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YouTube’s Copyright Filter is Crushing Video Critique

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 24 2020, @05:03AM   
from the chilling-effect dept.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Runaway1956:

YouTube's Copyright Filter Is Crushing Video Critique:

In July, Harry "hbomberguy" Brewis shared a video on his popular YouTube channel called "RWBY Is Disappointing, And Here's Why." The two-and-half-hour video — a sharp, detailed critique of the cartoon RWBY — was the result of a lot of work by Brewis and his producer, Kat Lo. It also took an extra week and a half of editing and $1,000 in legal fees just to get and keep the video up on YouTube. All because of YouTube's copyright filter. And thanks to a new proposed law by Sen. Thom Tillis, Brewis' experience could become virtually everyone's.

YouTube's copyright filter is a labyrinthine nightmare called Content ID. Content ID works by scanning all the videos on YouTube and comparing them to a database of material submitted by copyright holders—often music labels and movie and TV studios—which have been given the ability to add things to the database by YouTube. Once Content ID matches a few seconds of an uploaded video to something in the database — regardless of context — a number of automatic penalties can be imposed. According to Google, most of the time the rights-holder chooses to just take the money generated by ads placed by Google on the video. If the original creator didn't want any ads put on their video, too bad. But in other cases, the rights-holder can make something much worse happen: They can make sure no one sees the video at all.

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Original Submission

• Re:40 year incumbents, whaddya expect? Re:40 year incumbents, whaddya expect? (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @02:40AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @02:40AM (#1091166)

  Thanks to the Covid lockdowns it's more difficult for people to physically go out and protest like they used to so that we can spread pictures of all the protesters (you will never see large crowds of protesters in favor of these laws). I think politicians realize this and they are using this as an opportunity to pass laws that no one wants.

  Parent

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• Re:40 year incumbents, whaddya expect? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @02:38PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 25 2020, @02:38PM (#1091231)

  And a good analogy would be what happened with the Hong Kong Kong protests when Covid hit. Protests stopped and China used the opportunity to get what they want.

  This is a good opportunity for governments to pass laws that no one wants.

  Parent