Copyright claims against trad material on YouTube - and how to deal therewith!

Oh Chiffers, here is a conundrum which has periodically exercised us, IIRA - the posting of indubitably trad material in YouTube videos which to our surprise becomes the subject of a Copyright claim via YT's system. This is irritating, to say the least, and I've seen folk get very het up about it. However, I do have some sympathy for recording artists who by registering their recorded (and or transcribed and published) arranged material as copyright are legitimately seeking to protect their revenue from their work and who had no intention of claiming actual authorship of trad material. "The System" (of intellectual property rights) doesn't actually cope very well with this situation. It is, of course, perfectly fair for an arrangement of trad material to be copyright protected, but the melodies themselves (if genuinely trad, authorship unknown or too long ago) *cannot* be thus limited.

YouTube uses an audio database to identify potential copyright infringements, so of course, any trad material which appears in a registered arrangement and which you or I then record and upload is liable to get picked out and claimed against. There is no point inveighing against the likes of The Chieftains who tend to copyright every arrangement they record. They're *not* trying to stop anyone else playing the tunes involved or to make money off anyone else's renditions, nor claiming they wrote old trad material themselves.

It's annoying if one of your own uploads of unquestionably trad material (do check!!!) is subject to such a claim, but it is also generally fairly easy to deal with and I have done so successfully several times. I had another one tonight. I have uploaded a sequence of screenshots of the process on the Facebook C&F page (https://m.facebook.com/groups/222948058 ... 7882695590)
which demonstrates how I have dealt with it and, as previously, I confidently expect the claim will be dropped in due course.

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I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!

My YouTube channel
Low Bb flute: Xmas Eve & The Providence (audio)
Flute & Music Resources - helpsheet downloads

And, surprisingly swiftly, the copyright claim has been rescinded. No contest.

_________________
I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!

My YouTube channel
Low Bb flute: Xmas Eve & The Providence (audio)
Flute & Music Resources - helpsheet downloads

I've had the same issue happen with classical pieces. I haven't had the same luck as you in getting them put back up, but I'm glad you've had more success.

Videos of you playing classical pieces? That's odd. But should be easily contestable in the same general way I used.

FWIW, I've never had anything taken down from/by YouTube. That might happen if you post up something you've ripped from a CD or TV programme, but isn't very likely on your own performances. If you get a claim over the musical material you use, contest it (if it's contestable). Often, even if you do play a copyrighted piece, they'll let it stay up but the copyright holder will cream off a share of any income your video generates from attached advertising - a share because as performer you also still have rights in it. I've only had that happen once (my Corsican Waltz video, where I could not definitively trace the composer or alternatively prove it was trad/public domain material). Whether you get big enough on YT to be able actually to claim and draw down any earnings your videos make is another matter! The copyright holders of compositions can, however insist on removal. But that can hardly apply to pre C20th classical compositions.

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I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!

My YouTube channel
Low Bb flute: Xmas Eve & The Providence (audio)
Flute & Music Resources - helpsheet downloads

I play tunes a lot on facebook live. Once, their automated system flagged my audio as containing possibly copyrighted music. It was simple enough to check a few boxes on their form to avow that I was the one playing the music, and nothing came of it.

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│& ¼║: ♪♪♫♪ ♫♪♫♪ :║

A little more complicated than that, recordings of various people playing classical music, all of which (both recordings and composition) are in the public domain. The problem is that X piano player playing a Mozart sonata can seem to a program awfully like Y piano player's recording of the same, and while X may be your friend who wanted you to post it on youtube, Y is a commercial recording artist. Without video to prove that it is, in fact, someone different playing, it can be hard to argue that it's not the same recording to someone who neither knows nor cares about classical music (since it honestly can sound very similar between interpretations, without knowing which nuances to listen for).

Ah, gotcha. That is more complicated.

_________________
I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!

My YouTube channel
Low Bb flute: Xmas Eve & The Providence (audio)
Flute & Music Resources - helpsheet downloads

The thing that really sucks is that the claimant has final say - they can choose to delete your video with no recourse-legal or otherwise-available. I was going to start a "tunes and discussion" type webshow examining variations and regional ways of playing tunes, but I tabled it until I can figure out a way around the copyright sh*t. Maybe having every video just be the introduction, and then linking to something like vimeo? I don't know. YouTube has the biggest audience, and it's the first place people go for help or inspiration when looking for a tune.

All I can say to that last is, I haven’t yet had that happen. Every time I have cited clear evidence of the trad antiquity of a tune they have dropped the claim.

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I respect people's privilege to hold their beliefs, whatever those may be (within reason), but respect the beliefs themselves? You gotta be kidding!

My YouTube channel
Low Bb flute: Xmas Eve & The Providence (audio)
Flute & Music Resources - helpsheet downloads

Good, I'm glad!

We actually had a similar thing happen with TRAD songs we sang in a pub. Seems there are these self-appointed copyright police (read "people who have a financial interest") called BMI and ASCAP. They claimed the pub was allowing public performances of copyright songs and demanded an exorbitant license fee (They start by demanding their most expensive fee.)

Apparently, their database of titles lists each performance as a separate copyrighted piece, so they judged that our performance of the same piece was an infringement, of somebody, at least. Once we showed them we were actually performing a 500 year old song, whose composer was not in their database, the dropped the claim.

I don't know if these same people are telling their clients your performance is an infringement, but it wouldn't surprise me. Or it could just be ignorance of what is, or is not, protected by copyright. You certainly can't just repost someone else's recording, even if you put in the snarky claim that it's not your property, as so many do.

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Cheers!

Michael
Living the Rainbow Life!