any developments.
Thanks for letting me know about that. I've had content ID claims on videos before from rights holders overseas that only block the video in random countries. They appeared to be legitimate. One time sticks out in my mind in particular where I thought it was probably fair use, but I didn't care enough to deal with challenging a foreign licensee about the video playing in random countries that nobody was going to watch it, anyway.
What I do not understand is how easily people are fooled...the first time I saw one of these videos, I knew it was phony...especially since the singer never moved his hand holding the mic away from his mouth. You could never see his mouth moving. My guess is that he doesn't even speak English so could not even mouth the words.
I definitely hear you and thought something similar. In some of the videos the guy is wearing pajama pants. And they are pretty clearly lip-synching. But then again, think about things that are more blatantly fake that fool people. Like people who think that obviously fake, AI photos are real.
Has RUclips and or the 3 big record companies been informed about this scam or are they already aware that this is happening and haven't pursued the matter for some reason best known to themselves?
Curious about this too. Fil's video has almost assuredly raised awareness of this topic within the music community. If I'm in the legal department of the big three record labels, I'd be pushing You Tube for answers, and compensation.
That's a good question. Jeeze, I would assume they must know. I periodically deal with Google attorneys through my day job (i.e., my only job). Maybe I'll ask. I don't know if Fil or Paul Davids contacted anyone.
Glad you are looking into this. Some actually sample real music then claim it as their own. How in the world is RUclips allowing this. Often It is copyright done in odd regions like Russia or Brazil forcing you to “share revenue”. But I doubt I’m loosing much revenue from a Russia or Brazil.
I don't want to sound prejudiced but things have happened in the Philippines, particularly things that have involved gambling and fraud. If I'm not mistaken, the musical fraud that Fil spoke about was taking place in the Philippines. I remember thinking that it was beyond incredible that people not only do this; they have this "in your face" attitude about doing it.
Thanks for the post. You have examples? I’m planning follow up where I see if I can literally upload the same song into the content ID system twice.
The thing is that while scammers are obviously morally wrong, there will always be people who scam if they can. So RUclips can’t expect things to run on the honor system.
@@LawLaughsMusic These seem like small potatoes and maybe they have been resolved, but some recent memories of copyright issues are:
1. The Wheel of Fortune theme song by Merv Griffin claimed by a broadcast company in Brazil claiming it because they show it on their network.
2. A Folgers commercial with a river dance theme that Rhett And Link claim because they “reacted” to the commercial once.
3. A Nintendo Mario 64 song “Cool Cool Mountain” claimed by some guy from Finland??? Not complete sure still, but he samples it in a song he made. It appears he has claimed several video game songs.
I don’t mind giving credit to the real owner of a song, it’s just so many are clearly not the original composer so why does RUclips continue to allow this? It is such a nuisance to fight these things and delay a video’s release.
It wouldn't surprise me that YT has their own tactics/agenda as long as they're making $$.
Yes, but it's hard for me to imagine that their incentive here is anything but stopping the scams and making sure the big music publishers are happy. RUclips gets no benefit from the scammers receiving the creator's share instead of the music publishers. And the music publishers should have enough incentive to devote some of their own resources to the problem. Don't the Eagles have people on staff to look for Eagles videos on RUclips? And that's just one band.
Seriously, You Tube should be paying you and helping you protect original content creators.
Thank you kindly. But you would think that they would have more people monitoring this so that they at least catch people with numerous videos with millions of views on the same channel. It's not like they're covering obscure songs.
@LawLaughsMusic Yes, I would have thought You Tube would have better monitoring, but you guys proved they don't. I say it's entirely up to you to put the whole thing right! Just kidding. I just hate thinking that this happens and nobody really cares.
Thank you! If you can, I would like to see an update.
Thank you! I just posted one. Part 2 reacts to Fil's update. I go into more depth on the law relating to parody, and I discuss the silliness about the commenters that it doesn't matter because Simon Cowell has too much money (or whatever they say, LOL).
Plain and simple, what these people are doing is a form of plagiarism, and it's terrifying and unsettling to me that people can claim songs or works as theirs, so that they get the revenue, instead of whoever holds the true copyright.
RUclips doesn't care about the people who are the owners of intellectual property. They seem to only care about themselves.
And now for my questions:
Do these people, if they're from poorer countries, point to a lack of international law as it pertains to copyright?
How is RUclips so inept at this, that it copyrights the wrong people, or demonitizes them because of YT's own arbitrary rules? Why don't they care about the songwriter/copyright holder of the original work?
