Be Excellent To Each Other

Last night I merrily uploaded a clients new video onto Youtube. They specifically requested it be made available via Youtube and who am I to argue? As usual it featured correctly licensed library music, in this instance a classical piece.

Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning to find adverts plastered all over the video on behalf of UMG music who claim to own the music track.

A quick check with my stock music service and I find UMG have no claim over the music and Youtube keep on pulling this stunt on various classical tracks they sell on behalf of a certain orchestra.

So now I'm faced with an angry client who has adverts plastered over their video meanwhile UMG will cream off all the advert revenue until such time as the admit they have no claim (and get to keep the money).

I've sent emails to Youtube and UMG as well as instigating the formal Youtube complaint procedure. But every hour this drags on the more hacked off my client will be getting.

I'm all for people being able to protect their copyright but when some autocopyrightbot misidentifies some music and then slaps adverts on your video (or withdraws it totally as can happen) its a bit much. You don't need to be a classical music buff to know that any symphony orchestra can perform these songs and they'll sound pretty much the same. UMG may well hold the copyright on one performance of the track, but they don't own the one I've used.

It's akin to buying a packet of digestives from supermarket A. You pay for them, walk out of the shop and then supermarket B jumps up from behind, collars you and accuses you of shoplifting his biscuits and that you need to pay for them again.

That angers me quite a bit. Was it a recent composition (eg: John Adams) or an old, undoubtably public domain one?



Have to disagree with you there. Symphonies can sound drastically different when different orchestras and conductors are in play. I've never heard any Thomas Tallis: Theme of Fantasia quite as satisfying as the EMI one, the others play it all a little too hurried and round off to breezily at the end. Likewise, although there are several excellent versions nothing comes close to John Elliot Gardener's mind-blowing version of Brahms' Eine Deutsche Requiem. And when I go see classical music I've come to learn that there's a whole league of difference between internationally renowned and local orchestras.

Though if anything, this actually backs your argument. These pieces are so distinct, it's more like being accused of stealing a packet of digestives when you have some Jaffa Cakes you just bought in your bag.

Wouldn't the answer be to not use YouTube? It's their over-aggressive tagging that caused this mess. Is it a hard client alternative, or can you use other sites like Vimeo?

How do they detect what music you've used? Do you have to declare it?

Chinny - while I agree that this is wrong, and shocking behaviour on the part of UMG, you are using a free 3rd party service for this. That third party is entitled to defend itself in terms of ensuring it's not exposed to copyright violation claims. The same thing wouldn't happen if you were hosting it on your own website, for example.

I have no useful advice, but that sucks.

Was it Barber's Adagio for Strings? I think the only way I could hate that more is if it were in the Shawshank Redemption.

And what Pete said about the differences in recordings, and Gaywood and Craster about other things.

Because of YouTubes copyright laws, you can't view my wedding video in Germany.

It doesn't bother me but you know... I just thought I'd mention it.

Whu?

You shouldn't have gone dressed as Hitler.

Some sort of Shazam-like fingerprinting that has a high false positive rate.

How does that work, and work so quickly?

FTF Germany.

Voodoo.

If you want to get your technical on: http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~dpwe/papers ... shazam.pdf

I know how it works in theory -- with Shazam, you hold your smartphone up to any music source for about ten seconds, it digitises it, crunches some numbers, produces a fingerprint from some sort of hashing algorithm, uploads the fingerprint, and it does a database lookup. However, Grim...'s assertion of "voodoo" is the only reason I can suggest for such a thing ever working, let alone with the jaw-dropping accuracy Shazam manages.

My wedding video has a couple of songs on it, one of which is Take That and Rule the World.

When I uploaded the video, YouTube recognised both songs INSTANTLY and then came up with the warning about copyright laws and not being available in Germany.

*Edit* In fact... look. It's UMG again. What a coincidence.

Oh, erm, right. "Very hard maths" is how my brain has filed it now.

It's still unbelievable, to me, though.

Thanks.

Very much.. I remember the first time I used Shazam. My jaw has only just come off the floor.

This bit is ace: "The algorithm was designed specifically to target recognition of sound files that are already present in the database. It is not expected to generalize to live recordings. That said, we have anecdotally discovered several artists in concert who apparently either have extremely accurate and reproducible timing (with millisecond precision), or are more plausibly lip synching."

The orchestra concerned is the Apollo Sympathy Orchestra, who's sole aim is to record out of copyright orchestral music for use as production music. They distribute their music via a number of production music suppliers and not via a major record label. In short their music isn't aimed at the end users, but rather people like me who need affordable music.

