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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."
When will this copyright madness end?
Use birdsong as a soundtrack for a slideshow of self-shots taken by a monkey.
I'm not a lawyer, but....
While that might work, it's best to put a step
3a. Send a cease and desist notice to Rumblefish.
They'll ignore it and the courts will like you for doing it. It's only the cost of a certified letter, and you can add that to your lawsuit.
Also, if you want to be really annoying, claim copyright on the birdsong video and sue them for infringement, but that costs more and is out of the scope of small claims.
You're legally in the right but is it really worth your time to fight it? Just delete the video from YouTube, edit the audio on your original video with some voice annotations or something to change it up a bit and re-post.
Or, just audio-swap your video to Dreamscape by 009 sound system, like everyone else on YouTube who gets the copyrighted audio notice. Warning: May infuriate your viewers.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
What's not explicitly mentioned is whether the bird sounds were recorded at the same time as the video, or whether they were dubbed in after the fact.
If the latter, it's entirely possible that he's using a recording that was made, and consequently copyrighted by someone else.
Movie and TV producers have been dubbing in bird sounds for decades, including one infamous time when CBS backed a golf match with the sounds of birds that have never lived anywhere near the game's location.
Anyhow, the point is that while you can't (yet!) copyright a bird song, you can copyright a specific recording of a sound.
(none of this should be taken to mean that Google does not have it's head up its ass.)
Three Squirrels
I've had the same with public domain Christmas carols I.e. Silent Night from some wacky company. It seems like a new business model, first patent trolling...but lawyers get expensive, falsely report copyright infringements on YouTube automatic money, and almost no risk.
Actually, music itself would likely benefit greatly, just not the labels. As piracy has already demonstrated, free access to studio recordings has made the consumer perception of the value of live concerts greater. That is why ticket prices keep outpacing inflation.
Anecdotally, I've personally noted a pretty good number of once free venues switching to cover charges for better known (locally) acts which are remain unsigned by major labels. At least on my personal scale, this demonstrates positive force towards greater valuation of live music.
Lower prices and increased distribution of copyright material increases the overall quality of published works. A great example is the textbook versus subject oriented paperback categories. Textbooks exist in an overpriced, price fixed copyright vacuum. Their quality continues to remain virtually unchanged for 30+ years, making occasional incremental improvements and frequent vast drops in quality. On the other hand, books written for the layman about various sciences and arts continue to improve, drop in inflation adjusted price, and increase in availability. The very pressure of reduced prices and increased availability forces authors to review their peer / competition work and produce something better.
Seems to me that if they're claiming copyright on your video, and claim to have reviewed it, and they're receiving *your* ad revenue, then they're guilty of fraud.
But I'm not a lawyer. Anyone want to pretend they are one and weigh in?
Best reply so far.
In legal cases, it never hurts having more ammo. If only to threathen them back if they try to play hardball with you.
Also, check in with the EFF and ACLU. They may want to support you and get a precedent set. They love clear cases like this one.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Don't sue youtube. That would be under the ToS. Sue the party that claims to have reviewed the audio and decided you are infringing their copyright. That sounds like a lie that damages your reputation. In other words libel (or slander, I forget which is the written form).
I'm not a lawyer, I don't even play one on TV, but this seems like the kind of thing you could take to small claims court for say $1000 or so and win.
Of corse you would be better off with a lawyer, but I don't see how you could sue for enough to actually pay the lawyer. If you have access to a free half hour consult or something you could ask a real lawyer, they might have a different opinion.
Oh not at all, you see, unless you're a big corporation with a lot of lawyers, you can't own any content. So they look "oh it's the little guy again" and "yeah this content would be nice to own" and with that, it's theirs.
Sums it up very nicely..Soon they will even own the air we breathe.
Well, whether sporting the bold face of a bearded man, or the bald face of a shaver, I'm sure we can all agree that the people you can't trust are the ones with faces.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Next letter:
Please identify exactly what work I am infringing, as my attorney is having difficulty finding similarity between my soundtrack and any performance by artists represented by your organization.
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"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Mr. Bakke, please explain how submitting the note "All content owners have reviewed your video and confirmed their claims to some or all of its content" is possibly acceptable when no one's reviewed it? This makes your company look awfully bad.
Alternatively, if someone did review it and sign off on that reply, then I hope this will reflect properly on that individual and their career at Rumblefish, as I'm pretty sure that this at least makes your company rather vulnerable from a publicity point of view, if not a legal one. If you're outsourcing this... then really, I hope your company can learn its lesson QUICKLY.
I did some negotiation with Rumblefish and Paul about 5 years ago when I ran a digital music company and I have to say that in the sea of bloodsucking fucktards that exist in music licensing Paul and Rumblefish were a breath of fresh air. They were the only company I dealt with that actually gave a flying fuck about their artists and were always very supportive of up-and-coming bands. Hell, their entire business model is around putting unknown artists on soundtracks, or in commercials, and henceforth are actually supporting the artists in a way that previously only the major labels would do.
All of that being said, it is obvious Rumblefish fucked up this time. Who knows exactly why, but they did. I think it is important that before crucifying them you understand that the service they provide is extremely valuable to artists not on a major label.... so at least give them that.
And before the venomous masses can call me a shill or whatever: we actually never did business together, nor did I remain contact with Paul, and so I have no reason to defend them other than what I stated above. People and companies fuck up some times. I have a feeling Rumblefish will learn from this mistake.
And look at Righthaven today.
"As of November 2011, the company's assets are subject to confiscation by the US Marshals Service due to expired debts from legal fees to a successful defendant.[6] In January 2012, its domain name, righthaven.com, was sold at auction to an undisclosed purchaser to help satisfy its debts.[7]" h/t Wikipedia
It gets better.
