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LucasFilm Rescues Darth Vader Fan Film From YouTube Copyright Fight (newsweek.com)
A Star Wars fan named "Toos" told Newsweek he'd spent $150,000 of his own money on a fan film about Darth Vader -- and what happened next:
Before the camera started rolling Toos said he contacted an employee at Lucasfilm [and] claims Lucasfilm gave him permission on two conditions: he couldn't crowdfund and he couldn't monetize the fan film on YouTube. Toos agreed to those conditions and shot for three full days in September. They ran post-production up until the release of "Vader Episode 1: Shards of the Past" on December 20. Star Wars fans, a notoriously tough group to please, had overwhelming praise for the video, which gathered more than six million views in one month and 40,000 likes.
On January 14, music group and corporate collective Warner/Chappell filed a copyright claim against the video. After filing the claim, the company (publisher for the Walt Disney Music Company) began to collect ad revenue for Toos' video by claiming that one of the songs used a rendition of "The Imperial March"... If Toos attempts to appeal and Warner/Chappell refutes his claim, he could get a copyright strike on his channel and lose complete ownership of the video...
Fan response on Reddit has been massive, with the post about Star Wars Theory and the strike reaching over 90,000 upvotes... In a new video on the StarWarsTheory channel, Toos told his fans that the claim on his video had been lifted due in part to the intervention of LucasFilm."They stepped up and told Disney or the other company that this wasn't okay, that this wasn't going to stand."
Newsweek points out that Disney doesn't own Warner/Chappell. "The music group merely licenses their music" -- and has been accused of making erroneous claims before.
They're the same group that claimed they owned the music rights on a YouTube clip from Star Wars with all the original music removed.
On January 14, music group and corporate collective Warner/Chappell filed a copyright claim against the video. After filing the claim, the company (publisher for the Walt Disney Music Company) began to collect ad revenue for Toos' video by claiming that one of the songs used a rendition of "The Imperial March"... If Toos attempts to appeal and Warner/Chappell refutes his claim, he could get a copyright strike on his channel and lose complete ownership of the video...
Fan response on Reddit has been massive, with the post about Star Wars Theory and the strike reaching over 90,000 upvotes... In a new video on the StarWarsTheory channel, Toos told his fans that the claim on his video had been lifted due in part to the intervention of LucasFilm."They stepped up and told Disney or the other company that this wasn't okay, that this wasn't going to stand."
Newsweek points out that Disney doesn't own Warner/Chappell. "The music group merely licenses their music" -- and has been accused of making erroneous claims before.
They're the same group that claimed they owned the music rights on a YouTube clip from Star Wars with all the original music removed.
I made a rather long YouTube video (over an hour in length) that racked up nearly a million views. 100% of the content in it is either my own original work or from the public domain. Despite that, there are over 20 different copyright claims on the video that I cannot get removed, despite trying. I disputed them with google, and lost all those disputes. It was going to take way more time than it was worth to prepare all the "evidence" that the video was not using the works that the claimers were "citing". In most cases, I couldn't even tell what the hell "copyrighted work" they were referring to that they supposedly owned the rights to. The names of "their works" were so vague and Googling didn't turn anything up. I lost all those disputes... However I don't think I was ever given a Strike.
This is a huge problem on YouTube, and has turned me away from even trying to make it a platform to publish content with any aspirations of earning ad-revenue.
It's a sign that more viewers are not logged into YouTube, of which is required in order to Like or Dislike videos. Most likely means majority of them are mobile device using viewers. While others, like myself, are possibly those who view videos via Private/Incognito mode so it makes it more difficult for tracking who's watching.
Just something to give you some perspective as to why Like/Dislike sum is so disproportionate to view count.
This space is not for rent.