Thanks for commenting. These people are subject to U.S. Copyright law. They are ripping off songs protected by U.S. copyright law, taking away money from U.S. publishers, and they are doing this all through an American platform. Also, there are international copyright conventions that apply to the vast majority of the world. A big international treaty convention is the Berne Convention, and the Philippines are a member. How is RUclips so inept about this? That's a good question. I would figure they would do more considering that they need to keep the big music publishers happy, and the big music publishers have a financial incentive to help.
RUclips is good at speech recognition?! Have you seen the automatic subtitles?!
LOL, I thought about that when I was editing the subtitles on my part 2 video today.
Another great video! Thank you for taking a stand on this. Content creators have been getting the short end of the stick for years now and something needs to change.
You are very welcome. I hope, if nothing else, that someone who gets this kind of claim in the future will be less afraid to fight it. As for RUclips and the record labels, you would think large amounts of revenue belonging to large corporations (even if the songwriter still owns the publishing rights, the administrator has a financial stake) would be enough to at least take out the big offenders.
Paul, thank you for doing a quick dive into what is really a serious issue with RUclips (note that scamming happens quite frequently on this platform) and also briefly touching on dispelling the notion of Fair Use in any content which I think most people don't understand. I am off to look at your other videos and I love to see a video on politics and the use of copyright music.
Thank you kindly! Copyright tends not to be an issue that divides on typical partisan lines. In the most important copyright case in the last couple of years (the Andy Warhol case involving the photo of Prince), Justice Sotomayor wrote the majority opinion, and Justice Kagan wrote a fiery dissent joined by Chief Justice Roberts.
Perhaps RUclips needs to be taking a closer look at videos with over views and ensuring that they are not in violation of copyright laws. That would be a pretty easy algorithm to write.
Yes, I would think so. It's hard for me to imagine that there isn't enough incentive to crack down on this that channels with tens of thousands of subscribers and lots of views are able to stay active for over one year.
Call it a technology experiment. You tested a hypothesis about how the technology works, or inthis case sort of works, and you got results you can measure.
It was just about 20 years ago there was a discussion of actors and performers trademarking and or copyrightibg their likeness and voices and it was considered crazy.
Well, that theory is now a reality and it doesn't take an organized group to commit wholesale fraud.
Thank you kindly. I'm still curious about how easy it is to upload things on the content ID system and claim that they're your original creations, even though they obviously are not. I have some more ideas that are going to be more time consuming, but that I should hopefully complete within a few weeks or so.
i disagree; i've had comments
censored by yt seconds after posting them
i've seen yt disrupt presentation
because the presenter said something
yt disagree with
they have the means, but they use it in a targeted way
I've had comments removed and been temp comment banned before, but I have no idea what I said that was wrong. I couldn't even find a way to get some recourse to see what comment I was banned for. As for targetting, MXR Plays has been perma-banned by YT and some of the their videos were incorrectly banned yet they had little to no recourse. They had over 3 million subscribers and was their primary source of income. The thing is though, the videos they were reacting to are still up and available, so it seems like there is either a double standard, or they are just vindictive.
I'll try to look into this at some point. I don't know much about RUclips's censoring of comments, especially automated censoring.
Thank you for this and for supporting Fil. I am a lawyer, but know little about copyright. That said, if you are going to keep doing these youtube videos, I would respectfully suggest that you find a better backdrop. To be honest, it looks like you are filming in the storage room of a Goodwill store.
LOL, you are right.
I actually watched some of the videos it was funny but definitely not a parody. He already had a massive following thinking that he actually participated in those singing contest.
This not only needs to be stopped, the offending content stealers should be required to pay up for money they're already received. What's disturbing is I've seen instances when YT will take down seemingly legitimate channels that provide commentary on music videos, songs and movies, yet allow these other type of scam channels to exist.
That's a great comment. I get emails from people who have their channels deleted because they got three copyright strikes, even though they genuinely believed that their content was fair use. Even if they were wrong, it sucks that their channel is deleted when they genuinely believed their content was legitimate and didn't get a second chance. But these (alleged) scammers keep their channels up with multiple videos with millions of views.
Yes, I just released a part 2 where I go into the law on parody. These videos are not parodies. You can take my word for it, or you can check out my video where I talk about what the Supreme Court has said about this. Or you could do both. Or neither.
Thanks for your explanation. New subscriber thanks to Fil. It seems i ll learn things here as well 👍🙂.
Great, thank you!
just say “Middy” everyone just says “Middy” Although technically its M.I.D.I.
although they never print it anywhere with the full stop periods in between the letters.
