Monetized Youtube account - problems with automated flagging system

[ErikTande]

My video - Sorted this Way
http://youtu.be/gOxwo8TUQok

Was flagged by Universal Music Group for using their song "GET READY FOR THIS" and by Sony Music (if I remember correctly) for "BORN TO HAND JIVE" from Grease. Clearly NEITHER of these songs are being used in my video. I had to dispute the claims and wait months to clear them. We finally have it monetized and are getting paid for views, but it took months to clear the bogus copyright claims.

Does anyone else with a monetized Youtube account have serious problems with getting bogus content claims from music and media groups? Almost everything I upload gets holds put on it seconds after I upload. I dispute the claims immediately, but then the company placing the hold has 30 days to respond. If nothing happens after the 30 days, then the claim is released.

The problem is, during those 30 days you can't have ads on your video. No ads, no revenue. We released "Sorted this Way" (linked above) and it took almost TWO months to clear all the bogus holds, in which time we had already 350K views. That's 350K views we didn't get paid for.

Youtube tells you to try contact the company placing the hold, but that's nothing but automated answering machines and black hole e-mails.

Does anyone know a better way to avoid these automated flags?




**EDIT** A quick google search shows me I'm not the only one being affected. Even NASA is getting slapped with bogus claims:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...rs-youtube-due-to-bogus-copyright-claim.shtml

“We spend too much time going through the administrative process to clear videos slapped with needless copyright claims,” says NASA’s Bob Jacobs. “YouTube seems to be missing a ‘common sense’ button to its processes, especially when it involves public domain material paid for by the American taxpayer.”

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

My video - Sorted this Way
http://youtu.be/gOxwo8TUQok

Was flagged by Universal Music Group for using their song "GET READY FOR THIS" and by Sony Music (if I remember correctly) for "BORN TO HAND JIVE" from Grease. Clearly NEITHER of these songs are being used in my video. I had to dispute the claims and wait months to clear them. We finally have it monetized and are getting paid for views, but it took months to clear the bogus copyright claims.

I've avoided the 'monetizing' option somewhat for that very reason. A couple of things I have up are 'completely' mine, and I have the paper work to prove the music is mine... etc... but ever since one of my movies was taken down be cause of a 'naked female boob' being shown, which was no more boobery shown than on the Sistine Chapel... I've been unenthused about Youtube in general.

At this point with the 'clout' that Google now has... it should be otherwise in my opinion... namely Google as parent for Youtube, should setup a more 'active' barrier to spurious take down requests.

In my case, if people in some screwball corner of the world want to view every single 'naked female breast' as some sort of sin, I really don't give a damn, they should figure out ways to 'not see, what they object to'... rather than require the rest of the world to conform to their narrow beliefs.

I think in the case of 'music' the use of automated 'detection methods' yields a number of false positives, and it would 'good' require the providers of such software to publish their stats, such as false positives, and require that they work to 'minimize' them.

As it is, if no one complains, then these 'detectobots' are just free to run rampant... which sounds like a couple of movies or so...

In the 'real world' there are similar 'bots' looking at webpages and magazine ads (use to require humans 'reading' the pages...), which detect key words used in patents, and often as not, the 'owners', a group of lawyers, just send out licensing schedules and threats of patent infringement. Many companies 'comply' with out a fight, which only strengthens the patent claim of such 'owners'...