My Experience With A Youtube Copyright Strike
Image from Youtube
I have been a user of Youtube for many years. Looking at my account I can see that the first video I uploaded was in early 2009 but if I remember correctly, I had another account some time before that. I am by no means a professional youtuber (is that a thing?), I just upload random stuff that is of interest to me, my friends and family or might be of interest to others. Family videos, trips to Disney, rocket launches, Renaissance fairs, conventions like MegaCon, as well as random and assorted other things. Most are public (not most of the family videos but pretty much everything else) and my account is even monetized (though all 1300+ videos probably net me a grand total somewhere in the high double digits each year).
Like many, I have received my fair share of copyright notices. Pretty much anytime there is music in the background, Youtube detects it and monetizes it for whoever owns that song (supposedly). Even 'Happy Birthday'. So yes, if you upload a video of your kid's birthday with that song playing in the background youtube will show ads whether you want them or not and monetize them for the owner of that song. Sometimes such videos will even be blocked in some countries but I don't really know what this is based on. So much for fair use.
As annoying as these copyright notices and ad insertions are, they don't affect your account. Your videos can generally still be seen, albeit with ads, and there is no negative impact on your account standing.
Recently, however, I had experience with a different kind of copyright notice. This was a so-called 'copyright strike' or 'takedown notice' and happens when someone claims a copyright on a video you have uploaded. This happens manually as opposed to something that is autodetected by Youtube. I imagine this would typically happen if you uploaded commercial content (a TV show, movie or something of that nature) but I don't really know what the typical use case is, only what happened in my case. When you get one of these copyright strikes, the video is removed and a notice is displayed. Even the uploader can no longer access the video. In addition, if you get three such strikes in a three month period, your account is suspended. This is obviously a much more serious thing than the auto generated copyright notices.
This was the notice I received from Youtube:
"Due to a copyright takedown notice that we received, we had to take down your video from YouTube:
Video title: MegaCon 2015: The Flash Vs. Arrow Panel
Video url: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUbWN8XJLA
Takedown issued by: Emancipation Proclamation, Inc
This means that your video can no longer be played on YouTube.
You received a copyright strike
You now have 1 copyright strike. If you get multiple copyright strikes, we’ll have to disable your account. To prevent that from happening, please don’t upload videos containing copyrighted content that you aren’t allowed to use.
View details
What to do next
If you believe you're not at fault in one or more of the instances above, you can appeal this takedown by submitting a counter notification. Keep in mind that there may be severe legal consequences for submitting a counter notification with false information.
You can also contact the party that removed your video and ask them to retract their takedown."
This particular video was of a panel I filmed at MegaCon. I've done this for years, uploaded many to youtube, and never had a problem. It's pretty rare if I am the only one that uploads a given panel to Youtube. To the best of my knowledge, a Q & A panel that I film is not and cannot be copyrighted by those participating in the panel (but I am certainly not a copyright expert) so the claim seemed strange to me but it certainly sounded serious. No one wants "severe legal consequences".
At this point I was given two options. I could contact the claimant directly to attempt to get them to retract the claim or file a counter claim. Filing a counter claim sounded risky because like I said, I am no copyright expert and it just wasn't that big of a deal. If the subjects of the video didn't want it on Youtube a polite request would have been sufficient to get me to remove it but a polite request was not what I got. So I decided to e-mail them directly and send them what I though was a reasonably polite inquiry as to why they filed a copyright claim on that video. Here is the e-mail I sent:
"To whom it may concern,
I recently received a notice from Youtube that a copyright claim was made by you and/or Emancipation Proclamation, Inc. regarding the subject video. To the best of my knowledge this video (that I created) does not include copyright material and such a claim negatively impacts my account. I am writing to request additional clarification on or retraction of the copyright claimed on this video before filing a counter claim.
Thank you for your time."
The response I got was as follows:
"By purchasing a ticket to this event/ attending this panel, per Mega Con you have agreed to:
What are the rules on photography?
Photography is allowed in most areas of MegaCon. Please be respectful when taking pictures and ask your subjects if it is okay to photograph them. Some guests may request no photography at their tables and Q&A panels – signs and volunteers will be present in these areas. Please honor all requests for no photography.
http://megaconorlando.com/faq/
Thank You,"
And everything that says is perfectly true. However, no one ever requested that photos or videos not be made and there were no such signs. In fact, In the 15+ years I have been attending MegaCon, there was only once time someone requested that no video be taken and that was an actor at a Lost in Space panel. If you watch the video, you can see plenty of other people holding up phones or cameras. Had such a request been made at the time, I would have had no video in the first place. So I reply:
"No such request was made at this Q&A. I also fail to see how this equates to a copyright claim in any case. What basis do you have for a copyright claim on this video?"
20 minutes later I followed it up with:
"To be clear, I'm perfectly willing to remove the video. A polite request would have been sufficient. The problem is that instead of that, a copyright violation was claimed which results in a strike on my account. I would like this strike removed because I don't believe I violated any copyright. If you can retract the copyright claim, I will remove the video."
To which [email protected] responded:
"Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
[email protected]
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the server for the recipient domain heroesforhire.us by remote.heroesforhire.us. [24.199.56.226].
The error that the other server returned was:
554 5.1.0 Sender denied"
So the ass had blocked my e-mail. Now I was getting a little upset and I did something I would not have done had I been calmer and went ahead and filed the counter claim. After filing the counter claim, the original claimant has 10 business days to provide proof to Youtube that legal action had been taken, otherwise the video would be reinstated. So ten days of worrying whether or not I might get a Cease and Desist order, or worse some kind of subpoena or civil suit. I felt I was in the right but not being a legal or copyright expert wasn't a hundred percent comfortable with that belief.
So today was the tenth day and here was the response I got from Youtube:
"In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we've completed processing your counter notification.
The following videos have been restored unless you have deleted them:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcUbWN8XJLA
- The YouTube Team"
So it would appear that I called their bluff and won. I still have no idea why the claim was filed in the first place. I looked up "Emancipation Proclamation, Inc." and it is apparently owned by Danielle Panabaker (star of Arrow and The Flash and one of the panelists) so I can conclude that it was her or her representative who wanted the video taken down. I'm still debating whether to go ahead and take it down or wait for that polite request. I will probably take it down because, like I said, it really isn't a big deal. It's just that sending Youtube a fraudulent copyright claim instead of sending me a polite request in the first place has left a bad taste in my mouth.
Check out the video for yourself and let me know what you think. It will likely be removed soon but I wanted to take this opportunity to vent a little and see if anybody else had some different perspective to provide.
I doubt it was her. She doubtless has "people" who seek to monetize everything about her that they can. If they had a valid claim, they would have been able to present evidence. Keep your e-mails archived and carry on.
Yeah, I'm not too worried about it. The whole thing just seemed odd. It's not like they were somehow going to get money out of having this video removed and it had already been up for a year. Based on my experience this isn't typical for people (or their representatives) who do these panels.
Thank you for writing this piece. I too have had bad experiences re copyright on both youtube and daily motion. Each website has a process that works differently, but the copyright challenges are to the same end. In the case of daily motion, when I challenged a takedown I got an immediate reinstatement of my video - with no explanation.
As to the monetisation claim, my guess is that many bogus third-party claims are made, on the premise that most people will feel fear (as you have described) and so not engage in a challenge to claim(s) made against them.
This is an area where people would do well to share their experiences so the pattern(s) can be identified. Thank you (again) for making such a helpful start to that process.