The YouTube Snake Is Eating Itself

There'll still be the endless piles of cat videos.

I must have missed all the quality content on youtube. I see a lot of challenged teens screaming obscenities, some british people and a lot of people who think reviewing games is all about being hyper critical and that if you don't have at least as many negative things to say as positives you're not being real or some such garbage essentially regurgitating reddit and gaf threads.

A game's creator getting flagged for putting up his own stuff is clearly incredibly stupid. But I don't get the lets play business. Why is it the people playing should get to monetize the videos instead of the people who made the part of the content that actually has any value? These channels are sub public access level personalities. If the money dried up it'd hardly be a huge blow to mankind, maybe they'd be forced to get jobs where they actually contributed to society instead of living off the talents of others and the fact that most of the public watching their "performances" wouldn't know funny or interesting if it walked up and kicked them in the crotch.

And while I can agree to a large extent with Pat about the quality of his work, I think it's incredibly unfair of him to say that most of the industry is at that level. Totally uncalled for.

i do find this all pretty funny. Now either this will somehow force a update in copyright who knows im betting it wont and youtube will be just managed and vlogs. I do find it funny that on the front page of youtube you can see family guy videos. contentID LOL's

I remember a recent Bombcast that had special guests Brad Muir and another Jeff (Too lazy to find his last name) stating how YouTube has allowed people, who are not in a sense "tradtional" videogame journalists or reviewers, to showcase their talent through an accessible medium. Television has lost much of its value to me; there are some shows that have regained my interest but not enough to want me to commit a large part of my day to flipping through certain broadcasts. I have Netflix for that now. Much of my leisure time is now mostly spent surfing YT, watch people who provide quality content in sense that it is not corporate driven - meaning these videos can be as creative or crazy as the producer wants to be with permission from a superior. With this new policy in place, I feel that is another way that big companies and archaic ideals are stifling creativity of everyday individuals who simply want to be creative or crazy.

Personal outcry aside, I am curious as to what will become of YouTube in the future. Whether these drastic changes will have a significant impact on YT as a whole or whether this is just hump that will not deter the ongoing activities of that particular website.

his failing was not being Disney or Viacomm. He has no copy rights. Those are reserved for those with money and lawyers.

What I don't understand is, why the "copyright holders" are able to block a whole video, even if you are using their music only for a few seconds. Or worse they get all the money from the ads.

But you're missing the most important piece of the fucked up puzzle. Say a video has been up for 2 days that has unauthorized copyrighted content. Then the copyright holder files a grievance, provides proof, and the content is taken down.

But... in those 2 days, the video was monetized. This is the crucial problem. Now Google as well as the uploader are potentially responsible to get that money back to the copyright holder. And if that's not done correctly, a lawsuit is almost guaranteed.

Multiply that by literally billions, and I think we need to understand that they have to take the proactive stance, or YouTube could be sued out of existence.

And as I said, it's flawed. But this is the first big wave of problems, and there's no reason to think that it won't improve over time. Their first attempt at an almost insurmountable problem, and the media (and apparently the masses) instantly turn on them for being evil.

Misleading "the sky is falling" articles like this are bad for everyone involved.

You know you can still host your own content, and lets plays. AND ignore all the copyright notices you wish.

I heard Google bought Boston Dynamics so they could more strongly enforce copyright on their content creators with real life robots. That or they're planning on taking over the world....dear lord.

Google can suck farts. I know that's not as eloquently put as this eye opening article but it's how I feel.

I'll always root for the underdog. Google has been an asshole recently.

Might I suggest the grave?

To me this sounds way more like growing pains than anything else.

@joshwent: But its not misleading. Youtube IS out to kill game channels who aren't backed by networks because they aren't interested in dealing with the fallout. Its the same reason why sites like Vimeo banned gaming content, because they just don't want to deal with it. Acting like this is ok or Youtube is not complicit in the destruction of gaming channels is silly. Just because they aren't outright attacking gaming channels doesn't mean they aren't out to get rid of them. Youtube is sitting in the back pocket of copyright holders by their own free will. If we don't speak out against this kind of stuff it sends a message that its ok to treat users like this.

I'm with you man, fuck the people actually creating the games. The tard with the webcam and microphone unfunnily stumbling his way through it on youtube is the one doing the real work.

