False Copyright Claims

I recently made an arrangement/cover of Henry Purcell’s Hear My Prayer, O Lord. I arranged it for eight parts, recorded all of them myself, and then edited it all together along with a scrolling score of my arrangement. It was a considerable amount of work, but I enjoy doing these little arrangements, either way I was grateful to have it done and posted. Grateful, until I got an email telling me that my video had been claimed due to copyright infringement and blocked. My video? Using content from 1682? Something’s not right here.

Today’s blog will cover an issue that I’ve seen plague many small creators on YouTube, false copyright claims and Content ID. I’ll touch on your options when you get one of these dreaded emails, and a brief mention of why this problem happens. As always, here’s a reminder that I am in no way a legal expert. I’m simply sharing my own thought process and how I’ve resolved this issue when I came against it. Okay, that’s out of the way, let’s get into it.
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The Email:

​When one of your videos gets a copyright claim, you’ll receive notification about it via email. The subject will be something like “Video is blocked: (with your video title here” for the sake of this blog I went with the title, “Sony Music Publishing didn’t want you to hear this arrangement”. The email will then explain the situation. 

Fun fact: you can apparently use copyrighted content so long as it is less than 60 seconds. So if you want to avoid this situation entirely, you can keep all your videos less than a minute–not always feasible, but I guess it works for shorts! In my case, I wanted the full 2 minute or so arrangement, and also I’m petty. 

​My preferred method is to fight it. So, click “view actions” to get started! But FIRST, be sure to double check that you are not using any copyrighted content. If you’re using material that’s currently owned by someone or some other entity, then the claim might actually be valid. There are ways to use even copyrighted material legally, but this depends on the way you’re using that material. I’m planning on doing a deep dive into copyright law in one of my upcoming blogs, so stay tuned if you want a more detailed breakdown of this.
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Your Options: 

​So you’ve determined that the claimant of your video is in the wrong and now you’re going to “dispute” Great! Click that option.

​After clicking to dispute, you’ll be prompted to provide a reason for disputing the claim. This can vary based on the situation. In my specific example, where I’m using content that should be in “the public domain”, I’m going to select that option. There’s a series of disclaimers listed here as well, to give you a last check in on if what you’re using is indeed allowed.
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Dispute or Appeal?

You’ll be presented with two methods of fighting the copyright claim. If you want to go the safer route, I would simply dispute the claim. This takes longer, especially because there’s no way “the claimants” are going to review the request within 30 days, but it won’t cause you any issues if you’re in the wrong. 

If you’re certain, and want to press this thing to go away faster (as I do!), I would click “Escalate to Appeal”. This is much faster (maximum of 7 days) and also allows you to keep the video up and visible immediately–even though it’s unlikely to perform well. There is a downside though. If you happen to be wrong in your appeal of the claim, your channel will receive a dreaded “copyright strike”. This is a kind of warning for your channel that you’ve been found in violation of copyright. If you collect a total of three strikes, your channel is removed. Filing fraudulent disputes in general can be a good way to get your channel removed. So be careful!
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Things to Include in Your Dispute:

​Regardless of the approach you choose, you’ll be prompted to fill out a form for your dispute. In the form, you’ll be asked to include a defense for your assertion in disputing the claim. You can see what I ended up writing below:

​If you decide to “Escalate to Appeal”, you’ll need to provide your name and address information, which is another downside of that process. There are also additional acknowledgements that you’ll need to accept in understanding the risks of the process.

​After submitting, you should be set! If your claim is valid, you should simply receive an email (either after 30 or 7 days depending on the option you chose) telling you that the claim has been released.
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Why Does This Happen?

Most corporations/major artists use an automated system provided by YouTube called “Content ID”, which is used to survey videos across the platform and find those that utilize their content. They register their copyrighted content with YouTube and then YouTube scans all videos for that material and automatically claims any video that uses that content. The only problem with this system is that it also ends up going after content that is in the public domain, and often ignores the fact that there are indeed ways of using copyrighted material legally.

In my particular situation, the piece I used was written in 1682 and therefore falls within something called “the public domain”, which means it is available for anyone to use. So why did my recording get flagged? While Sony Music Publishing doesn’t own the copyright of the piece (we all do), it does own a particular recording made of the piece. When YouTube’s automated system detected the similarity between the Sony owned recording and my own, it flagged the video and claimed it. The result is my video getting blocked despite doing absolutely nothing wrong. A little aside for any history nerd who knows about copyright laws in England during the 1600s… that gave me a little chuckle through this situation. Long story short, we’ve come a long way, but it seems we like to go back and visit sometimes. Sorry, back to business!

I understand the need to use Content ID to protect the work of artists. There’s too many videos on YouTube to go and manually review every upload. The solution shouldn’t stop at automation though, and it certainly shouldn’t be at the expense of small creators. I find that the most common beneficiary of the current method is a massive corporation able to silence the work of smaller artists. While the current system may be quick and easy for copyright holders, it is inaccurate and causes more harm than good. A more precise system is needed, perhaps with more direct human review (I know! How dreadful!) or at least one that doesn’t punish those using material legally–especially when it comes to the public domain. Perhaps a better system could be a topic we explore in the future…

In the meantime, I hope this blog was in some way helpful to anyone else encountering this issue. As I stated before, I’ll be working on a deeper dive into copyright law for an upcoming blog post. Until then, thank you for reading, and happy jamming!