YouTube Now Deletes Copyrighted Audio Tracks From Videos
This morning, HireCube's Aniq Rahman alerted us to a major change on YouTube. A growing number of videos now appear without sound and with a notice that these videos contained "an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders." It looks like YouTube is starting to implement audio fingerprinting software that automatically removes licensed audio tracks. Update: Here is YouTube's official reaction.
YouTube always contacted its users when it was notified of copyright infringements, but now, it seems like this is an automated process. Predictably, the commenters on YouTube are outraged about this new policy.
The End of YouTube's Mashup Culture?
Most importantly, this move by YouTube, even though it makes perfect legal sense, might quickly put an end to the culture of remixes, mashups, and parodies on YouTube.
This new policy will also negatively affect a number of services that rely on YouTube for their audio content. Audiolizer, which we reviewed last month, for example, is, on the surface, a streaming music service, but actually gets its music from YouTube's vast catalog of music videos.
What About the Users?
In the end, this new policy will only alienate YouTube's users, while doing nothing to help the struggling music industry. It would make a lot more sense for the music industry to provide a blanket license to YouTube so that users could use copyrighted sounds tracks on their homemade videos, while the record labels (or the artists) could get a share of the advertising revenue.
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YouTube is also ignoring fair use, which many of these audio track would be protected. Epic fail.
It is sad news indeed for those with videos affected by this policy change; however, it is good news for the artists of AudioMicro. We can all legally license music for you YouTube videos from Grammy nominated and Emmy winning artists for as little as $1 per minute and never have to worry about a take down from YouTube, all you need to do is purchase stock music and you'll be free and clear. At AudioMicro we have created an iTunes style licensing model but your purchases come with a general use license that permit you to synch the music with your creative audio visual projects free and clear of additional licensing fees or potential take down.
I noticed this yesterday and was a little baffled at first since the video still plays. At least before, they would just disable the entire video which seems to make more sense.
I've had a few videos of my own taken down and it's very annoying. One video just used a song as a background soundtrack. Although I understand the legal aspect, all I was doing was basically promoting this artist's music for them for free. Plenty of people in the comments would ask what the name of the song was because they liked it but had never heard of it before and wanted to buy it in iTunes. Win/Win for everyone in my opinion.
Now it seems like a lot of YouTube users that go there to listen to and find new music will be pissed and will jump ship for smaller competitor sites that still have these videos/songs.
Hang on a second.
Lots of labels (sony, emi and universal and many of the indies) which represent a HUGE amount of the music have done exactly what you suggested: they have licensed YouTube to allow mash-ups. YouTube pays the artist (and the label) for these streams.
Universal recently bragged that they are making millions from this deal.
Are you sure that this is as widespread as HireCube is claiming? Or is this the result of Warner Music pulling their videos? They seem to be the only label who havent licensed YouTube for this.
C'mon!? youtube is making the biggest mistake this is going to be a flob!
I could see if where copywrite infringement might occur if certain videos were profiting off of the content that they post. However I really can't see a direct link to amateur videos and profit earnings. IF there was a case made that viral marketing videos that used licensed material were making direct revenue from the posts then I would assume that it would be analogous to a TV or Radio commercial using unlicensed material as well. In the end this is the RIAA or certain labels trying to get a piece of the YouTube profit so that they can continue the illusion of control over their product.
Good! No youtube will go down the drain, and more new and improved site will emerge! Yay!
There was a post a little while ago about a company called Rumblefish who recently partnered with Youtube which had auto licensing built in. It's called the SWAP AUDIO section where you can choose by genre, artist or track.
I also saw that Youtube was using a different system that was not removing copyrighted videos but rather using a tracking service that would detect copyrighted videos and then displaying the artist / label info as an ad and splitting the profit with that artist's label. I think this is a better way to go because everyone's still making money and users stay happy.
Use a different site. It's called media sharing, not archiving--you must keep your own backups. When the RIAA and MPAA began crushing the early music and video sharing services, the Streisand Effect took over, and the community spread to many brand-new sharing sites. The companies don't care about legality unless it favors themselves. Find a new outlet or, better yet, make one of your own. Once you use the web for archiving, you become locked-in to the host's demands and limitations, effectively relinquishing some of the rights to your own material.
Much of this commentary overlaps with critiques of cloud computing. Search for Richard Stallman's "cloud computing is a trap" BBC interview and the replies to it.
The RIAA have done it again. They are slowly becoming the most hated organization in America. This petty and irritating new policy will only bring ire and youtube will slowly fall out of the favor of the posters. Youtube will become a backwater in the user generated content community. But in the end it will have been their fault for bowing to these organizations despite Google's unprecedented upper-hand in power and influence.
OMFG i uploaded a freakin video from a cd to my laptop then onto Youtube. It says that it is copywrite. It was not copywrite because i made it with my friends in school and ugh YOUTUBE IS GOING TO FLOB just like Hidde said. I hate it so much right now. My friends are dying to see this video and they can't because of youtube! keegan050995 is my youtube name message me if you wanna be friends or anything. PEACE!