Ack! I wish this hadn't been marked as "Insightful," although I understand why ... there have been a lot of shitty plays in the copyright world, and there are some big organizations that are clearly threatened by the Internet and Internet culture. Righthaven and others have (rightfully) made a lot of people very skeptical.
But ... that's not what we do. :) Rumblefish works specifically for independent artists, not labels or rights organizations. The company has been around for over a decade, helping get independent music placed in films, advertisements, etc. It's still a very small company -- the founder and owner (also a musician) has posted here on the thread, and I'm around to answer technical questions about how the pieces fit together (IANAL, but I am the Lead Architect -- look me up on the Rumblefish website).
It sucks when things don't go right, especially when it's such a hot button issue, and we're really interested in doing the right thing -- both for independent musicians and video creators. We're working on resolving the issue with eeplox's video. We're here in the thread to answer questions.
Believe me ... everyone wins when good music is inexpensive and readily available on YouTube.
Don't lie is a good start. Not you, Peat, but whoever claimed that the content owners reviewed it and certified it belongs to them. That sure SOUNDS dishonest, here. Reminiscent of the whole mortgage robosigning business, to be honest.
I don't have any issue at all with content owners protecting their rights. The problem is that content owners are often quite indifferent to trampling the rights of others. It's good that you're sorting this out, but really, if I get tagged inadvertently in the same way, do I have to get my story on slashdot to get it fixed? One would hope I'd just file a dispute and a real, live person would look at and see it doesn't belong to you guys. And by the way, that should be the default. Unless you're SURE, you let it go. We have stuff that sounds like birdsong isn't good enough.
I, too, am a geek. But I don't speak for my company. And you might want to think twice before you speak for yours. While you are trying to do the right thing, I assure you, somewhere in your company the legal department is figuring out an appropriate response. The CEO is likewise either shitting his pants, or seeing dollar signs. Either way, its his call, not yours.
Personal feedback might be nice for you, but either the CEO falls on his sword or the lawyers win.
Also, your company swore that it listened to and confirmed a violation of the audio. I assume you take personal responsibility for that? That you had a hand in creating that system, know its failings, and would swear that it is imperfect?
Or maybe you just want to improve your software. It's a nice gesture, but quite out of place. A personal reply might have been better. Going public was probably not the best way to get better.
Sometimes I think these things are completely random. I uploaded a video of what basically amounts to Audacity-generated noise and static and I got this notice:
Your video may include content that is owned or administered by this entity:
Entity: Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society Content Type: Musical Composition
I just had a public debate on this very topic with Anjali Malhotra, YouTube's manager for Music Content, and didn't make much headway. (see the last 5 minutes or so on http://isoc-ny.org/p2/?p=2927 ) My main gripe was that, under YouTube's current system for such disputes, since the supposedly infringed content is never identified, there is no way to make an informed counterclaim.
Heya,
We'll sort out exactly what happened in the next couple of days -- I really wish I could have a clear cut answer for you right now.
I completely agree on your point that it's a serious problem. I joined the company last year because they're out to fix an industry that's fundamentally broken and frequently abusive; that's why I'm spending my Sunday night trying to sort this out.
Anyhow -- I know this doesn't directly address your concerns. Sorry about that. When there's more to share, we'll figure out the right place to put it.
Thanks,
-Peat
Well I contacted Rumblefish about this, and this was their reply.
On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 6:50 PM, xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
How do you go about copyrighting sounds from nature?
Do you have to pay royalty's to the original artist (the bird, or a babbling brook for instance)?
If so how do you know you have the right one (in the case of the bird) or molecules (in the case of water)?
If you are not paying the artist aren't you stealing from them?
Hi Richard,
You have a completely legitimate question here. How would we pay this bird...seeds perhaps?
This was an obvious mistake by the YouTube content ID system. When we became aware of the problem, we acted quickly to release the claim. We have contacted the video creator to explain and to apologize for the mistaken attribution made by the YouTube content ID system. The whole situation is a little embarrassing and we certainly did not mean for it to happen. We just want to fix it, so we thank you for helping bring the problem to our attention.
We are serious about paying artists (have been for 15 years), and about letting bird songs remain in the public domain. There are enough people robbing the natural environment; we want the birds to feel free to sing without copyright claims filling up their nests.
Sincerely,
-Ben
ben@rumblefish.com
Your company lied on the review, and tried to claim birdsong as your own whilst defaming eeplox by accusing him/her of being a pirate. I hope you feel ashamed of the place you work for, and the way in which it just tried to misappropriate revenue from work you had no part in. I only wish there were criminal sanctions for the person at your company who made the false counterclaim refutation; it isn't at all reasonable to have believed it was copyrighted/represented by yourselves.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
No. This is NOT a complex issue. You claimed ownership of something that was not yours. Sure, the first time was an automated script. However, the SECOND time was apparently by the "copyright owners" and they verified ownership. This was a lie.
So, it boils down to this. Your company which supposedly represents artists is engaged in piracy. You are stealing IP from others by claiming ownership even when it is obvious to any sane human that it is not yours.
It is not complex. It is very simple. It is pre-school simple. You are thieves hiding behind a corporate mask.
Here are my experiences with YouTube and content owners attempts to defraud me of my own original content. I posted this a week ago:
The US recording industry is stealing from ME!
This seems to be a big (and getting much bigger) problem with YouTube as it tries to suck-up to the big content owners in a way that is starting to seriously impact other original content creators.
In this case, Rumblefish thinks that it's God, so it claims the bird chirping as their property
I think a more reasonable explanation is that their algorithm mistakenly flagged the audio track as a match, then when the poster challenged this their system automatically sent a "please listen and compare" message to the copyright holder of whichever work it is. The copyright holder has not done their due diligence (at all, it seems) and has simply clicked the "yes it is ours" button.