Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 503 posts

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#421

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

robbrown451 wrote: post #358
anigbrowl wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate copyright law and agree it's broken, but it's not at fault here. Compositions can be copyrighted, but obviously Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is in the public domain and has been for a long time. Performances can be copyrighted, but obviously a performance isn't the same thing as a composition. There's no legal grey area here. This is completely on Google/Youtube. Why isn't there a way to assert the copyright s…

"This is completely on Google/Youtube. " What about the copyright trolls that are filing claims for content they don't own, forcing Google into an arms race with them. Even when the system is working "correctly" it is broken. If I take a video of my kid dancing to a song, I often can't share it with my family on YouTube. That's messed up.

Is it messed up, though?

Suppose your video goes crazy viral, has 12 million views, you monetize it, earn some modest figure on the thing. What forces you to pay the song's creators/copyright holders? What would make you think you should not pay them?

Obviously, this is an unlikely scenario, but where's the threshold at which it becomes important? Monetization? First million views? Theoretical monetization? Actual payout?

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#422

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #329
blacklight wrote: post #262

I've already stated this many times, I'll state it again. Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automated company only interested in extracting as much data as possible from its users, force them to swallow as many ads as possible, all without caring about listening to them (both consumers and creators), under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users…

When I was at Google they had a mission statement that went something like "Organize the worlds data and make it available." But the reality seems to be it was "Seize the world's data and hold it for ransom." The latter of course being the better business model.

In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either.

The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#423

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

danbmil99 wrote: post #325
blacklight wrote: post #262

I've already stated this many times, I'll state it again. Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. Google is a dumb, faceless, fully automated company only interested in extracting as much data as possible from its users, force them to swallow as many ads as possible, all without caring about listening to them (both consumers and creators), under the faulty assumption that they're too big for users…

Interestingly this intersects with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26996972 Content cannot be safe if the tech necessary to deliver it is out of reach for independent creators. Note that in the Roku thread Google is (IMHO) the good guy, for reasons unrelated to this thread's concern.

Cannot be safe? What does that even mean?

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#424

Post by gruez »

ajross wrote: post #367
bcrescimanno wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your assessment of Google; however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? You kinda have to go where the audience will be if you don't already have one and I'm not aware of any video discovery platforms with anywhere near the reach of YouTube. I've managed to get out of Google products almost entirely--YouTube remains th…

> however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? I think it's more instructive to look at it from the other side. What's the reasonable alternative for a video hosting service to doing this kind of policing? Remember it's not really an option to just throw video over the fence, DMCA requirements mean you have to be responsive. And th…

> And thus there's a built-in incentive to cut a deal with the content owners to preemptively prevent the DMCA claims (which are expensive!) by doing this sort of automated policing.

How are DMCAs expensive?

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#425

Post by ajross »

gruez wrote: post #424
ajross wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however, what is a reasonable alternative for a content creator who wants to publish their videos and be able to build an audience? I think it's more instructive to look at it from the other side. What's the reasonable alternative for a video hosting service to doing this kind of policing? Remember it's not really an option to just throw video over the fence, DMCA requirements mean you have to be responsive. And th…

> And thus there's a built-in incentive to cut a deal with the content owners to preemptively prevent the DMCA claims (which are expensive!) by doing this sort of automated policing. How are DMCAs expensive?

You need to pay a human being at $15/hour or more to spend a few minutes to review the claim and response, on videos that on average are probably making you a dime or less in ad revenue. These companies receive a lot of DMCA claims, most of which are absolutely valid.

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#426

Post by ajross »

creato wrote: post #398
bcrescimanno wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agreed. I'd love to see Google (and let's get Twitch in there as well, while we're at it) working with content creators to push for legal change. To me, that's what's most disappointing: Google will spend millions on lobbying to legally collect more and more information about me; but, they don't have the inclination to use their size and scale to push a significant expansion of Fair Use Doctrine (or, if th…

It was out of self interest of course, but, Google did just finish a decade long, costing probably hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees, battle with Oracle to fight for reasonable copyright interpretation for software developers. This current situation on YT is the result of another multi-billion dollar legal fight with the music industry. I don't like how YT handles this either but I put most of the blame o…

Also remember Google Books, which was a huge (seriously, huge) project that spent years with full funding only to be killed by the publishing industry because they couldn't justify it under the notion of "fair use" we're stuck with.

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#427

Post by bencollier49 »

gwd wrote: post #379
robflynn wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would this not allow companies with deep pockets to continue to abuse the smaller channels who might not have $1000 lying around to put in escrow on the off chance of losing the $1000 just because some lawyer somewhere made a bad decision? Or they just get their video removed because they dont have $1000 to begin with.

Let's not let the best be the enemy of the good. Right now 1) companies with deep pockets can easily false claims with very little consequences 2) small channels basically have no recourse. Obviously the whole system is predicated on the lawyers being fair: but assuming the lawyers usually DTRT, then 1) there will be consequences for false claims, resulting in far fewer of them and 2) small channels can get a real hu…

It would also create an arbitrage opportunity for investors who could inspect the copyright situation and put up the $1000 and collect at the end. The system would work well.

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#428

Post by ChuckMcM »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #422
ChuckMcM wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was at Google they had a mission statement that went something like "Organize the worlds data and make it available." But the reality seems to be it was "Seize the world's data and hold it for ransom." The latter of course being the better business model.

In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either. The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"

See that is the 'hook' then Google monetizes those petabytes without paying the people who uploaded them[1], that is the 'business model'.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-...

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#429

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #428
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of YT, it's not clear there's much "seizing" going on. YT "users" are uploading petabytes even without being asked to do so. Not clear what the ransom letter says, either. The business model is closer to "use network effects and really well implemented streaming technology to build a monopoly on video hosting, and then use the insane level of viewership to extend our advertising business"

See that is the 'hook' then Google monetizes those petabytes without paying the people who uploaded them[1], that is the 'business model'. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/youtube-will-put-ads-on-non-...

I still don't think that this constitutes "seizing". YT provides the streaming service for the uploaded video, claims the ad revenue in exchange. I don't like it, but it's not "seizing".

Also, boring as it is, and aware as I am that I am in a tiny minority, I do not use a mobile device, and on my browser(s) I have uBlock Origin installed, as well as 69k entries in /etc/hosts to block any and all access to a huge number of known-to-serve-ad domains. I essentially never see YT ads.

Re: Piano teacher gets copyright claim for Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata [video]

#430

Post by lovelyviking »

fsflover wrote: post #324
lovelyviking wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Get your shit out of YouTube and any other Google product. My thoughts exactly 5 years ago. So I did exactly as you say back then. So , did you notice? Did it help? I do not think so. May be the problem is more complicated and leaving YouTube would not help ?

I guess it did help you , since you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves.

>you are protected from Google's unpredictable moves.

Am I? It seems I am still influenced by their moves. Of course doing nothing is a good protection against any failure except perhaps a total failure to deliver anything useful? It is predictable, yes but I am not sure we can count it as protected result. It is more like protected nothing

Post reply on HN