This is so interesting to me. I have been using midi files since I was in junior high programming very rudimentary video games, and I never knew that people pronounced it as a word.
@@LawLaughsMusic its come along way. i thought it would be a relic by now. but it’s still so essential today.
Middy is a glass of beer 🦘
Thanks for starting to look into this. Also, please look into famous covers already up on RUclips. I checked out Desperado by Linda Ronstadt and You Were Always on My Mind by Willie Nelson, and they both displayed the same way Vanny Vabiola’s cover of the Power of Love showed up, showing their version and not the original, but with one difference as their covers indicated the song writers in text and Vanny’s didn’t. Fil came at Vanny Vabiola hard, so it really needs to be determined if she did anything wrong or if she properly attained the rights to record her covers and put up on YT in the manner she has. Also note, Fil said it was Celine Dion singing and not Vanny in the short dubbed clip he played - but he was wrong about this, as a comparison of Vanny’s and Celine’s versions to the clip makes clear. This accusation has the effect of tying her in some manner to the fraud of the man doing the dubbing. But there is no evidence of this at all. He may have used her voice without permission (even if he does give her version credit).
Also, in follow-up videos, would it be possible to show YT screen captures of exactly where and how credit needs to be given to the original rights holders? This way we each can look at other covers (both famous and obscure) to see if they give proper credit.
Thanks for looking into the legal aspects of all this and I look forward to your further findings.
Thanks! For legitimate covers (which includes the Righteous Brothers' version of Unchained Melody), I assume that they are paying royalties to all rights holders, even if they aren't explicitly giving them credit.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thanks! Vanny’s covers are available on iTunes, Amazon, and other services. So my default assumption is that she is meeting her legal obligations, is paying royalties, etc. too. I’d hope music services would ensure this. She is Indonesian, but has a large presence on YT with 2.3 million subscribers. Of course, I don’t know if she - or anyone - is doing everything legally as they should, which is why I’d like to understand what (if anything) on YT I could look at for ANY cover to definitively conclude illegality.
Thanks again for taking the deep dive into this.
Just the tempo of a cover song being sufficiently different could prevent recognition by the automated system.
It's a bit like all the ripped-off videos & clips on here that are reversed left-right when you see any text; it's different enough to fool the system.
Good point. I have more experimenting to do. I don't want to turn this into like ten videos where I try different tactics in each, but I'm going to do one or two more where I combine a few different experiments I've thought of. One will be seeing how little I can adjust an original song to get it past the content ID system.
RUclips is really strict sometimes about things it shouldnt and then lets this kind of stuff happen. I made once a cover of Run Baby Run by Sheryl Crow and RUclips did not recognize it as Sheryl's song but as an italian song called Corri e vai (which is a cover of Sheryl's song) and it has happened to me some other times, RUclips claiming a song belonged to someone in Brazil or something like that when it was not the case.... So they pay the wrong people often. Doesn't seem fair.
Thank you for commenting. It definitely is unfair. I hope that you were able to dispute the claim. Obviously if a claim is made on behalf of Sheryl Crow/the legitimate publisher, then that makes sense, and it is fair. However, money should not be going to a scammer under any scenario, and any claim by a scammer is illegitimate and should be rejected.
A while back I used a track with permission from the original artist under licence, but the content id system attributed it to a cover version. I tried to get that corrected by contacting RUclips but it still remained unchanged meaning the cover artist was getting the revenue instead of the original artist. Which I thought was pretty poor. But at the time I thought it was an isolated error by RUclips but now I realise it's a much bigger problem.
Thank you!
Thank you!
I posted a 1 minute video about bean sprouting where I used a 17th century Song. YT gave me a COPYRIGHT NOTICE. 🤣
@PhilippinesFarmLife - Was the copyright take-down for the song itself or for the performance? Surely the performance was more recent than the 17th Century and therefore under copyright protection! When multiple artists are involved with a performance or video, copyright gets more complex.
i've had a copyright strike from Facebook for music that i composed myself!
Oh no if you owned the recording. The song itself would not be copyrighted, but a recorded performance would be.
@MossyMozart hit the nail on the head. If I record a Mozart piano work, I do not own the work, but I would own my particular recording. I am not sure if that's the issue here, though.
There are two relevant forms of copyright: the authorship and the performance. For example, the music and lyric copyright has expired for "Danny Boy", but Sinead O'Connor's performance of it is likely owned by her estate or publishing company and will still be in play for a very long time. So it's possible in a case like yours to be OK on the first, but still use a recording with an active copyright on the PERFORMANCE.
