YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#81

Post by KHRZ » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 12:52 PM UTC

trogdor wrote: post #51

arghwhat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you mean youtube tried to obey the law? To be clear, YouTube's goal is not to obey the law, but to minimize their loss. This is why they entirely disregard key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke. Their implementation harms creators and redirects their earnings to companies that were never legally, contractually or morally entitled to it. > the right way to change the law is…

>[YouTube] entirely disregard[s] key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke. I make my living from YouTube, and I am very familiar with their policies surrounding copyright. I think your characterization of YouTube in relation to copyright is totally off base. YouTube is covered by the DMCA, and YouTube responds to DMCA takedowns because if they don’t, they could be liable for con…

YouTube themselves built Content ID for companies to allow registering their "works" to aid them in automatically detecting copyright infringements. If YouTube's content ID entries doesn't include their creation date, which is one of the most basic pieces of metadata you could attach to a work, which not only is required information to determine when the copyright is valid, but would also make automatic copyright expiration trivial to implement and avoid sending false infringement notices to copyright holders, then it's fair to call YouTube Content ID a joke.

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#82

Post by trogdor » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

This article is misleading, since it omits very important information. See the screenshot provided by the YouTuber regarding the Content ID claim? Look at the far right of the screenshot. There’s a “Select Action” link.

I make my living from YouTube, and I am going to explain what’s behind that link.

When a creator receives a Content ID claim, that’s the beginning of a process, not the end. Content ID claims can be disputed, and during the dispute, all revenue from the video is held in escrow, eventually going to whomever prevails in the dispute.

The first level of the dispute process is essentially the uploader asking the claimant to reconsider, with the option to provide a brief explanation of why the uploader believes the claim is invalid. There’s even a radio button to select if you believe the material is in the public domain.

If the initial dispute is rejected, that’s not the end of the story. The uploader can press the dispute further. Doing so forces the claimant to either abandon their claim, or ‘upgrade’ it to a formal DMCA takedown.

If a takedown is issued and the uploader believes their work is not infringing, they can respond with a counter-notification, which forces the claimant to either (a) sue the uploader within ten days, or (b) lose the dispute. In the latter case, the video goes back up and any escrow revenue - along with all future revenue - goes to the uploader instead of the copyright claimant.

Behind the “Select Action” link is the option to initiate the dispute process I just described. Which the uploader almost-certainly already did.

Also behind that link, IIRC, is the option to contact the claimant via email. That can be an equally-effective path toward resolution, as it provides the opportunity for a more casual, professional dialog, outside of YouTube’s formal process. In fact, on one occasion I developed a positive and ongoing business relationship with another media outlet after being contacted by them regarding a claim that I had made in error.

When Content ID first rolled out in 2007, it could be easily abused. And it was. But that was almost 17 years ago, and the way it works today is - dare I say - pretty good. Like any enormous system it has its problems, but on the whole it’s pretty fair.

Edit:

There is one other option behind the “Select Action” link. It’s irrelevant in this case, but I might as well include it here for completeness.

If the claim involves only a portion of the video, or the audio in the video, the uploader is given options to (1) excise the claimed section of their video, (2) silence the audio in the claimed section, or (3) replace the claimed audio with music from YouTube’s (huge) library of free music.

If the uploader chooses any one of those options, it immediately resolves the claim in their favor, since the claimed material is no longer present in their upload.

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#83

Post by taway789aaa6 » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 12:53 PM UTC

anon84873628 wrote: post #65

kitsune_ wrote: post #35

From a moral philosophy perspective, corporations like Google display a concerning ethical imbalance when they fail to proactively uphold the common good in scenarios where there's no direct financial benefit. A question to HN, since there are a ton of Googlers on here, what are the justifications of those who work within such organizations, particularly when there are other companies that seem to manage a better bal…

Are other companies really any better? Where can you work that is definitively "morally pure" and have such reliable income and comfortable lifestyle? (Or even in the same ballpark?) It's pretty much the same question as asking why everyone doesn't go work for non profits or NGOs. Or move away from the US and stop supporting bad US government behavior with our taxes...

> Or move away from the US and stop supporting bad US government behavior with our taxes...

Why would you need to move away? There's a grand tradition in some communities (Quakers, for example) of paying taxes _except_ for the portion (based on national budget) that would be going to support the military. Sure there may be "consequences", but would they not be worth it?

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#84

Post by tsimionescu » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 12:56 PM UTC

didntcheck wrote: post #52

michaelt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you consider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality the answer seems to be "it depends" For example, in the US there have been cases where high quality reproductions of old public domain paintings did not meet the threshold of originality to qualify for copyright. Remastered audio recordings with adjustments such as equalisation and sound editing were ruled to be eligible for copyright in 2016, the…

There was actually a dispute between Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons and the British National Gallery over this - the UK working similar to Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_and_...

Actually the UK works like the USA, there was a recent court case on this that made it very clear. Photographs of public domain works, of any quality, are public domain as well unless they contain some original expression of their own (say, if you're taking a selfie in front of a famous picture, you probably have copyright over it - but not if a museum takes a high-res, excellent lighting photo to reproduce the painting itself).

