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."

Easy...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

1) Strip the audio track,
2) Host the video with the audio track somewhere else,
3) Add a link to the audio enabled version into the description.

Re:ridiculous

[K. S. Kyosuke]

When will this copyright madness end?

In less than 200 million years, since by then Earth will have been rendered virtually uninhabitable from the point of view of intelligent animal life by the constantly rising power output of the Sun. So, nothing to worry about.

Re:Prior art ...

[PhunkySchtuff]

I think you're confusing copyright with patents. There's no prior art on copyright.

Slander of title

[mysidia]

You own the copyright to the original recording you made of bird songs from nature.

They own the copyright to their recording of bird songs from nature, but not to yours.

For them to claim copyright to your recording, there must be an original artistic element they created that you have actually reproduced.

Re:Lies

[qualityassurancedept]

The idiom is "bald-faced"

Re:Slander of title

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. And slander of title is a civil tort, and grounds for a civil court suit. If the situation is as the submitter describes, it sounds like a pretty open and shut case; he mat be able find a lawyer willing to take the case on contingency. IANAL, etc.

Re:Cornell Lab of Ornithology has birdsong recordi

[truedfx]

The core point doesn't work. If bird songs are copyrightable, then different people can hold copyright on different bird songs. If someone patented the idea of recording a bird song, you could claim prior art by pointing to anyone who recorded a bird song before the patent.

Use crowdfunding to pay for a lawsuit

[gumpish]

Sue them and use crowd funding.

https://www.crowdtilt.com/ [crowdtilt.com]

Make it clear in your project description that you will not settle.

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[account_deleted]

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Solutions.

[theNAM666]

Like, the $25 or so it would take to file against YouTube in local small claims?

Sheesh. Do not pass Go; go get a Nolo Press book on the legal system. Learn something.

parody imitates life

[soonquadruples]

A friend and I wrote this bit of silliness years ago: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~dzubera/riaa_sues_birds_whales.txt [colostate.edu] The time between parody and real life continues to shrink.

Re:Lies

[Mabhatter]

This is the findamental problem with the USA system that "free" and "public domain" are not "owners" so they have no rights because public domain can't hire lawyers... As much was said when Lessing tried to argue that Public Domain needed a voice in copyright legleslation to the SCOUS.

So pretty much the first person to record and file gets the copyright... The law has no mechanism to verify that "nobody" can claim something...

summary

[Tom]

Get a lawyer. Get him now, because there are deadlines and the law takes deadlines very seriously. Ask the EFF or ACLU, they often love cases like these, and they have a couple really good lawyers.

Have your lawyer send them a cease & desist letter. You will need that later.

From what you describe, you should start in small claims court, which will very likely result in a default judgement in your favour, because most companies don't bother with defending themselves. If they cease&desist, sue them for whatever ad revenue they illegally made. If they don't c&d, sue them for the lot.

With the default judgement in hand, escalate. Sue them for copyright infringement, fraud and whatever else your lawyer comes up with.

Don't forget that copyright infringement is a criminal offense, too. And thanks to the content mafia, the penalties are considerable.

The one thing you shouldn't do is lie down, do nothing, or delete your video. On the contrary, why didn't you post the link? A quick /. effect later and there'd be many thousand views and the damages for your case would be there.

Re:Good luck fighting this battle

[bakes]

The submitter is 'eeplox', search for his channel in Youtube. (ph34r my 1337 hax0r skills)

I watched part of one video, didn't see any ads at all. Possibly Rumblefish already backed down or eeplox is looking for easy hits.

Nope, not true.

[raehl]

This isn't a DMCA notice, or a case of someone filing (under penalty of perjury) a notice that they own the material and demanding you take it down.

This is an issue of YouTube's user agreement and the way YouTube shares revenue.

When you upload content to YouTube's site, you obviously agree to allow them to show the video.

YouTube also has a separate revenue sharing program, where you can get revenue from your videos - but YouTube is NOT obligated to do this. They could simply run ads on your content, say screw you, we're not giving you any revenue share, and keep all the revenue for themselves.

What YouTube has done is put in place a program where content owners can have YouTube automatically match content on their site with the content owner's content. YouTube has chosen, in the event such a match is made, to give the content owner the OPTION of allowing the infringing content to stay on the site and getting the ad revenue share instead of just having the content removed entirely.

So you're in a grey area - no one is asking your content to be taken down, so there's no DMCA request. YouTube has just agreed with the 3rd party to share the revenue from your content with the 3rd party - which is YouTube's perogative since they can do whatever they want with their ad revenue. If you don't like what they decide to do with your ad revenue, your recourse with YouTube is simple: Don't put your content there.

I'm guessing that YouTube really just didn't think through how their program actually works when bad actors are introduced (ala rumblefish). If YouTube were smart, they would realize Rumblefish is a bad actor and kick them out of the program and force Rumblefish to submit DMCA notices instead.

Re:Lies

[chilbert]

It is "bald-faced", not "bold-faced". You're just as wrong as he is.

