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I had a situation I thought is worth sharing with the community..
I learned one of my top selling tracks was being blocked on YouTube for copyright infringement. I received emails from 3 non-ex libraries complaining that their customers’ videos were being taken down. One of them even issued a refund to the purchaser. The claimant was WMG (Warner Music Group) After months of aggravation here is what I learned had happened.-Production company licensed my track for a skit on Comedy Central. They sub-contract WMG to put ALL audio from ALL their comedy sketches on YouTube and copyright them. My track was used as background for one of those. There was no malice, just bad luck.
Things I learned:
The library that originally licensed the track was not very helpful. They also complained to me (rudely) that one of their customers had a take down. I had to point out to them that it was their customer who violated their contract and started all this. They said they would work on it but weeks went by with no results.
Fortunately, I had a record of the production company that used the track on Comedy Central so I contacted them myself. They explained what happened, were apologetic and said they would take care of it ASAP.
I also posted my own video with my track, and it was immediately blocked. Then I could file a dispute with YouTube and explain to them what happened.After a few weeks I posted another video with the track and it went through. Hopefully it is resolved, but I really can’t be certain.
Who was library?
Seems like WMG was over-reaching there, but youtube needs to have a way of separating content owned by multiple parties.
Glad it was resolved.
I’m going to amend my answer. WMG was over-reaching unless the track involved was some kind of sound-alike, that may have triggered a notice based on a track that WMG actually owns. That changes the whole scenario.
I suppose running a sound-alike through youtube’s system would be one way of checking to see if you’re too close to anything.
Oh geez… glad you could get it sorted. It’s a headache when it goes as far as a client’s claim on your music (I’ve had claims like “Joe’s Secrets to Sales Success” on tracks before) but for a big label to get entangled, I wouldn’t know where to start!
What was your process for dealing with it?
I wonder what would happen in a case like this if you had your own tracks registered with YT Content ID by yourself before. I know it’s no option with AS, but just theoretically.
I mean, would you be safe?I mean, would you be safe?
Safe from what? It would cause major problems for all of the libraries that you’re in by triggering copyright violation notices everytime someone uses your music in a YT video.
While we are on this topic, I wonder what you guys feel about the Rumblefish program. Not sure if I should opt out or not.
I originally opted in for Crucial but they told me it’s not too late to opt out. I having been hearing too many bad stories about internet video use.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Al,
Thanks. I think you helped me make up my mind real fast :-).
The whole process was pretty long with several dead ends. I’ll post the full story if you or anyone else thinks it would be useful.
It might be really helpful to know what the dead ends were, and what ultimately did the trick!
Hi Alan,
AudioSparx definitely has made extensive efforts to try to resolve the problem. We have contacted Warner Records repeatedly both via email and phone calls. We have had I’m certain not less than at least 30 different communications with Warner trying to get in touch with someone who would help resolve the problem. This includes from me and other staff members here as well.
We have continued to get the runaround from Warner mostly it seems due to their own confusion at Warner about who would be able to help with the problem, and their own lack of familiarity with how YouTube works, and a failure to acknowledge that they had in part in the problem or its resolution. We have actually escalated it to Warner’s legal department and have been still working on it. This has been going on for several months and has been complicated by various people at Warner going on summer vacation.
To portray this as AudioSparx having been unhelpful is not an accurate representation of the situation in our view — you are simply not aware of what we have been doing and the roadblocks we’ve been hitting.
I’m glad to hear you got it resolved. It was by far one of the most complicated YouTube Content ID-related situations we have encountered in all of our years in business. Now that it is resolved, we will close the case out.
Regards,
Lee Johnson
lee@audiosparx.comI’ve been writing about this for a while.
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