Excellent 🎉
Thank you kindly! You are excellent, too!
Thank you for your experiments. A pity though that there is no link to your version of Bohemian Rapsody etc. 😂
Yes, I thought about that. My concern was that it was a slippery slope if I started putting links, because I didn't want to put links to any videos that I implied might be a scam. While I don't think that someone could sue me for defamation even if I were wrong and they weren't scammers (since I made it clear it was my opinion and I wasn't completely sure), I felt from more of a moral sense that I shouldn't implicate someone if I wasn't sure. I'm like 80% sure for each video, but since there were four videos that I think were scams, that means it's more likely than not those one of the four videos was legitimate. And so I thought that whatever value there was in showing my work was outweighed because my experiment was still unscientific. If anything, I thought showing my work would give a sense of scientific legitimacy that would be misleading. While I'm not sure my decision was correct, that was my thought process.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thank you for your answer! Please keep up your work.
You should ask Fil for some auto-tune software for your experiments 😉 😀.
LOL, I thought the same thing. I think I had a text blurb making that joke, but I don't think it made it into the final edit. I've got some future experiments I want to do where singing is important. One of my kids can sing well, and he wants to participate. But I still would like to experiment with auto tune. My guess is I'm missing the notes so badly, autotune wouldn't help. Probably I would need massive manual pitch correction.
@@LawLaughsMusic I’d watch that experiment too!
I’d like to hear your take on the Ren/Kujo dispute over “Sick Boi.” Whose responsibility is it to be sure all the samples used to create a beat have been cleared, the buyer or the seller? How far back is reasonable for an artist to retroactively offer a split when the producer of the beat doesn’t disclose that there is a licensing problem for over a year after a track has been released?
We lost a great piece of music there, not to mention the TITLE track for Ren’s whole album! ✌🏼
I have received multiple comments on this. I might make a video about it if I have time. In general, copyright infringement is a strict liability tort. That means that Ren would be liable for copyright infringement even if he believed in good faith that he had licensed the beat from the true owner. It sucks for people who get screwed by that like Ren. I guess there is some lesson about caveat emptor for buying music off the internet.
Can it be possible that in some cases RUclips content ID algorithms is confronted to concurrent claims on the same song and doesn’t know how to process them ?
Great question. If multiple songs are used, then yes, there can be multiple claims. As for any single song, I think the answer is yes, but I have to hedge my personal knowledge here. In my experience, I would get a claim that would list a bunch of copyright owners. However, it looked like they were all related to each other, for example, Universal's publishing unit and entities that administered the foreign publishing rights likely alongside Universal. And it would just show up as a single claim. I wasn't getting any that they appeared as separate claims. So, there were none where the was what appeared to be a claim for a scammer and another claim for a major publisher, for example. And I don't recall ever getting multiple, independent claims on a single video before. But I have a lot less experience then someone like Fil would have. So, I can't give a definitive answer.
@@LawLaughsMusic Thanks for the answer.
As a side subject study, here in France we had in the eighties an interesting case regarding song rights cover : an artist named Laurent Voulzy made a song called « Rockollection » which was an hommage to all the great songs that he grew up with from childhood to adulthood. In this song, the chorus was replaced by short covers of each song he talked about in the preceding verse, including for example « hard day’s night » from the Beatles or « satisfaction » from The Rolling Stones. But Laurent Voulzy didn’t think about the legal rights to use these song before releasing it… This song « Rockollection » was one of his greatest hits and to this day he actually loses money each time it’s aired because he have to pay more rights to the original song owners than what he’s earning with this song.
Abdiaziiz should be investigated. They tried to claim bgm in one of my several years old Facebook posts. I challenged and won.
Glad you challenged. At least on RUclips, if you keep fighting you win unless they sue you. Of course, that’s a very tough and costly way to lose. But personally I wouldn’t be afraid of some scammer.
MIDI, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is commonly pronounced to rhyme with "giddy".
Wow, I have been saying M.I.D.I. for over 20 years. I didn't know that. If I'm unsure of how to pronounce something, I'll usually look it up, but I didn't even think there was a question there. Thank you for pointing that out.
It would be refreshing if one of the scammers would try to sue you, since the discovery process would be extremely enightening and useful. I am amazed that someone could't pick up a cover of Hotel California, but therein lies part of the problem. In theory, if someone has enough knowledge of how these algorythms are structured, they could make just enough changes to bust the system...identical to those email scams from Ban of Americ.
