Travails with Youtube Copyright Claims

Jane · 2026-04-16T21:14:01+00:00

Mod note: The next 18 comments were originally posted in a discussion regarding Jane's recording of Debussy's The Girl With the Flaxen Hair. Because these comments are not about that topic, they have been moved into their own thread here. Youtube flagged this as being a copyright violation. I did my now normal "it's 100 year-old music (in the public domain) played by me" rebuttal. A few weeks later, I get a reply - the copyright "owner" disputes my claim. I can either let them have their way, or dispute it further and risk having a "strike" against my account. Nuts to them! (I say)

Jane

Sorry!

This math now gets almost as bad as poly-rhythms.

So, after defeating Believe Music, two other companies laid claim to my poor little recording.

I disputed both of them, which set a 30-day clock ticking on each.

Tencent immediately disputed my dispute. So I disputed their dispute of my dispute. That set a separate 7-day clock ticking.

Today, Tencent's 7-day clock expired. (Unlike Believe Music, they didn't go through the whole thing with a strike, removal of the video, need to bring legal action, etc.)

The other clock is still ticking. But instead of saying "copyright," youtube now says "potential earning limitation".

Anyway, the one that's still ticking is from Naxos/Michael Lewin, and the claims I've had from Naxos previously have faded away at 30 days. I'll be surprised if this one doesn't peter out also.

Gombessa

You're fighting the good fight!

I think this is going to show that copyright holders, through entirely automated efforts, are just going as far as they possibly can without any real cost/effort. They'll carpet bomb initial claims against anyone, not caring who is caught in the crossfire, because false positives cost them nothing. Disputing the the appeal also costs them nothing, so they'll do that as well. Only if you actually press them to make a costly action will they fade into the sunset.

I wish Youtube would have a "three strikes" policy against false claims. Lose/drop too many appeals and you lose the ability to make claims against others.

Jane

Gombessa You're fighting the good fight!

WieWaldi

Jane I wonder why YT has no built-in detection for fake claims. If one company claims, okay, maybe the claim is valid.
But if two different companies claim the same thing (music, overlapping timeframe), only one can hold the valid claim. All others must be fake by logic.

pseudonym58

Does the reference to Naxos, above, have anything to do with the music recording distributor? And why would they waste their time making fraudulent clams?
From the way you describe these travails, it sounds as if you're having to do battle with bots.

Jane

pseudonym58 Does the reference to Naxos, above, have anything to do with the music recording distributor?

Yes.
As to why they would waste time, a robot has nothing else to do with its time and never gets tired.

To their credit, on the claims Naxos has filed against my videos none has persisted past my initial rebuttal, unlike a couple of more aggressive compaines.

I assume that Naxos, like the others, has robots scanning content and looking for something that might include some of their licensed material.
Obviously, in this case the algorithm is good enough to recognize the piece I'm playing.
That's step one.
Now for step two... how close should my playing be to whatever copyrighted content they're claiming in order to trigger a match? I think that's probably pretty loose.

I've never met Michael Lewin (the artist in this particular instance), but assume he doesn't look much like me and if any human actually looked at my video that would be apparent.

But don't worry.
The AI will fix everything.
Everything will be fine.
No more sloppy humans needed.
Everything will be fine.....

I'm guessing this is their content that they think I'm stealing:

Gombessa

Jane I've never met Michael Lewin (the artist in this particular instance), but assume he doesn't look much like me and if any human actually looked at my video that would be apparent.

I would think that even if they have a human in the loop, they are explicitly instructed to disregard "this is my original recording" type of rebuttals. It's always conceivable someone is dubbing their content onto a different video, and it's not worth the effort to verify whether that is the case or not, if the claim is free to make.

pseudonym58

Jane You would think that all the bot would have to do is to line up the beginning of the audio signal of your video and see if it matches their own submission.
I suppose if somebody was really bent on stealing someone else's material and passing it off is their own, they could manipulate the sound, possibly stretch it or shorten it digitally, something along those lines, but there would be an indication in terms of mathematical proportions that would give it away regardless. A bot could check that out in seconds.

WieWaldi

The good thing about your recording is the visuals of yourself playing the piano, and the hands on the keys are aligned with the music. This gives evidence you didn't steal any audio or video recording material from somebody else. Just torture yourself through the battles with the bots, at the final stage of decision hopefully a human recognises your video was all your content.

Btw - your recording doesn't sound like the one of Michael Lewin. It's the same music, but the intonation is different. He starts softer and has more room for the dynamic to increase. The rubato is very different, too. Actually easy to hear it is not the same, except of the same notes.
Btw: Listening both recordings side to side, I have to give you a very big compliment to your performance. I was expecting that a pianist who is famous enough to have an own wikipedia page and is represented by a music label should be in a different league. But he wasn't. His recording was better to be honest. But not by much.

Jane

WieWaldi His recording was better to be honest. But not by much.

You are very kind! I know there are a couple of rough notes. I thought of uploading a new version but after the fun I've had with the bots, decided against it.
My view of the piece is a bit idiosyncratic - I try to fit multiple moods of a teenage girl into a couple of minutes of sound - impishness, dreaminess, naivete...
At @danno858 a few weeks back, I tried to play it "straight". Well, less capriciously. Well, at a right angle if not straight 😉

But Mr. Lewin is obviously a professional artist. I don't think anything I ever play will be mistaken for such.

Jane

But enough about me!

THIS really sucks:

ShiroKuro

Jane oh no! That’s awful!!

This kind of thing is increasing, and the platforms that facilitate it don’t care. Spotify, Amazon, they don’t care if they have content that is a flagrant copyright violation, as long as they get paid.

I notice on Amazon a lot of pirated sheet music being sold as if it’s the composer’s. I am referring to contemporary artists like Alexis Ffrench and George Winston. Someone “in the know” can tell right away the difference between the authentic score book and the counterfeit, but most people won’t know before they buy. 😞

Jane

ShiroKuro oh no! That’s awful!!

It's double theft.

The guy has downloaded Paul's audio and claims it as his own.

AND he asserts copyright to the underlying music by Mayumi Kato. You can see at 1:27 in Paul's video where the guy claims he's the songwriter.

Paul has collaborated with Mayumi for years.
Here's one album of her music Paul has on Spotify, for example

CDs of her compositions are listed here
https://about.me/mayumikato

ShiroKuro

Jane I hope they’re able to get Spotify to take down the counterfeiter. 😣

twocats

Jane I've never met Michael Lewin (the artist in this particular instance), but assume he doesn't look much like me

I met Michael Lewin two days ago, during jury feedback at the competition! I can assure you that you look nothing like him 😆

Jane

twocats I met Michael Lewin two days ago, during jury feedback at the competition! I can assure you that you look nothing like him

And without further ado, after but my single challenge, 30 days has elapsed and Michael Lewin and/or his representatives no longer assert that I am guilty of cultural appropriation.

Unencumbered yet again is my little girl with the flaxen hair 🙂

Gombessa

Jane, I think your saga continues to illustrate (sadly) that automated claims will not only be spuriously made, but continually escalated and appealed without any human involvement, up to the very water's edge of when they actually need to spend money to show up in court.

Congrats on the win! Hopefully they let up on you for a bit.

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