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#85

Post by jsjohnst » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

trogdor wrote: post #51

arghwhat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you mean youtube tried to obey the law? To be clear, YouTube's goal is not to obey the law, but to minimize their loss. This is why they entirely disregard key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke. Their implementation harms creators and redirects their earnings to companies that were never legally, contractually or morally entitled to it. > the right way to change the law is…

>[YouTube] entirely disregard[s] key aspects and intents of the law, leaving fair use and fair process as a joke. I make my living from YouTube, and I am very familiar with their policies surrounding copyright. I think your characterization of YouTube in relation to copyright is totally off base. YouTube is covered by the DMCA, and YouTube responds to DMCA takedowns because if they don’t, they could be liable for con…

You do realize “copyright law” and “DMCA” are distinct concepts, right? Related for sure, but also very distinct.

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#86

Post by tsimionescu » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #61

bni wrote: post #10

If someone scans a recent DVD release of SW, is it still public domain? Or must you have access to an original film reel from the early 1900 and scan that? Do anyone have besides in some Disney archive? Has issues like that ever been clarified?

I'm guessing that Brock Baker didn't digitise a 1928 reel of film himself. If the digitisation was done recently and a lot of work went into cleaning up the images (restoring old movies is time consuming and costly - including artists touching up/recreating/fixing frames) couldn't Disney (or who ever has done it) claim that the new restored digitised version is now copyright?

It seems to depend on the exact jurisdiction, but in the US and UK, it seems that this type of work is not protected, as it doesn't constitute human expression, it is only a matter of skill and technique.

Now of course anyone can claim anything in court, and you have to decide whether you think you can beat Disney's lawyers if you decide to do so...

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#87

Post by safety1st » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:02 PM UTC

rezonant wrote: post #29

safety1st wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Oops, just a bug" only goes so far. What's interesting about content ID is that only a select group of large copyright holders have access to protecting their works through it, and we have a growing number of cases where it makes "decisions" that are not in line with copyright law. So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law? Inquiring minds…

> So is it a copyright enforcement system or is it really some kind of cartel mechanism which is replacing copyright law? Yes. In this case this is certainly because this footage is in Disney's YouTube CMS and set to be auto-claimed. The fact that we are at the whim of an admin doing the right thing and removing that content from their CMS or at the very least changing the policy attached to it is problematic at best…

Intent is significant, it can determine outcomes in court rulings. So here we have this content ID system which Google claims exists to help some Google partners manage their copyright claims. One would think that would mean it helps them determine which claims are valid and which aren't. But it didn't appear to help Disney with that in this case, rather it enabled Disney to swiftly make an invalid claim after the film entered the public domain.

So Google's tool in this case didn't help their partner manage valid copyright claims. Its just helped Disney suppress some other publisher.

We've known for many years that Steamboat Willie would become public domain in 2024. If you were really trying to help your partners manage copyright claims wouldn't you build some notion of this into the system?

Whereas if you were trying to kowtow to larger publishers in exchange for favors - maybe you would leave details like public domain out of your implementation.

So what was Google's intent here? Of course they will have arguments like "it was a bug" or "that would be too hard," but finding out if those things are true is what you do discovery for.

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#88

Post by willcipriano » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:03 PM UTC

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #68

troupo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That has been Disney's motto since forever. The "golden age if Disney" is all public domain works and fairy tales.

Public domain for thee, but not for me.

Hey come on they have original ideas, talking African animals, talking cars, talking fish, talking toys. Without intellectual property protection they wouldn't of made all these super original ideas.

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#89

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:08 PM UTC

kitsune_ wrote: post #35

From a moral philosophy perspective, corporations like Google display a concerning ethical imbalance when they fail to proactively uphold the common good in scenarios where there's no direct financial benefit. A question to HN, since there are a ton of Googlers on here, what are the justifications of those who work within such organizations, particularly when there are other companies that seem to manage a better bal…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube demonetizes public domain 'Steamboat Willie' video after copyright claim

#90

Post by ta1243 » Fri, Jan 05, 2024, 1:08 PM UTC

daveoc64 wrote: post #56

Snow_Falls wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that the actors aren't taken into account, you would think so considering the large impact they have on the final product. Certainly more so than the music director. Maybe that last one is just a result of the powerful music lobby.

I think it would be difficult to truly list all of the actors in a particular film, let alone establish when they all died. Do extras count? Many of them aren't going to be listed in the credits. Perhaps you could only count those actors listed in the credits at the end of the film and nobody else?

> I think it would be difficult to truly list all of the actors in a particular film, let alone establish when they all died.

> Do extras count? Many of them aren't going to be listed in the credits.

The person who is the most successful actor -- if you take the box office of all their appearances and sum them -- is Stan Lee. All those MCU appearances adds up. You probably wouldn't be too surprised about that if you thought about it.

At position number 3 though is Frank Welker -- the guy who voices Fred in much of the original Scooby-Doo cartoons. More recently he's Nibbler in Futurama. The top 5 have 2 other voice actors, including Bob Bergan -- who played Merv in Monsters University, and unforgettably Ant Worker #2 in Antz

When you are credited as "Additional Voices", does it really apply?

Incidently, Stan Lee may be top of the charts in total, but Warwick Davis is a bigger hit on average -- bringing $633m per film he's in compared to Lee's $612m.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_actor...