Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Okay so I know that Youtube's copyright system is very infamous and it seems like it is impossible to remove.

However I noticed one thing, As the most popular Vidoe site in existence (espeiclay compared to dailymotion and blip, which are either too small to compete with Youtube or in blip's case got screwed because the owners had history on youtube that was used against them), Youtube has basically become a de facto monopoly. And attempts to update copyright law seem to worsen the problem (SOPA being a prime example) and getting ruling from the Supreme Court requires what is essentially waging a legal war with Youtube, which can be tedious and expensive.

But it has me thinking, if there was another video site, that can handle copyright without screwing over the users and was helmed essentially blank slates (as in no history with Youtube to avoid what happened with blip) and funded independently from Youtube itself (Whether by somehow saving enough money or through the likes of Patreon and Kickstarter) it would prove to be the key to solving this, either by providing a more attractive service (though I imagine that it would take a while for it come to effect as there might be people hesitant to leave Youtube for various reasons) or by forcing Youtube to update its policies to be fair as opposed to the proverbial Big brother that is the current system.

What do you think, could the idea work? Will a competitor on par with Youtube be enough to break the monopoly and with it the horrible copyright issues? and If it did, would you support it?

Having a large market share does not equate to a "de facto monopoly". If people decided to "rebel" against Youtube, they'd have plenty of options. But without a legal obligation to defend content as innocent until proven guilty in terms of claims of true (i.e. non-Fair Use protected) copyright infringement, I see no reason to believe that the situation wouldn't devolve back to square one once the massive media corporations clue in to what's going on and begin to throw their weight around.

For that reason, I think it IS the courts we need to resolve the issue, though it certainly won't be easy as you pointed out. You'd need someone (or, more likely, several people) with extremely strong resolve, probably some really good lawyers, and a clearly defined legal argument. There are a very complicated series of considerations to be made that muddy the waters in terms of such an argument. Probably the most clear-cut path to take is to request that the Courts declare certain portions of Title I and Title II of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act unconstitutional due to violation of the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech, the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures , the Fifth Amendment's protection against being deprived… liberty, or property, without due process of law. The key to this would be the Courts agreeing that the DMCA essentially forces internet companies such as Youtube to act as "limbs" of the government in terms of law enforcement. If that is the case, then those companies would either be mandated to hold to the standards of the Constitution in that arena (which is unlikely to happen, as that'd probably be seen as unconstitutional for different reasons) or the provisions of the DMCA would be struck down to sever the connection.
This wouldn't solve the entire problem, of course, but it would be a huge step in the right direction.

Youtube is in no way a monopoly. I don't think its even possible to have a monopoly on the internet.

What exactly is wrong with youtube's copyright system? I honestly think its fair.
You have to remember, its not youtube making these decision, its the copyright holders.
Also remember there is a video uploaded to youtube every second, there is no way to check all these videos by hand.

Poochy, I do agree with the basics of the copyright management system but the way they execute it is really extremely flawed.

The largest and most obvious example is that they have no fucking idea how fair use works. YourMovieSucks explains it better than I ever could:

The worst example by far are when they started to take down gameplay videos, which are pretty much originally generated content to begin with (unless you pull an Anita Sarkeesian, funny how none of her videos got taken down on copyright cough cough). Remember how Sega decided to try to take down some of the top videos a while back just so they could try to boost search results? Or how the guys who developed Day One: Gary's Incident tried to take down Totalbiscuit's scathing review, because it was the most popular?

We could also talk about how youtube flags its own channels it makes, under agreement with copyright holders, as copyright infringement.

Recent example, I was pissed that I couldn't listen to some of the songs in Breakfast in America because youtube blocked it in the United States on grounds of copyright infringement ON THE FUCKING CHANNEL THEY MADE FOR THEM. Supertramp for whatever reason has been vigorously taken down in the last few years (it's basically the Sega of music when it comes to copyright infringement on Youtube for some reason) and it was a breath of fresh air to finally see it on there, only to find out that some of the greatest songs in the album are nowhere to be found, ON THE OFFICIAL CHANNEL.

