YouTube and You: Creativity Being Compromised by YouTube’s Content ID System Sideswiping Fair Use Materials

Being creative on YouTube is becoming increasingly harder due to their Content ID system and the intimidating DMCA takedown notices sent out by copyright owners. The Content ID system was created to give rights holders control of their content. However, as EFF writer John Doe has noted “these systems are still primitive and unable to distinguish a tranformative remix from copyright infringement…these filters end up sideswiping lots of fair uses.”

Though YouTube is not solely to blame, DMCA notices have steadily increased due to the spat between YouTube and Warner Music Group. Until the end of 2008, YouTube had an agreement with Warner Music Group which allowed YouTubers to include the label’s content in their videos. However, now that the deal “broke down,” YouTube and its users no longer have access to Warner materials.

Despite the many videos disappearing off of YouTube, there is hope. EFF has offered help to YouTuber’s battling Warner Music Group and the YouTube Content ID syterm by fighting for those who have had their videos removed, and EFF also made a formal suggestion to YouTube in October 2007 regarding the issue. They proposed that “videos should not be removed unless there is a match between the video and audio tracks of a submitted fingerprint.” As it is now over a year later and the problem persists, EFF is debating whether YouTube is serious about protecting its users, as they have yet to implement these changes.

Though such a change as EFF is suggesting would imply that “record labels and music publishers can never use the Content ID tool to remove videos solely based on what's in the audio track.” EFF believes that laying down a sound track to original work – say a video of a family picknick, or your latest skateboarding stunts – is completely fair use, and that the Content ID system “fails to separate the infringements from the arguable fair uses,” and thus it is compromising for the numerous amateur video creators that use YouTube.

It is this point that causes EFF to worry that the continuing compromise of fair use materials may result in copyright being used to “stifle an exciting new wellspring of creativity, rather than encourage it.”
EFF asks YouTubers to actively engage in best practices by ensuring that:
1. The video is noncommercial (i.e., no commercial advertisements or YouTube Partner videos)
2. The video includes substantial original material contributed by the individual (i.e., no verbatim copies of Warner music videos).”

Free Culture reveals some key best practices in proactively anticipating and managing the constraints presented by YouTube’s copyright policy:
1. Vidding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songvid
2. Mirroring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_(computing)

According to Free Culture, “[m]irroring videos is the most powerful immediate action that video makers can take to protect their rights as authors.” However, these practices, though they may allow creators to keep their work going and public, they remain only temporary fixes to a problem that needs to be solved once and for all.

Sources
FreeCulture.org - http://freeculture.org/blog/category/subjects/fair-use-subjects/
EFF “YouTube’s January Fair Use Masacre” - http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre
cnet news “YouTube users caught in Warner Music Spat” - http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10150588-93.html