YouTube Identifies Birdsong As Copyrighted Music

New submitter eeplox writes "I make nature videos for my YouTube channel, generally in remote wilderness away from any possible source of music. And I purposely avoid using a soundtrack in my videos because of all the horror stories I hear about Rumblefish filing claims against public domain music. But when uploading my latest video, YouTube informed me that I was using Rumblefish's copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company. This baffled me. I disputed their claim with YouTube's system — and Rumblefish refuted my dispute, and asserted that: 'All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content: Entity: rumblefish; Content Type: Musical Composition.' So I asked some questions, and it appears that the birds singing in the background of my video are Rumblefish's exclusive intellectual property."

Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Rumblefish,
      I see that you are using my music without proper authorization.
-- God
p.s. I could use ad's, hmmmm... Naa, Smite works just as well...

Small Claims DDOS

[silentbozo]

1. Go to the woods, record birdsong.
2. Make a bunch of videos and post to YouTube
3. Wait for takedown
4. Sue Rumblefish in small claims court for the ad revenue they got from Google.
5. Profit!!!!

You know...

[Stanislav_J]

I've always said copyright is for the birds... (Well, someone had to say it!)

Couldn't have been

[Vinegar Joe]

A mockingbird, could it?

Yeesh

[sixtyeight]

YouTube: Blurring the line between the RIAA and Monsanto.

It's a good thing nobody farted in the background.

[mykepredko]

Rumblefish owns that as well.

And you know you're going to have to pay through the nose on that one!

myke

Re:Lies

[pruss]

It depends how you take the quantifiers. :-) In first-order logic, "all As are Bs" is automatically true if there are no As. In the case at hand, there are no content owners, because nobody owns the bird songs (not even the birds). So, all content owners have reviewed the video and confirmed their claims. Likewise, all content owners have seven legs.

Now all we need...

[ChipMonk]

is a Metallica song with birds in the background.

Lars, meet Rumblefish. Rumblefish, Lars.

Who's got the popcorn for this show?

Re:Lies

[Kenja]

Clearly you've never heard Bjork sing.

..and is the bird song public domain?

[formfeed]

Okay, sorry... But someone has to ask this...

Where did the clip of the birdsong come from? Is this something the OP recorded himself? Or did he use an audio clip from some other source?

And if the OP recorded himself, did he make sure the birds were indeed singing a song that is in the public domain?

While birds aren't people and can't own a copyright, a flock of birds is more like a corporation and therefor a person.

Talking

[QuasiRob]

I'll be scared to talk on a video now, I might find I'm copyrighted by someone else.

Re:Lies

[eriklou]

Chewbacca's lawyers called, they want his defense back.

Re:Slander of title

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Yet bird songs might copy each other's tunes. So his bird song might sound the same as one they recorded. This is because birds have no copyright and reproduce other bird's songs as their own. They then use this to attract a mate and pass the other bird's intellectual property to their kids. Not only do they steal other birds song, but they show that if copying songs is legal, it makes all the birds lazy and not want to come up with new songs. This is why pirates always carried parrots on their ships. The parrot is the most efficient bird at stealing songs back when we didn't have computers and the Internet.

Re:Small Claims DDOS

[EdIII]

You can't use self-shots taken by a monkey. They all have monkey butts and penises in them. Or slow mo shots of another monkey throwing poo.

It would never pass YouTube's decency standards.

Re:ridiculous

[rrohbeck]

Sue the birds for using copyrighted content all the time.
Damn pirates.

Re:Lies

[mooingyak]

I have 5 arms

Now THAT'S a bold-faced lie.

Re:Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Rumblefish,
        Did you see the Alfred Hitchcock movie starring us? If not, perhaps you should.
Sincerely,
The Birds

Re:Profit & Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey there, it's Paul Anthony....the guy you want to send creepy letters consisting of cut up letters from magazines...I know, you were probably just kidding. I'm the Founder and CEO of Rumblefish and saw this thread and it seems to be getting rather heated up so I thought I'd chime in, answer whatever questions I can and make myself available for a little while (have to eat in a bit) if people have questions....which it seems like they very much do.

I'm not sure where to start b/c so much has been said but eeplox, if we have indeed mistakenly been sent a claim by YouTube's Content ID system and are inaccurately claiming a video...we'll release it. Our mission is to license music rightfully in order to compensate recording artists for their work. Claiming anything that other people / companies / organizations own is not what we're about. Rumblefish is an independent music company...not a large media conglomerate. We aim to do right by creators of all kinds.

Re:Attorneys

[Merls the Sneaky]

False DMCA claims are now called "Rumblefish". EG: "My youtube video just got rumblefished. "

Re:Profit & Lies

[Mistlefoot]

No. If he was the real Paul Anthony he'd be suing the bird for performing the Rumblefish owned song in front of an audience.

Re:Profit & Lies

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Choke on your own tongue you greedy lying ignorant proprietarian piece of crap.

I will never EVER give you a dime. For anything. You just bought yourself a whole world of hate, and you deserve it you ignorant whore.

Oh, and by the way - give Coppola back his Rumblefish [imdb.com] - he's put it to better use than you ever will.

dungbeetle.

Re:Bird Chirping --- property of God

[ReverendLoki]

In that case, I imagine a lot of persons and other entities that have suffered losses due to "Acts of God" will be wanting to have a word with Rumblefish and whatever monies they have managed to accumulate.