YouTube muted my videos! (1 Viewer)

I was miffed to discover over the weekend that YouTube has muted most of my home video movies! I like making silly little movies with my kids and will sometimes put background music on during the opening credit sequences. I use YouTube so my relatives can watch the movies without having to email and store large video files. Harmless stuff, and I paid for the music to begin with, and never use the whole song. Well as far as YouTube is concerned, I'm just a copyright-flaunting pirate! They don't want to have to sort out the "guilty" from the "innocent" and try to determine what is "fair use", so they are just muting all videos that use pre-recorded music.

How can they tell music that is user-created from music that is pre-recorded? One piece of music was from a 20-year old low-quality classical music recording, about 30 seconds of Beethoven's Fifth. I would have thought that was public domain or something, but I'm not a lawyer. Apparently someone is threatened by me using this snippet of music.

I understand why YouTube wants to cover their butts and not get sued, and to be fair it is a free hosting service. But can't they see that all that is going to happen is...
a) people are just going to re-submit over and over.
or
b) people are going to find somewhere else to host their videos.

To me, a lot of the fun stuff on YouTube are the home-made videos that people have created. They are for the most part harmless stuff that in no way takes away any money from the creators. In most instances I see these as free advertising.

So, where does this all stop? Will I now have to worry about showing certain images and trademarks in my videos? What if someone walks by wearing a T-shirt with a Nike logo on it? What if someone drives by and their car radio is blasting a song and that gets picked up in the audio track by accident?

One other thing: the policy is inconsistent. They muted my entire "Three Little Pigs" movie, but they did not mute the teaser trailer that I made, which contains exactly the same song. Also, they did not remove or mute any portion of my "Birdnapped" movie, which borrows heavily from other scenes of existing movies! I figured that one was practically begging to get cut, but it didn't. It's just crazy.

Ha. Just read an article about that on today's NYT. Or was it yesterday's. (online).

Sorry.

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H

A large company is erring on the side of caution regarding copyright infringement. Big deal. I don't get all the complaining about this.

If you want to make videos with pre-recorded music, feel free. If you want to upload them to your personal web space, no one is stopping you.

But Youtube is a private company who's decided that they don't want such videos on their site (and understandably so). I don't see anything wrong with that.

And yet, my videos--which are definite copyright violations--are still up with sound. You'd think they'd go after that kind of thing faster, "that kind of thing" being a full song attached to a homemade video. Maybe they're working their way down the list. I can see the reason for doing it, but it will ultimately damage YouTube the way Napster was damaged.

I use Creative Commons music from the Web site Incompetech . Not only does it saves me a lot of hassles, the music itself is fantastic.

Stay away from "labels" music. It's nothing more than a commodity with too many strings attached.

They are probably not really going through the videos on their system account by account. They are probably organized in the background in a much different manner and they just have not come across those videos yet. For example, they could be going through the system in the order in which they were uploaded...which may be over many months for some users. or there could be another hexidecimal ID number system they are following that only makes sense to them and their system database.

Just trying to put some things in perspective...but I hear you. At the end of the day...YouTube is just drawing a hard line on the safe side for them legally.

Nicely and succinctly put. This distinction continues to elude many people. It's why I keep encountering people on HTF who insist that copyright law gives them all sorts of rights with their DVDs that it doesn't. Not one such person has been able to cite me a solid legal precedent. (The next time someone tries to fall back on the Betamax decision, they should try reading it first. )

It's actually the label of the recording drawing the line, because the software YouTube provides to flag copyrighted material is an all-or-nothing proposition. From the New York Times article Holadem mentioned (As Rights Clash on YouTube, Some Music Vanishes):“Thousands of videos disappeared,” said Fred von Lohmann, staff lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an Internet civil liberties group that asked affected YouTube users to contact it. “Either they turned off the audio, or they pulled the video.”

A spokesman for Warner Music said that YouTube’s system for identifying copyrighted material does not distinguish between professionally made music videos and amateur material that may include copyrighted works.

“We and our artists share the user community’s frustration when content is unavailable. YouTube generates revenues from content posted by fans, which typically requires licenses from rights holders. Under the current process, we make YouTube aware of WMG content. Their content ID tool then takes down all unlicensed tracks, regardless of how they are used,” said Will Tanous, a spokesman for Warner Music.The best solution would be for YouTube to work out a profit-sharing agreement with the labels for incidental uses like Bob's homemade videos and fan covers. Unfortunately, that's not really possible until Google finds a way to monetize YouTube so that there are profits to share.

Thanks for all the responses on this! We have such a diverse and intelligent group here; you have all given me a lot of perspectives to chew on besides my own.

Last night we were surfing YouTube on the TV for videos appropriate for the kids, and I was now highly aware of how virtually every video broke copyright law. There were kids dancing to a pre-recorded version of "The Hokey Pokey", images of Donald Duck taken from a coloring book, etc. So I guess some of my outrage stems from "why are they pickin' on me?" But I guess they'll eventually get everyone.

Not private- publicly traded. GOOG

This must be a new attitude from them, since they used to look the other way while just about any content was posted there.

That's a bunch of BS man! And I think you can use Beethoven's music as much as you want....even if you are playing the whole bloody song and singing over it and selling it for money. Or at least I've been told so.

OK there chief.

As it happens, Mr. Ralston has already explained the situation with Beethoven's music very clearly in his initial post above. I recommend a careful reading.

Brian and Michael: Thanks for the early dose of sanity and clarity.

Francois, so basically I can use the royalty-free music from the Incompetech site as long as I credit the creator, and/or include the license information they explain on the site? This is a great site!

Hi I would like to point out there is such a thing as computer music, Not sure if anyone here has heard of it. Basically it is music, people have made with thier computer, not like Midi music.

but if you wanna have some music on your Vids this music is Freely Available and you can DL for Free. It is NOT copying other music like Betovens 5th played on a Guitar Recorded on the computer..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epyjr...eature=related

Synthesizers are nothing new, and music composed on a computer is no different, for copyright purposes, than music composed in any other way. The YouTube clip to which you've linked does not deal with copyright issues.

I don't understand what point you're trying to make.

The Point I am trying to make is the if the OP wanted music on his/her Website they could use this freely available music or just compose there own music

This Music is made soly on the computer and by individuals NOT Produced and made by record companies. Say I made some little doo-Dad on the PC and put it on the Internet it would be freely Available.

It would be freely available only if you, the rightsholder, declared it to be freely available.

You seem to be placing great significance on the facts that the music was made on a computer and by individuals. Neither of these facts has any impact on whether or not the work is copyrighted, at least not under U.S. law. (And given the subject of this thread, I think it's safe to assume that U.S. law will control.)

Let me repeat that: It makes no difference whether the music was composed on a computer. It makes no difference whether the music was composed by an individual. (Can you name a single piece of music that was written by a "company"?) Copyright attaches to any work as soon as it is embodied in tangible form. That is basic copyright law.

OK If the OP made the music himself would that be OK to put up on Youtube????

I am NOT trying to start a fight or Debate you about this just trying to get the OP to be able to put some sort of music on his/her Website??

There has to be a way?? I know if he composed it himself he wouuld be able too??