This doesn't mention that one of the songs, that also appears on a Supertramp Greatest Hits album, ISN'T blocked in the United States, but is on another album. Same song, not a remix or anything. What the fuck?! So apparently the Logical Song is alright on their Greatest Hits album but NOT the album it came out on?! Clearly it's not the song, is it? You can't even give the content ID match excuse for that one.

Like what the fuck; that's the copyright holder's channel; why the fuck are you blocking it in my country, especially when in some cases the SAME FUCKING SONG is available on the channel elsewhere no problem. Clearly they don't give a shit about the rest of the album, and they don't even have download protection against it (unlike some of the other albums by the same band)! For fuck's sake just have it so that you have a flag that makes it impossible for youtube-to-mp3 to download it or something, Jesus Christ.

I haven't personally seen any other bands that have had it this bad but this is just ridiculous and I wouldn't be surprised if other music has gotten the same bullshit treatment. It sucks because I use youtube as a song screening service and only buy hard copies of albums I really like. Son of a gun.

The problem isn't the copyright system, I'm fine with that. The problem is with how it's executed. It's easily abused and anyone with a tiny penis can basically hit up someone with a copyright strike, and with three of those motherfuckers you are OUT.

Do I think its a monopoly? Not really. There are other services. But it is the most used service, and we should be concerned when people who likely don't understand their rights as a content producer are putting up with total bullshit like this, even when you own the copyright. Yes, they can move elsewhere, but YouTube is where its at right now.

P.s. their new thing of putting ads on like every video is really trying my patience, too.

You can't blame youtube when a company says "Take down these videos".
Youtube doesn't remove a single thing unless they are told to.
Also, most of the stuff is automated.
When something is flagged, its taken down. if you want to dispute it, it can be looked into by a human, and sometimes its revoked.
A large % of the time, it works just fine, but the few times it doesn't work causes a huge fuss.

Sometimes people pretend to be the content holder and shut down other people's videos and channel.
That is illegal.

Also, that last bit about the ads, again, not youtube, thats the uploader's choice.

It seriously annoys me when people complain about something youtube/google does, when its not even them doing it.

It's not technically a monopoly, but since a lot of content creators rely on Youtube to make money, there is no way for them to move to another site and risk their income, hence they have to stay on Youtube or make their own site and hope their fans all get on board (this sacrifices exposure though)
So it's not a monopoly but DAMN if it doesn't feel like one.

No, you don't understand how fucking retarded this is. They literally tore down the Logical Song in the album Breakfast in America, but it was never taken down for their best hits album. It's literally the same fucking song, dude. Literally listen to the two and tell me if there's any difference.

Not only this, but it's the OFFICIAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL. FOR THE COPYRIGHT OWNERS. As in, the COPYRIGHT OWNERS have BANNED their own video even though they put up the music for people to listen to! Also, it's their choice? Not really, copyright infringements are caused by reports and content ID matches, not personal choice. Not to mention if the copyright owners didn't want you to listen to it all they'd have to do is UNLIST the video, which they've proven they don't mind doing with Breakfast in America.

And don't act like this was something that they could shove under the rug, this band wasn't exactly obscure – this is pretty clearly absurd. Fans have been waiting for years for this channel to come up and even now they have to put up with this shit.

Now, I did just check, they did put the version of that song back up, but it's unlisted, as are most of the songs in the album – and there's no way to search for "Take the Long Way Home" without searching for the playlist I used, so some of the videos still haven't been regenerated properly. And "Breakfast in America" is still banned, and there are no versions from the album that are available whatsoever.

>Also, that last bit about the ads, again, not youtube, thats the uploader’s choice.

This is outright wrong, I still get ads on my videos even though I have never elected to have videos on them. There's possibly an option to opt out, but most people don't ever toggle it.

I'm uploading a video to demonstrate how retarded this whole thing is. It's really bad.

Again, I don't really care about them enforcing copyright, it's *how they do it * which is the problem.

While the way they handle copyright is stupid, the main problem I have is the Google plus shit. I still haven't gotten over that and why would I if the site I used to use so much was rendered half as good as it was before. Usually when people are pissy about a site layout change they're just being weenies but when it's a change that twists something at its core is when there's a legitimate problem. Because of G+, I was shadowbanned and now I can't comment on anything no matter how bad I want to. I don't even know what I did at all to deserve it but it happened and now I won't be able to comment until I get a new IP in a new home with a new account. Not only that, but they try to get you to use your real name and make it into a social network no one wants to use and a comment system that is a horrible mess to look at that rewards the worst comments to be put at the top instead of the best and is a pain to scroll through.