Thank you. That would be fun if they tried suing me. And you hit the nail on the head. If there are ways to exploit the content ID system to make money, people are going to do it.
This is yet another Internet grift. How to stop it happening is still not easy.
Yes, good post. If it were easy, RUclips and the music publishers would have stopped it. They have plenty of financial incentive. But I would think they could do better and at least takedown the biggest channels and culprits.
Thank tou for the video.
Do you do videos on demonization? A RUclipsr by the name of Deyo was demonitized. In my opinion unfairly. Allegedly he was demonized for having bot or fake traffic on his channel.
Again his name is Deyo and he also has a video somewher on his channel about the topic.
Thank youbfor your time.
I have made some videos on fair use on this channel. However, I have not made videos about demonetization for other reasons. I haven't looked into those issues as much.
@@LawLaughsMusic thankx for the response
very interesting info 2x👍
2 thumbs up to you, too. 👍
It seems to me that if the channel has few subs and a particular video few views, then anything goes. I have seen things that I KNOW are infringements but they are usually on small channels. It is the popular channels that get very close scrutiny.
Good comment. These aren't big channels in terms of subscriber count, but I just clicked on one of them, and he's got over 34k subscribers and 18 videos with over 200k videos over the last year. That's not big, but it's not exactly flying completely under the radar either.
Here's my theory: I don’t think RUclips is looking for covers at all. I think their content ID system is just looking for the copyright in the actual performance, not the copyright in the words and music. Perhaps they expect you to have a licence and account for the royalties yourself if you are doing a cover.
Is there any way when you register your performance as a cover to indicate the copyright holder of the song (words/music) as opposed to the original performer's version?
I think it's more to do with the AI that's monitoring it, looking to match Content.
This is why people reverse or mirror Video And pitch shift audio. to try to fool the AI. A cover seldom sounds close enough to the original to be mistaken as such.
And this is what happens when a platform has more input than can be managed by Human moderators and the whole thing is handed over to poorly trained AI
@Lamster66 Yes, but as I said, I don't think they are even intending to look for covers. I am suggesting that they are only looking for actual performances i.e published recordings and videos. Perhaps we should ask RUclipsrs who put up videos of covers what the procedure is?
To take a non-contentious (ha!) example: the dispute between the Trump Campaign and various musicians is over the use of original artists' own recordings. Which is why Lara Trump (who really, really cannot sing!) recorded her own cover version of one song in the hopes of using that instead.
Looking at Lara's video on RUclips, she seems to be claiming copyright in her own cover of "I won't back down" and only crediting Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne as lyricists...
YT legal question. Why do some reaction vid folks say they have to pause, multiple times, because of copyright issues and others can play the song all the way through before they react?
The people who have to pause songs are worried about de-monetization of their uploads. They are making money from their channel. People who can play the whole video are not monetizing their channels.
@@Kieop thanks!
Thanks for the comment!
I need a dog trainer...
Great question! I think the reason is that the content ID system will not put in a claim for very short clips. I am not sure if it's technical reasons or de minimis reasons that it works that way. I say that because very short clips are not necessarily fair use. Length of individual clips also is something that would be considered in a fair use analysis (along with the total amount of the song used). But I think the reason is preventing the content ID system from placing a claim in the first place. Now about the dog training... :-)
If most countries have their own copyright laws what applies to RUclips since it has content from different countries? Does only American law apply since the company is in the USA? In Australia copyright for any artist (music, painter, writer etc) is automatic from the moment it is created and does not have to be registered in any way.
Thank you for the good question. American law would apply. The songs they are singing are copyrighted in the U.S., they are administered by American publishers, and the wrongdoing would occur on an American platform. If someone actually took the time to sue these people in the Philippines, I don't know which law the court in the Philippines would apply. That said, the Philippines is a member of the Berne Copyright Convention, so the law there shouldn't be that much different. Also, FYI, in the U.S. copyright ownership is automatic as well. Copyright registration is just a good idea for various reasons. And if someone wants to sue to enforce their copyright, he or she must register the copyright first.
How are they cover versions in the scammy videos? They're the original artists singing and a random person lip synching. That's not a cover. A cover would be a random person actually doing the singing.
In several of the videos cited by Fil's original post, these hosers WERE re-performing the songs, then using ProTools, Melodyne, Antares, and other pitch-correction to "fix" the performances ("She hit all of Celene Dion's notes! ZOMG!") and using that as the audio source. Fil, of course, like any studio tech, has the tools to analyze it. It's easily recognizable when he puts the audioscope on screen when a human voice holds a note at precisely 277Hz for nine and a half seconds. (Hint: human voices don't work that way. Not even Celene, Ann Wilson, or Whitney or whomever.) The audio is also isolated from the music so it's easy to just recognize that it's not Bryan Adams (or whomever) that's actually singing it. So it IS a cover being used. It IS a random person actually doing the singing.
