YouTube and Copyright: Changes Made

September 11, 2019

Finally YouTube Changes Its Horrible Copyright System

YouTubers love and hate their platform of choice. They love that they have the freedom to make videos, but they hate YouTube’s unfair copyright infringement system. If you are unfamiliar with YouTube’s copyright infringement system, then read Gizmodo’s article, “YouTube Announces Some Changes To Its Infamously Awful Copyright Infringement System.”

The opening paragraph says it all:

“The number of issues plaguing YouTube at any one time boggles the mind, and range from accusations it promotes extremist content to reports its nightmare algorithm recommended home videos of children to the pedophiles infesting its comments sections. One of the less overtly alarming but still widespread issues has been the shoddy state of its copyright infringement claims system, which report after report have repeatedly indicated is trivially abused to file false claims, extort creators, and generally make YouTubers’ lives hell.”

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced in July 2019 that there would be numerous changers to the copyright claim system. The copyright claim system is different from the copyright infringement system, because the former is manual. Anyone who files a claim through the copyright claim system will need to input exact timestamps of the violation, instead of flagging an entire video.

Before YouTubers were not told how one of their videos violated a copyright claim. The new timestamp system will highlight the video’s section that is under scrutiny. YouTube will also promote more of its tools to make a video copyright compliant, such as muting sound or deleting a segment. These tools were available before, but YouTubers were unaware of where in their videos the problem was.

Problems still exist for content creators using copyrighted material for reviews, education, research, or news. Many YouTubers who make these types of videos claim their content falls under fair use guidelines.

Maybe the suffering of some YouTubers will lessen. Maybe.

Whitney Grace, September 11, 2019

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Copyright, Google, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.