@joshwent: My understanding is that while the law is applied evenly, the consequences of having to defend yourself against false claims can be extremely unfair. A large company has the money and lawyers to basically tie you up in the legal system until you run out of money.

Would placing the burden of proof on copyright claimants rather than on the channel owner solve any of this?

Either way, any near-future solution is only going to be a band-aid on the gaping chest wound that is copyright law.

Man, what a mess. I hadn't really read into it much, but this put it all in perspective. Good writing, Scoops. But back to the topic, this is just a giant cluster screw. If they aren't careful, they are going to sink themselves.

PLEASE stop saying "YouTube does blabla"...

It's GOOGLE that has been pulling the strings for a few years now and it's become very apparent that that company is run by disgusting assholes and don't give a single shit about their customers.

When they announced that YT was sold to Google, I knew the site will go to shit sooner or later.

Yeah, the server upgrades and higher upload limits were great, but everything else went to shit.

Google has really become the biggest asshole in the industry, even dethroning microsoft.

Luckily I don't own any of their products.

I think we're still waiting for him to leave the cradle, at this point.

nice piece Patrick, a really interesting read!

I got a copyright claim so deleted my whole channel. Fuck'em.

For every legitimate video this is hurting, there are three or more videos using rights without permission and profiting from such uses.

Stats? That's a hefty claim to make. So for every "Let's Play" or review, there are three other videos using that same content, and somehow making illegitimate money from it? With video games, I just don't see it.

Was confirmation ever given that this was the thing that Adam Sessler was vague tweeting about a few months back? People acted like it was going to be an isolated thing and he was overreacting to the incoming youtube changes. Seems like a pretty big deal now.

How is an automated system supposed to know the difference between video game content and someone, say, ripping off a music video from the official channel or using music without permission as background for some hilarious video of kittens I also don't have permission to use? And why should it matter if it could? Is stealing telltale's IP somehow less serious than doing the same to metallica or whatever?

The vast majority of content is not original material. Probably well over 99% is not.

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For anybody interested, this is quite informative.

Would any of this have happened if the monetization of videos on Youtube never happened, and people didn't look at that and think to themselves how rad it would be to make money by playing video games on the internet? I mean, I guess the fact that nobody was making any money off of anything on Youtube was the initial catalyst.

@themasterds: The music companies issue the claims in these situations, not the game companies. Rock Band/Guitar Hero videos get claimed based solely on the song rights holders. WMG and UMG are seemingly the most aggressive.

Unless Youtube reverses this decision, along with all their jamming of Google+ down our throats, I hope the whole company burns in hell. We need a substitute to hurry up and replace them.

@robertorri: Lol

great article patrick, the whole content id has been more malicious algorithm then actually helpful.

This is not what he was complaining about. His Twitter episode was over the fact that Sony was forcing outlets to attend the launch party for the PS4 in New York in order to obtain a console to use for coverage. This kind of thing wouldn't affect people like him at all since Rev3 is considered a Multichannel Network with Rev3 Games as a managed partner that doesn't intereact with the Content ID system .

Just create a bot that claims fair use automatically with a generic response on every complaint. Fight fire with fire.

A particularly ridiculous part of this system is that there's no way to dispute false content ID claims. There used to be a way, then youtube overhauled the dispute system so there's no longer a "false positive" option. I guess they got tired of sifting through all the claims.

So you've got situations where companies are making money off your videos for music they don't even own the rights to, with no way to stop it. It's ludicrous.

Great article and I actually read the whole thing, I don't do that typically

DURRR Terry Cavanagh should just get a real job DURRRR.

Right now it seems that YouTube is unconcerned with people migrating to another system. And people seem unwilling to migrate to another system, or don't believe one is available. Perhaps that is true. But if there ever was a time for competition to step up and improve quality for the user through market forces, now is that time.

I recently finished a "let's play" video series on Doom 3: BFG Edition. Now, I know that video game footage is sort of in a grey area to begin with, but this anecdote isn't about the game footage. See, one of my videos got flagged for using copyrighted music. YouTube didn't take the video down, or block it in certain countries, it just automatically added an iTunes link to the song in the description. Very clean and painless.

Except that there was no copyrighted song in the video.