The comment about classical pieces sound similar didn't come from me, but the people who sell these tracks. This is now happening a couple of times a month to their clients. The only explanation is that the Youtube bot is indeed checking the music and spotting a match because something in there is similar.

Youtube was a client request. I only use it when asked. Vimeo isn't suitable for business stuff, but the public service or charity stuff I do is fine. I may risk it on Vimeo and see what happens as its borderline promotional which is against their rules.

Youtube might be "free" but Google are more than capable of making it easier to dispute such claims and also they are happily monitising Youtube in lots of ways. People like me bring the punters to the site and then give Youtube chance to turn that into money with their other content. This is a known problem, the argument "shut up because its free" doesn't wash. In anycase this is about a known false positive problem where the record companies get to rake in cash for something that isn't theirs. Is that right?

It's the same company blocking TheVisions wedding video in Germany. UMG slap adverts on stuff worldwide but block Germany totally.

Why do you say that?
I find Vimeo superior to everything YouTube* does, but without the massive user base.

*Actual YouTube - plugins and stuff for YouTube are far better than Vimeo ones

I like that.

I'm curious to see, now, what it would make of two orchestras playing the same piece, and if it could show the difference, as it would come out with a definite figure for it, I guess.

Vimeo is far better, I agree. I have some good stuff up there. But they want short films, not promotional/corporate videos and their rules make this clear.

Brightcove was the other option but that is now pay only.

Clients also like the idea of going to Youtube and typing in what they want. Youtube is the big name.

Ah, I thought you meant your business. Carry on.

Well, it's your job to clearly explain the shortcomings of this approach, right? And if they say "go ahead anyway", well, that's on them, not you.

It is on Chinny if he chose the music.

I gave them a choice of tracks, but all from the same orchestra. Who's to say if another track would have tripped up in the same way?

Yeah a few of my mash up music videos that I've uploaded have fallen foul of UMG, I'm not sure how many copyright violations you can have before they shut you down, but I have about 5 so far.

Amusingly if you try to feed it old house, funk or disco records it tries to tell you that it's a record from the last couple of years even though it sounds nothing like the source

Line of the week.

It's not that Shazam works at all that amazes me. It's how it can take an incredibly dirty sample of sound (I just tried it in a Bourne film in a scene with tyres screeching, engines roaring, and Miss Malabar talking over the top) and correctly identify the music (Paul Oakenfield in this case). It doesn't always get it right in these situations, but it's certainly a high enough hit rate to always be worth a punt.

I asked nicely and detailed my case. COMPUTER SAYS NO!


Had this same email twice now. Youtube are just sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la la la".

All of which sends me off on todays 14 hour shoot in a stressed/annoyed mood.

That reads to me like a standard blanket email that is sent out to everyone.

I bet their initial inbox for queries gets thousands of emails like yours every day , no one reads them they just get that autoresponder and a very large proportion of them 'just go away'

But how do you get past it?

Answers on a postcard to:

The Wide Awake Club
TVAM
PO Box 200
London
NW1 8QT

[I've just returned from a 13 hour shoot and am shattered, so this is now depressing me more than it was yesterday].

Dear WAC people ...... errr ..... sorry - it would be better if you told me to call 01 811 8055



On my version of that page there is nothing there - I assume on yours there is something to say 'i need this to be reviewed'

I also would guess that the first answer to that will be 'its been reviewed and is correct' because what it probably triggers is someone to rerun the automated system and its going to take the same data and come up with the same result.

You'll then get an option somewhere to get it reviewed again - and possibly include some information - thats probably the first chance to actually communicate with a real person (and even then someone at the bottom of the food chain)

Did this and it failed.

My new tactic is to re-upload it (re-encoded and re-named) and try again. It was flagged within seconds of going up but this time the appear has taken a few more hours so far.

Todays update:

The person who actually runs the orchestra has uploaded the same track and its been flagged. He's prepared to fight so this should get interesting if his appeal gets rejected.

That is interesting. Got a link to his video?

I don't have their URL but I found some more videos using tracks by them that have had adverts placed on them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUyz3iSnTc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztS2Ex_cx_Q

As far as I can see, their remit in life is to produce production music only and no major label is involved. So clearly there is an issue somewhere.

NB: The video creators could have been offered the chance to monitise their video by Youtube as I once was. But you need to be doing serious business in terms of views before Youtube offer this so I doubt this is the case here.