Nope:It's bold-faced, as in bold type face. See for example: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bold-faced [thefreedictionary.com] bold-faced (bldfst) adj. 1. Impudent; brazen: a bold-faced lie. 2. Printed in thick, heavy type.

Hoping to Clarify ...

[peatbakke]

Hey all,

I'm Peat Bakke, the Lead Architect at Rumblefish. I write a lot of the code that manages our music catalog, as well as interfaces with our partners (like YouTube), so I'm intimately (painfully) familiar with how all of these pieces fit together, and who's responsible for what.

First things first -- eeplox, I'm sorry this has been a shitty experience. Clearly something has been missed, and I want to make things right. Please contact me directly at [e-mail], so we can sort out exactly what's happening with your video.

Automated content identification is a hairy problem, doubly so when mixed with synchronization (soundtrack) licensing. YouTube's system is one of the better ones out there, and even so, we get a ton of false positives coming out of it every day. The biggest source of false claims come from covers and samples, where it's particularly difficult to determine if the soundtrack for a video is or isn't in our catalog.

That said, we do listen to each disputed claim that reaches us, after YouTube has gone through their (rather terse) automated resolution system. We're working with YouTube and our other partners to make the process simpler and less legally threatening ... but we're the small fish at the table.

It's worth mentioning that Rumblefish isn't a subsidiary of a major label, media conglomerate, or rights organization. This is a very small company, founded and owned by an independent musician, and half our staff play in bands or work in independent film. We've focused specifically on independent artists who want their music to be used in soundtracks ... and for what it's worth, yes, there are several tracks that sound like birds chirping. :)

Regardless -- the media licensing industry is a horrible, horrible mess. No question about it. Our mission is to make it easier for independent artists (music and video alike) to make a living doing what they love, and it genuinely sucks to hear when people are let down.

I'm happy to answer questions about how we do what we do. IANAL, of course ... but I am a geek. :)

Thanks,
-Peat

Re:Profit & Lies

[anubi]

So companies claim to own everything.

Let them!

Our local government is having budgetary fits right now. We are even laying off teachers,

We all are paying stiff property tax for our homes. But its not enough.

Corporations have spent boku bucks to have their rights to ideas, even music, dealt with as property.

Its high time the whole benefit of property ownership be awarded. Including the benefit of property taxes.

There are many things I would like to have, but the expense of having them makes it not worth having it.

Why would I want an elephant if it comes with a need to feed it, house it, and care for it, even if I can charge neighborhood kids a buck to ride it?

When I say our "Pledge of Allegiance", it starts off with my committment to Pledge Allegiance to the Flag... and ends with "Justice for All".

If MY property is being taxed, why are "they" getting off scot-free?

If its MY property, I have the right to tell others they can't have it. If THEY have the right to tell me I can't have it, then its their property.

So, I am not complaining about anyone's rights, I am just saying I pay for my rights and expect everyone else to do the same.

And I also believe we would all be better off if tax law rewarded DOING something rather than hoarding things. .

Re:Profit & Lies

[sumdumass]

The problem is with the stated policy and reasons for posting the advertisements. If they treated posting differently then the stated policy, they would have to either change the policy ot explain why. In this case, they chose to explain why which turns out to be a crock of crap highlighting the vary essence of the problems with automated infringement systems and the corporate drones claiming ownership of everything.

Reply from Rumblefish CEO...

[gVibe]

All... I wrote a pretty heated email to Rumblefish earlier, and below (with his permission) is the response I received from the CEO Paul Anthony. -- Jeff

Hey Jeff, it's Paul Anthony, CEO and Founder of Rumblefish. I have to say, I appreciate your passion for what you believe is right and your willingness to go to bat for it.

I just caught wind of the thread going on at Slashdot and have started replying to posts. It's very important to myself and everyone at Rumblefish that we do right by creators. If we have in fact been sent a claim from the YouTube Content ID system that has been misidentified...we'll happily release it. I'll make sure we look into it, and are doing so now.

I'm gathering from the thread that the issue is obviously over singing birds....sounds like an outside case to me that we represent birds singing in nature....but in cases like this it could very well be A: Something completely different in the work B: A simple mistaken piece of content by the YouTube content ID system or an error on our part.

Before you launch a full fledged, and rather passionate by the tone of your email, assault against my company...I'd appreciate the opportunity for my team to actually look into this. We're a group of people who love music, love content creators and show up at work every day to do right by our artists and labels by sending them royalties for the use of their music.

Thanks.

Re:Profit & Lies

[Bruce Perens]

If you were really Paul Anthony, the first thing you'd do is get a login. The second thing would be to link to your Slashdot posting from a site known to be managed by your company, so we'd be able to identify that posting as real.

Re:Lies

[mpoulton]

In the case at hand, there are no content owners, because nobody owns the bird songs (not even the birds).