In one case, that singer was identified, but it's not at all clear if they're in on the RUclips Channel's naughty behaviour (though they would have profited from that performance) or if their performance copyright was used as carelessly as the other copyrighted materials by that channel. (Music is governed by two copyrights: one by the author of the music and one by the performer. It's pretty rare in modern, high-profile art for either of those two owners to be actual individuals. Songs are increasingly "written" by teams of dozens of writers, for example.)
TBC: the point isn't that the vocals are "fixed" via technology. (That ship has sailed...) The point is that it's somebody other than the original artist (who holds the copyright on the performance) singing it at all. It's just a bonus that this performance is thing lip-synced onto a green screen, has the studio's copyrighted artwork and scenery used behind it, the (copyrighted) likenesses and performances by the judges, and the scammy nature of claiming all of this as reality, notably responding with a "thanks" instead of a chance to actually say "well, LOL, that wasn't actually me". That totally undermines the parody claim, too.
As a disclaimer, since it's possible this will be read by an actual lawyer, I'm not one and I might be slightly wrong above. But I HAVE created works governed by copyright for decades and I've spent way more time learning about the process than I really ever set out to do.
Thank you for the post. I assume that everyone involved is connected. Seems too coincidental otherwise.
Correct, I believe I said cover version or obscure live version. I asked Fil about Unchained Melody, as it sounded like Bobby Hatfield, but it didn't sound like the original studio recording. Fil thinks it is a live performance by Bobby Hatfield likely a performance on TV.
@@LawLaughsMusic Agreed. It "could be" a rando, but the copyright being held by an individual is pretty rare.
Sometimes the channels that do this, the scammers are children, teens, or just people who are poor, in poor regions. Sometimes it comes out of desperation, for people to have a successful channel by any means. I also was wondering, how long it would take for someone on RUclips to deal with this. If I complained about every single channel I have issues with, that are doing illegal things, I would be complaining all day. RUclips doesn't always address these issues properly, and never let you know the outcome of a lot of the videos. Including if they are downright offensive. It is also better for someone like you who is a lawyer and deals with music to deal with it and address it. A lot of the time, people don't say anything is because they have no audience or voice, they are expected to be silent and in silence you learn and you see what happens.
The channel(s) that they are addressing here are not coming out of poor children or desperation. Though you can argue that everyone is desperate when it comes to money. Some will do ANYTHING to get it, laws and ethics be damned.
Serial dobbers reporting channels and creators because they disagree or are offended by a word is pathetic.
If viewers are stupid enough to watch and pay for theses fake music videos, why would youtube shut them down?
Their being poor doesn't justify what they're doing. In fact, that makes it worse. If something was done, and they stopped earning money from those videos tomorrow, while I don't know if they'd have to pay any portion of it back, they'd still end up poor, unless they found another way.
RUclips's biggest concern is not getting on the bad side of the big music publishers. And probably these videos take away views from actual Got Talent or X-Factor clips. I don't think they are adding total views for RUclips.
Yeah, unfortunately there will always be plenty of scammers if there's a doable scam. That's why the onus is on the big music publishers and RUclips.
Someone copied my RUclips channel name and made it into a bogus channel.
That sucks, more of a trademark/unfair competition issue than copyright.
I would really like to pay for a private consultation with you. I wish to make RUclips videos, and have serious questions, whether or not I would be allowed to do it.
Feel free to email me: scott@lawbylg.com. If it's just some questions that wouldn't take a lot of leg work for me to answer, it shouldn't be an issue of needing to pay for a consultation.
I have a few cover songs on my Music channel. RUclips only figured out 1 of 6 covers. Granted my cover versions are somewhat to extremely different than the originals. RUclipss A.I. is NOT very good.
Thanks for sharing. Good to see further support on my small sample.
Did you report them?
Good question. I did not. There's a few more things that I would like to do, and then I'll report everything, I think. I doubt it will do much, but at least I can say that I told them.
The cover's could have been licenced.
I guess. Highly unlikely.
i think
yt needs to add a
radio button to
upload section
which you have to tic
indicating if you are
posting someone's music, an original composition, or a cover.
In this way, the algorithms can immediately
spot it and analyze its contents then
compare it to the radio buttons, and
if something is amiss, it then passes it
on to a human to look at.
