October | 2013 | MultimediaJay - A Geek's Perspective

Greetings Earthlings!!! … I mean readers. 😀 Yay bad jokes already. 😛

I’m writing this as a reward for any YouTubers who actually took me seriously when I hinted on my channel that I was becoming more of a blogger or something-other-than-YouTuber rather than a YouTuber these days. I’ll eventually make some vlogs talking about this, but those of you who actually took a look over here are going to hear this far before the YouTube crowd does because things are just utterly nutzo for me right now so it’ll be awhile before I get to announce this on the channel proper. For the WordPressers who didn’t come over here from YouTube, I apologize for the YouTube Inside Baseball here, but this issue might still be worth paying attention to if you encounter this problem on other sites.

The Big News

I’ve been very seriously thinking about winding down my involvement on YouTube and turning my YouTube channel into a satellite channel for a new main video channel on another site. So far I’m thinking Dailymotion – YouTube’s main competitor. Dailymotion used to be a silly knockoff of YouTube a few years ago but they’ve been getting a lot more serious lately and have become their top competitor in terms of views and availability. I say availability because Youku is the real second-biggest site in terms of audience, but it’s only available in Chinese because it’s the PRC’s YouTube replacement, since YouTube is banned in China of course. 😛

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_hosting_services

Why am I considering these changes? First – Dailymotion now has loosened their upload restrictions such that a regular account will be more than adequate for me in terms of upload length and size limits (and I can still become a Motionmaker to remove those restrictions of course). Secondly, I think with the current climate on YouTube that the internet video monolith is eventually going to start to slide out of its #1 spot if it hasn’t started to slide already. As we’ve seen with the increased changes to profiles and other site features on a more and more regular basis lately, YouTube is suddenly starting to try more and more things but YouTubers cry out about how views are dropping on their uploads, and then YouTube barked up the wrong tree by saying it was all about the subscribers when they launched YouTube One. The way it works nowadays is that if you’re on YouTube, if your channel isn’t being explicitly promoted, it will be explicitly buried. This has made more than a few people upset of course since it has pretty much become impossible for regular YouTubers to build up any significant channel size the way the “YouTube Celebrity” video bloggers of yore once did, and even some of them are “small time” these days despite their former dominance. 😛

That’s not the only problem though. I think Google’s attempts to force Google+ down YouTubers’ throats and their current situation with Content ID and Copyright Trolls signal the end of an era for YouTubers like myself and a very compelling reason to seek greener pastures in the online video world.

First, A Quick Note About Google+

I do not like Google’s attempts to either force people into using Google+ via YouTube channel linking or use their real names to make YouTube look like Google+. The real names thing obviously is an issue with Internet stuff and the ongoing problem of identity theft. Google+ integration is also a system that’s being pushed out first and polished later like many YouTube systems, and like those systems, while it’s being polished it is very prone to abuse. I’ve already heard about trolls attacking Google+ pages of YouTubers’ channels on Google+ to get the page shut down on Google+ and taking the YouTube Channel with it since the two were linked up. Hopefully Google can get that worked out. Unfortunately though, any Google+ integration shenanigans are a distant second to the real problem that’s going to intimidate people away from this site.

Content ID Trolls – YouTube’s Real Problem… And Threat

I’ve been on YouTube since 2006 with no problems or disciplinary action ever taken against my account. Why? Because as an AV guy who understands things like asset permissions I have respected the rights of others and done what that disclaimer says every time you upload a video and made sure I had permission to do so, either explicitly or as a matter of Fair Use. However, in the past year even that has not been enough to prevent me from running into issues with Content ID matches – sometimes for rather ridiculous reasons. Granted, I have never received a copyright strike nor has my account ever fallen out of good standing because of these sorts of matters, but in the interest of keeping things that way, I will most likely end up treating Content ID matches as problems even if the rightsholders explicitly in writing declare that they have no interest whatsoever in ever doing anything but monetizing my videos.

My Recent History With This Mess

My first issue was with Nintendo when I did a mashup video comparing Skyrim to The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time because Skyrim literally did remind me of OoT in some ways. I eventually took down the video thinking I was going to get in trouble with Nintendo, and as someone who grew up in the Nintendo generation as a kid I didn’t want that to happen. Later on I found out about Nintendo’s monetization push on YouTube to monetize any videos featuring their products, which is very much a massive social media gaffe on their part because of issues like what I’m talking about here.

Since then, I’ve had run-ins with BFM Digital and The Orchard, two rights management companies who are hired by musicians and record companies who don’t want to get people banned from sites en masse to handle monetizing on sites like YouTube as much as possible. In the case of BFM Digital, one of the royalty-free stock tracks I used in a World Of Warcraft video in 2008 was matched against a track from a Halloween music CD that came out this month in October of 2013. After some confrontation on this erroneous claim that 5 years ago I allegedly ripped a track from a digital Halloween album that just came out in 2013, the CEO amicably had the claim released… at least for now. I say for now because I’ve heard stories about people winning disputes like this but having YouTube’s automated system re-flag them later once the dust had settled. In the case of The Orchard, a sound effect I used of a trumpet playing the tune Taps was apparently too similar to a sound effects recording whose rights are administered by IODA, now part of The Orchard.

Both of these instances – despite incurring no disciplinary action on my YouTube account as the rightsholders have merely monetized rather than penalized in these cases – nonetheless still represent disturbing precedents on YouTube that will scare some people away from this site.