Not true. The content owner is the person who made the recording. It is copyrighted, and the owner can potentially pursue a claim against Rumblefish for infringement if Rumblefish has placed ads on the video and profited from it by claiming it's theirs. My law firm would be interested in representing this uploader (and others). That's the kind of case we would love.

Re:Hoping to Clarify ...

[peatbakke]

Heya,

Many of those responses are pre-canned in the YouTube system, so unfortunately we get stuck when it comes to the responses. Even in clear cases of infringement (which this is not), terse and threatening legalese doesn't help anyone -- not us, the musicians, or the video creators.

We're looking forward to having a direct relationship with the people who use music from our catalog. Music copyright, particularly synchronization rights, are a highly charged topic -- legally and politically. If we can make it easier and safer for people to find and use the music, everyone wins.

We'll sort out exactly what happened, and set it right with eeplox directly.

Thanks,
-Peat

Re:Profit & Lies

[peatbakke]

Hey Bruce -- we've met a few times at open source / security related conferences in the early 2000s, although I'm not sure you would remember me. My work was with the Immunix Linux distribution, and some other Linux-related startups.

I can vouch for the parent (#39168105) being Paul Anthony, CEO of Rumblefish. I'm the Lead Architect at Rumblefish, and we've been working on this issue this evening. Forgive him; he's a musician, not a geek. :-)

Re:Profit & Lies

[peatbakke]

Heya,

Forgive us for being a little short in our responses -- it is a complex issue, and we're working through it on a Sunday evening. :)

The YouTube content identification and dispute resolution system is not a simple one; right now we're focused on resolving the critical issue with eeplox. This is something that will unfold over the next couple of days, and we'll be doing what we should -- make sure we figure out exactly what happened, and put guards in place to prevent it in the future.

Thanks,
-Peat

Re:Profit & Lies

[peatbakke]

The simple and necessary action (reviewing, confirming, and releasing the video) was done very shortly after we became aware of the issue -- several hours ago.

Right now, I'm interested in responding to reasonable questions as best I can; next, we will be reviewing what happened, and following up appropriately.

It's not a wasted evening. People are pissed, and although I can't provide the ultimate answers right now, I don't think it's appropriate to simply disappear.

Thanks,
-Peat

Re:Lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey it's Paul Anthony from Rumblefish. This claim has been released by Rumblefish as it was both A: improperly ID'd by YouTube's content ID system as a song from one of our artists and B: one of our content ID representatives mistakenly reinstated the claim. As soon as it came to our attention today that we had made a mistake, we promptly released the claim and I reached out to eeplox via YouTube to let him know.

I've been responding in an /IAmA on everything here:
http://redd.it/q7via

Thx and our apologies.

Best,

Paul Anthony | Founder & CEO | Rumblefish

Thank you slashdot!

[eeplox]

Thanks to the slashdot effect, Rumblefish has now released my video and their ads were removed! It's good to know that these intellectual property management companies are capable of doing the right thing (when a ton of public scrutiny rains down on them). I got this message in my Youtube inbox: "Hello, it's Paul Anthony...the CEO & Founder of Rumblefish. Hey there. I just personally watched the video of yours that you posted about on Slashdot where you're picking and eating a wild salad. There is clearly no music in your video and I just got off of the phone with our tech lead who I asked to release the claim that was made by the YouTube system and associated with Rumblefish. We're not sure why the song was ID'd. My apologies to you for the inconvenience that this has caused you. I'd like to help make that right for you in some way. I have been spending the last several hours responding to posts on Slashdot and emails that countless people have sent to our email addresses b/c it's important to me and the team at Rumblefish that we always do right by content creators, the ones that we represent and the ones that we do not. My apologies again and best of luck to you. If there's anything else that we can do to help make things right, please do let me know. Here's my email address: [e-mail] All the best, Paul Anthony Founder & CEO, Rumblefish Sent to: eeplox"

Updates

[peatbakke]

Hey all,

There's a lot of threads here and on other places, hopefully this sheds some light on the claim process, and what happened with eeplox's video.

Here's the sequence, as best as I understand it:

- eeplox posted a video to YouTube that contained bird sounds.
- The automated YouTube content identification system mistakenly assigned it to one of the tracks in our catalog.
- eeplox contested the automated claim, which sent it into the manual review queue.
- One of our reviewers reinstated the claim, which triggered the response eeplox received and posted above.

When we heard about the story on Slashdot, we reviewed the video and released it.

TL;DR: We messed up during the manual review process. We've cleared eeplox's video. We're working on fixing the manual review process.

I'm here in the discussion to answer what questions we can. We're not interested in screwing over independent musicians and video creators, and we want to be as open as possible about what's going on.

If you run into content claim issues with our catalog on YouTube, you're welcome to contact us directly at [e-mail]. We have a FAQ about the process here: http://rumblefish.com/id/youtube-content-id.php [rumblefish.com]

Paul Anthony (the CEO) has an AMA thread over at Reddit where he's answering questions. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_rumblefish_i_guess_were_the_newest/ [reddit.com]

Thanks,
-Peat