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YouTube Alters Copyright Algorithms, Will 'Manually' Review Some Claims

Posted by timothy on from the get-your-hands-off-my-manuals dept.

thomst writes "David Kravets of Wired's Threat Level blog reports that Google's Thabet Alfishawi has announced YouTube will alter its algorithms 'that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.' YouTube's Content ID algorithms have notably misfired in recent months, resulting in video streams as disparate as Curiosity's Mars landing and Michelle Obama's Democratic Convention speech being taken offline on specious copyright infringement grounds. Kravets states, 'Under the new rules announced Wednesday, however, if the uploader challenges the match, the alleged rights holder must abandon the claim or file an official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' (A false takedown claim under the DMCA can result in non-trivial legal liability.)" Update: 10/05 11:24 GMT by S : Google has clarified its earlier comments. The user videos will be placed in a queue for manual review not by Google, but by the content owners.

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. outbreakofcommonsense by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Interesting

    as much as Google likes to believe its algorithms are infallible, they're not.

  2. non-trivial legal liability? by NoKaOi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has a false DMCA takedown notice ever resulted in legal liability? I'm genuinely curious, we always hear about bogus takedown notices that don't result in anything bad happening to the evildoers.

  3. Re:official takedown notice? by ExecutorElassus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not entirely. ContentID works by checking uploaded tracks against a database submitted by rightsholders. If the content matches, it gives the holders power to force an automatic takedown, or derive ad revenue from it. However, if the uploader disputes the claim, there was no real recourse if the claimant denied the dispute. Further, DCMA notices have to be manually filed for each uploaded file. Since Big Media is a bunch of whiny bitches, they didn't want to do that, and would much rather google does all the legwork for them.

  4. Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    YouTube needs to charge a $1000 deposit on every takedown request, and that deposit is refunded only if the violation is confirmed. The the **AA won't want to burn money on false requests. YouTube should like the profit they make from this policy so everyone wins.

  5. about damn time by v1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    the alleged rights holder must abandon the claim or file an official takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.' (A false takedown claim under the DMCA can result in non-trivial legal liability.)

    Though if they do file a counter-counter-claim, it'd still get taken down unjustly if you didn't have the money to buy back your justice with a lawyer. At least this will reduce the abuse of the system.

    It's for reasons like this that I am occasionally happy to see processes get abused, publicly, to a degree that triggers change.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.