The Problem Nowadays

I’ve been seeing three main sources of these kinds of problems these days. Content ID shenanigans on YouTube are very often tied to:

Stock Music Double-Dipping – A stock music track’s rightsholders decide to monetize the use of the track on YouTube despite charging a high price to purchase the track with a royalty-free license (I’ve seen those tracks for up to $50/song – quite a ways above iTunes of course). Often the legal justification from the lawyers involved is that the royalty-free licenses don’t take YouTube into account and are only about not paying royalties when the end user uses the track rather than any explicit ban on monetization from the rightsholder after being uploaded.
Classical Music Tracks – From what I’ve read usually recordings of classical music are erroneously claimed via Content ID because specific recordings can still fall under copyright protection even if the piece is public domain, which creates a loophole/problem where a “troll company” registers a classical work and if any other version of the piece sounds too similar, it’s matched up. This is a unique issue with classical music because a good orchestra will be out to recreate what the composer originally put on the sheet music, so how many different renditions of a classical piece can one really have soundwise without there being false positives?
Sound Effects – Same issue as classical music, but easier to get snagged by because sound effect recordings are much shorter and could be spread around the Internet on WAV sites, etc. There have been particularly high-profile incidents involving sound effects where YouTubers were Content ID trolled because of originally recorded wind or bird sounds.

Obviously, all three of these represent absolute nonsense for the YouTubers involved – especially the stock track double-dipping where YouTubers like myself sometimes have paid up to $50 a song to allegedly not have copyright problems on YouTube – only to end up in no better shape than the people who just ripped from their CDs to begin with (as was my case with BFM Digital). So why is this a problem and why will it eventually intimidate people off the site?

The Right Of Death: Shoot First – Ask Questions Later

The ultimate problem with YouTube’s latest revisions to their copyright systems is that the monetization-only options are part of the same system that originally brought us DMCA takedown abuse and the two aren’t separated, so even if you have a rightsholder saying that all they want to do is make money off of your video, the option’s still there for them to change their mind and get your account shut down if there are enough incidents. Plus, what if the rightsholder messes up or gets spoofed, as might have happened to Sega last year with the alleged takedown spree by Sega Of Japan over anything related to the Shining series. With incidents like this going on, and the monetization and penalization systems being linked, there is essentially no difference between a Content ID match and copyright strike in terms of potential for trouble on YouTube, so why take the risk?

Something else worth noting when it comes to the “right of death” here. If YouTube is investing in all of this automated stuff like Content ID, why can’t new uploads be scanned for potential issues before the videos go live? Why does everything always have to be potentially takedowns and strikes for the end user? What if an upload were scanned and any potential issues sent to the uploader before the video went live with the uploader needing to click an acknowledge button to assume responsibility for any potential copyright issues in their video? I’ve heard of some of YouTube’s competitors playing around with this type of system. Perhaps for once it’ll be YouTube that falls behind on something rather than a competitor when it comes to new features on an online video site.

…For The Love Of Money…

Let’s assume though that this only is some kind of money thing and that these companies don’t blow off any challenges to any erroneous Content ID claims to drag out the resolution process as long as they can. Is there any reason for these companies to ever stop doing this stuff? Not that I can see. They’ll always be able to squeeze a little bit of revenue out of whatever window YouTube’s accuser-as-judge-jury-and-executioner model allows them to. The only hope for the end user would be if this intimidation factor eventually chilled the amount of content being produced and then eventually chilled the amount of traffic on YouTube. These organizations involved here might rethink things if their wallet takes a hit, as could be the case with these copyright trolls if they scare people off the site and their own revenue drops as a result of YouTube’s then-reduced traffic. Until that happens though – if it happens – I see no reason why this nonsense will ever slow down or stop for those of us who’ve been watching it take place on this site.

The Road Forward From Here

As for me, what I’m probably going to do is start quietly removing Content ID matched YouTube content and then eventually announce everything on the channel before really ramping up the transition. I’ll quietly do a kickoff video on DailyMotion too while I’m at it. If this goes the way I’m looking for it to go, eventually I will have only a few made-for-YouTube series going on the channel, and if DailyMotion’s really as good as it looks, I’ll move the better of my current YouTube videos as well as other series’ that I don’t want on YouTube anymore over to there. It’s really too bad that YouTube has forced my hand in all of this, but as I said when I started the RadioStyle series a few years ago in response to what I called “YouTube Vista” a.k.a. YouTube Profiles 2.0, if YouTube wants to make changes, two can play at this game.

‘Tis a sad day for YouTubers indeed, but perhaps a more competitive online video landscape will ultimately make for a better experience for us “third rate user-generated content people.” One can only hope – right? 😛 Truly, it is the End Of An Era here. The question now is – what’s next? :-\

MultimediaJay – A Geek's Perspective

🙂 An AV/Gaming/Tech Enthusiast's View On Things 🙂

Month: October 2013

End Of An Era – How Content ID Trolls Can End YouTube’s Dominance In Online Video

Jess Brohard And Guild Wars 2’s One Year Anniversary

Meet The New YouTube, Same As The Old YouTube (And Perhaps The Older YouTube As Well)

World’s Largest Robot – Nerdiness In Action

The “Darth Vader Steam Controller” In Action :-)