That is why I hate Youtube. That is all.

Kinda confused by whats going on.
So they uploaded a song they own on their own channel, and it then got removed due to copyright?
That just sounds like a mix up happened which they might or might not bother to fix.

Again, The copyright holder had to have said "Please remove videos that contain ___"
What might have happened is that they did that, but then later on decided to upload the videos themselves which caused confusion.

> I still get ads on my videos even though I have never elected to
Then either you have videos that contain other people's content (such as a song) or you switched on ads without you knowing.

Poochy, this is a video that explains the situation:

>Again, The copyright holder had to have said “Please remove videos that contain ___”
What might have happened is that they did that, but then later on decided to upload the videos themselves which caused confusion.

What I'm saying is that it's both horrifically inaccurate (because it accepted the Logical Song in one album and rejected it in another) and difficult to manage (there's no reason for Breakfast in America to be unable to be visible because of copyright reasons, why haven't they fixed it), not to mention that the terrible unreliable nature of actual copy protection (you can download Goodbye Stranger but not Rudy, despite being considerably less popular).

I feel like most of this is the result of both terrible designs in automation and a poorly designed copyright system. There is absolutely NO excuse.

@ the video

..its not their official channel. If you read the description "Auto-generated by YouTube."
That means that youtube just found these sounds using an algorithm and put them into one channel.
Its basically just a playlist youtube's scripts created.

The band nor copyright holders had anything to do with that channel.

As for a certain song not appearing.. idk, honestly just sounds like nit-picking to me..
Its a channel that runs automatically, so of course it won't be perfect.

7:00
Are you sure its not because its unlisted?..

idk, just seems like a weak arguement when you only use one video as an example.
And its a video uploaded using an automated system, so it could be anything really.

Why are you guys talking about legitimate, unaltered, wholesale copyrighted pieces on this thread? I thought the problem people were concerned about was videos that ought to be considered Fair Use being automatically taken down without review, the creators being punished in an unfair and unreasonable manner (i.e. MrEnter), and the appeals process being completely fucking broken.

What about people who take down videos they don't like by making false copyright claims?
Also, I doubt anyone at Youtube/Google cars about Fair Use because they know no one is going to hire a lawyer to get their My Little Pony Parody back up.

Because the copyright system is so broken its harming legitimate copyright holders. Its not just harming people like Enter. Some people may argue that for some reason that people like Enter don't qualify as fair use, which, while absolutely ridiculous, makes more sense than the videos being affected by copyright woes by the actual copyright holder.

Its defeating the purpose COMPLETELY.

The system doesn't work, plain and simple. Its clearly too automated and unreliable to the point that the same song is affected by it on one album and not another, on the same channel. That IS bad, and everyone concerned about the state of the copyright system should be at least somewhat concerned about such a discrepancy. A friend told me on tumblr that this also isn't the only copyrighted material to suffer the same fate.

Not only this, but this offers next to no actual protection of copyrighted material, as is shown with the what can be downloaded.

If we now turn back to people like Enter, not ONLY do they have to deal with the consequences of the copyright system, but what actually triggers it is completely unreliable! Not only this, but this can affect people's content that they DO own, even if they're not a record company! So it doesn't matter if what he does us "fair use", he and many other youtubers have to wait for the ridiculously drawn out copyright system to pass over.

Now one solution that could be that a channel like #supertramp could have special privileges. This would allow it to mark their videos as no-download, which prevents converters from downloading the content – a feature proven to already exist. They could be immune to copyright strikes on their own material. This would be a bit more manual but far more reasonable and manageable, and wouldn't piss off fans in complete incompetence.

On the flip side are those people regarding fair use such as Enter. One solution is to not automatically take down videos on copyright strikes until the company actually says something about it instead of having automatic takedowns. Also shortening the contact periods is important, as well as not completely lying outright to the use through that shitty happy tree friends video or whatever every time it happens. But seriously, the system is completely fucked up.