I wouldn't be so sure scammers wouldn't go to court. Once the have enough money for their own lawyers, they're liable to try it. Squatters go to court to steal houses - why wouldn't scammers go to court to steal copyrights?
Anyway, isn't it up to the actual author/songwriter/performer to register their works so that YT picks it up as copyrighted material? When I get a copyright claim on some of my videos, it says that the copyright owner allows the music to be used on RUclips. Or, if not, it would say it is blocked. This shows that there had to be some initiative on the part of the copyright holder. And if there are "no issues", that tells me that either the music is old enough to be in the public domain, or the copyright holder hasn't registered it. I always get a warning that they could change their mind at any time and I should always keep an eye on it.
Thank you for commenting. As to the first point, to go to court, they would need copyright registrations (as in real ones with the U.S. Copyright office, not just a content ID registration). They don't have them. And they have money, but not enough to pay an attorney hourly to pursue a loser case. As for your second point, the real songs are in the content ID system. I confirmed that for the videos in Fil's video. The problem is that this isn't preventing very similar cover versions or live versions being entered into the content ID system too.
Music is only one aspect of RUclips content. Just imagine, if humanly possible, how much criminal activity is given the green light on this platform? I'm angry enough when I have comments constantly removed on Channels from a variety of topics, including beauty content! Why are YT wasting so much time on innocents like myself and leave the criminals free accessibility to whatever they choose to do? I have interests in a varying amounts of topics and they all are targeted by censorship. Content Creators are having to make up words to cover this censorship for words that are in common use in the English language. It surprises me that these Content Creators go along with this type of censorship. I gave up on a video just the other day where someone was reading an article from the MSM. I was unable to even make sense of what she was saying and turned off. One Creator from TabooEducation came up with a rather smart way to show how they are targeted. Just look at her latest video and you'll see how far this has gone. Considering that the Internet was invented by the British and Australia invented Wi-fi, it makes me wonder why it's the US who are causing all the problems, most especially wokery and censorship.🇦🇺
I don’t know much in practice about censorship in comments. Does it seem to mainly be automated/algorithmic?
@@LawLaughsMusic Yes, definitely an algorithm. What is so frustrating is that words that are used on a regular basis in the English language are forbidden to be used in the comments and by content creators. A common practice in beauty related videos, especially ones that discuss the latest products/releases, is for the content creator to ask what products we use, whether we will be interested in buying the latest release and our opinions. YT most definitely doesn't like us discussing a product or the price. I once went to turn on YT to find that I had received a penalty of non-usage for 24hrs for spam and deception! There was no option to appeal either. If I didn't click onto where it stated that I understood that I would be banned from commenting for 24hrs, I was unable to view anything due to this page remaining that blocked the content. I wasn't even told what comment was involved so that I could dispute it. I never upload videos. Often, it is required to change ones currency to US Dolliars, as Aussie Dollars mean nothing to those from the US. Another thing YT do not like, especially complaining about the price of an item. When the content creator asks our opinions about what we use or feel about a product to be discussed in the comments, how is it my fault to mention the item that the content creator spent an entire video talking about? Often, if I mention the products I may use for skincare, when asked to do so, my comments will be removed. I literally have comments that state that I can't tell the brand that I use or YT will remove the comment to the creators astonishment. The word that is used to describe what can go on in the school yard or in adult life that has to do with a male cow with a why added to this word, it is forbidden. There is no such thing as 'Sue aside' as 'she' will be changed to unaliving or self exit! When a life is removed from this earth, it can't be called by the word we hear every night on the news. Instead, they have been unalived by another. A certain most irritating couple made a recent trip to Colombia, with one who has admitted to use 'talc' on a regular basis and any hope of making a joke is completely gone. It's okay for this person to broadcast to children in the public domain how he condones the illegal use of 'talc', yet we can't even allude to what he is doing - spruking the illegal usage of this type of 'talc'. Everyday words spread across the English language are banned. If that's not censorship, I don't know what is. Only today, a video from a Channel that reports on crimes in Asia had the original video removed of this very well known case, the country involved is banning this case from being mentioned via any platform, MSM or social media. The reporter re-uploaded it again and so far it is still there. As it deals with corruption in a few high profile areas, this country wants to sweep the crime under the rug. Also, due to this country being allies with the US, and YT being owned by a US giant in social media, they will be complicit in the cover-up. The world has simply gone mad, especially when we have to make up words to attempt to get our meaning across to try and discuss a topic. It's like the childhood game of Chinese Whispers in reverse.The woman from TabooEducation wasn't going to let the big boys win and when you hear of the topics that she speaks on, that are permitted, then why can't she make an off the cuff joke about the US Military? It gets even more complicated when from a different culture than the US. We Aussies have a very different way of speaking to Americans, yet have to adjust our own language to fit in with American-English. I can't even speak in my own cultural language, which would be a crime under our laws for denying me the use of my own language. Although, I've stated that the algorithm is responsible for censoring comments, it's hard to then say that this will know when a human is allegedly deceptive. I have no idea what any of this was all about, yet it is now stuck to my record. I recently had my reply to one whom responded to my comment removed just for discussing a gemstone and how beautiful it was! It's beyond a joke the lengths of YTs censorship has gone. Nowadays, everything is woke. You either somehow find a way to go along with it or cease to comment. This platform has gone mad!