YouTube's infamously stupid algorithm for detecting copyrighted material, which has in the past detected violations in videos consisting of static and white noise, determined that I was using a copyrighted song because that specific song samples an audio log from Doom 3. So because I heard the same audio log that that musician stole for his song, YouTube considers me to be stealing from him.

And honestly? I wouldn't care if it weren't for one thing. There's an option to dispute such claims, but all of the options in this disputing system are variations on "I actually do have the right to use this song, and this is why", ranging from obvious traps for the stupid such as "I bought this song online" or "I own the CD" to actually legitimate reasons like "I have made an arrangement with the copyright holder." Not one of the options under this disputing process allowed me to say "this is an inaccurate citation, and no copyright violation was made", not one. That, more than anything else, is what pisses me off about this situation.

Jonathan Blow got a copyright claim for The Witness, as well. Which is just interesting.

@dudeglove said:

The last time I saw someone ask Terry that in an interview, he said the title of the game is pronounced "the letter V six times." To be clear, that's not "Vee Vee Vee Vee Vee Vee", you're actually supposed to say "the letter V six times". I'm not entirely sure he was being serious, so take from that what you will.

While I'm definitely not on Youtube's side in this whole thing, I think that there's a point here that is kind of lost in the noise - with a huge company like theirs, the fact that their PR team issued a wholly unapologetic (and borderline Orwellian) response doesn't mean nothing will be changed. It's their job to put the best spin on the situation as stands. This does not necessarily mean that the real organs of power within YouTube are not pursuing a solution behind the scenes.

This is all starting to sound a lot like that old Max Headroom television show from the late 80s.

Some people are missing the point. This is not YouTube's decision. Its the big corporations. If YouTube did not go through with it, they would be sued.

Another website getting created would solve zero problems because they would get sued just as fast and easy and would have no money to fight it.

"It sucks that it is hurting the gaming community so heavily at the moment, but it was a messy situation that needed to be resolved. For every legitimate video this is hurting, there are three or more videos using rights without permission and profiting from such uses."

Brandon Martinez. 2013

This is some stupid shit and I hope it gets sorted before the Internet becomes an even more difficult place to tolerate.

This is completely nuts. Once Google bought Youtube, you had to know there would eventually be problems. I pray that some other companies can grow and take some of the power Google has right now, or i expect internet freedom to slowly be reduced, just as it has been in RL.

We live in a litigious, regulatory jungle, and its just getting worse.

As a let's player my main concern is someone making money off of one of my videos because I happen to be playing a game that contains a portion of their song.

I'm fine with a legitimate claim forcing me to take the video down. It sucks, but at least they can argue that it's their right. But taking ad revenue from the videos that I edit and add commentary to? They are now infringing on MY copyright, making money off of MY work without my permission. At that point it can be argued that it's an unintentional collaboration, but as I understand it they make all the money from those ads.

Unfortunately I can't tell what action has been taken on my videos, so I can't be sure what's going on. I'd love to see someone sue a record company for making money from a copyright claim though. It needs to happen.

Actually, we don't. Fair use is fair use as determined by any court case dealing with it. While one can make an argument for updating copyright law in terms of the life of a copyright, fair use doesn't really need to be updated. Just because some might want to claim that talking over a video of them playing a video game constitutes fair use, doesn't mean it is, and certainly doesn't mean that we need legislation to protect Let's Play videos.

While some people do have permission from the copyright holders, that isn't always the case, so I would question monetizing off of someone else's work as "innocent intentions."

Possibly, but that also puts an additional burden on Youtube that they may not want to deal with. In the end, Google is providing a free service with Youtube. Requiring a burden of proof from claimants means Google would also need to hire people to look into each claim that is made, reducing their own profits just so someone else can monetize on their free service. That's something their stockholders aren't going to go for, so they have Content ID in place.

Claiming fair use on videos of video games on Youtube is not a gaping chest wound that is copyright law.

@johnyliltoe: "But taking ad revenue from the videos that I edit and add commentary to? They are now infringing on MY copyright, making money off of MY work without my permission."

Editing and adding commentary to a Let's Play video may be considered a derivative work, in which case, you don't have a copyright. Also, they aren't "infringing" on it, as they're not taking your work and reproducing it, distributing it, or creating a derivative work without your permission.