I hate how they just delete it and don't even let you know which comment or word was targeted. You have only one option, which is to click that you understand. There's no option for, no, I DON'T understand... Please explain. It took me forever to go through recent posts to see which one it was. Turns out it is automatically generated when you hit save, so it was the last thing I posted.
I had a comment deleted for using the word eggs. How is that hate speech? I just reposted it and added the word frying and suddenly it was OK. Huh? As you can see it is also OK in this context. The original post was: I think they were [...]. No room for confusion, it was the only word which could possibly have been flagged. The context for the post was a discussion about the sizzling sound in the song Cook of the House by Wings. It's ridiculous.
@@krisushi1 I applaud your extremely frank post and strategic use of euphemisms and alternative words. 😂
You bring up serious and legitimate points, including the fact that you can't express yourself in culturally Australian language but instead have to kowtow to YT's tyrannical insistence on American-style English. I'm also not American.
YT has a global audience which it does nothing to recognize or accommodate.
Hi. It's midi...not M.I.D.I. mihdee
I got a bunch of comments about this. I appreciate the correction. I have been dealing with midi files for over 20 years. I didn't know that was the common pronunciation.
@@LawLaughsMusic
Thanks. I should have read through the comments before posting. It's an interesting generational thing. In the 80's when I first saw the midi devices EVERYONE called them midi...mihdee...middy. I never heard anyone call it M.I.D.I. Maybe you were coding and doing engineering things and we were doing music? Can that be it?
em-eye-dee-eye
LOL, I would program simple games when I was in junior high and high school (yeah, I was a really cool kid), and I would use midi music. That means I have been familiar with midi files for way more years than I want to imagine. And yet I never knew the correct way to say it apparently. I had been saying it so long, it didn't occur to me that I was saying it wrong, so I didn't look it up. Like when I made a video about Udio and Suno AI, I checked how other people were pronouncing them (and found that there wasn't consistency).
👌👍❣
You too! Thank you.
I really find it strange that youtube have allowed this after complaints maybe its the huge view and likes yet they are quick to go after other things like a comment that may not be political correct.
I think there's big incentive for RUclips to end this if it were easy to do so considering that they need to make sure they are able to re-up their licensing agreements with the big 3 record companies.
Is Fil in trouble with the Baggins Family for using Frodo's likeness for his face? Or is Fil related?
There are potentially interesting issues about using a shirt like that.
God talent?
Uh oh. Where are you seeing that? I'll correct it if I can.
Got talent
I have an issue with scammers claiming vocal tribute covers that I have done. For example, I did a vocal cover of Unchained Melody a few years ago ruclips.net/video/0-BROPcxmpo/видео.htmlsi=9CsH6LhhFsgnIaSo and it was claimed by:
Unchained Melody
Ahmed Mouici
Tribute to goldies
It annoys me because if anyone should be receiving any pennies off my performance of the song, it should be Alex North and Hy Zaret's estates, who wrote the song in 1955. Should I dispute this Ahmed Mouici's claim? Or just let it go?
Dispute it of course. It's only a few clicks and some typing to do the right thing.
As I said in the video, I personally would fight these types of apparent scammer claims.
@@LawLaughsMusic The problem I immediately run into is that RUclips gives me multiple choices of disputing the claim, but none of them are to report the fraudulent claim. If I use any of the rationales listed, I am making a false representation myself. Catch-22. There needs to be a mechanism by RUclips to report false copyright ownership claims.
@@Tim091 Unfortunately, it's not that cut and dry or easy (see my comment below).
I'm here because of our lovely Fil👌. Subscribed and look forward to catching up on the rest of your interesting content. 👍🇦🇺🦘.
Thank you kindly!