YouTube’s ‘front-loaded’ copyright check shifts onus to uploaders
YouTube has been treading a difficult path between its users and IP rights holders since its inception.
On one hand, many uploaders on the platform rely on copyrighted material for the content in their videos, including movie reviewers, video game streamers or cover musicians. On the other, creators try to ensure that none of their IP is rehosted illegally on the platform.
Given the sheer volume of videos uploaded to YouTube (approximately 30,000 per hour), the platform relies on an automated screening process and manual Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns.
This has led to many DMCA takedown notices for content that has a strong case for constituting fair use, an issue highlighted by many of the platform’s most popular channels.
‘Helping users’
Last week, YouTube revealed its new copyright screening system called ‘Checks’, which hopes to balance both the needs of the creators and rights owners by flagging potential copyrighted content in videos during the upload. Prior to this, it would only flag videos once they had been processed and published.
This allows creators to address any infringement issues that might appear in the video before being published, with the system flagging the specific point in the video where the copyrighted content appears.
Passing the check will not give you a complete all-clear, but is yet another tool for video creators working in grey-areas of copyright law to better address potential issues.
Nils Rauer, partner at Pinsent Masons said: “Helping the user to verify their entitlement to upload the content at issue is a very good idea. For, if the upload of unauthorised content is at stake, the majority of users do so because of not being aware that they are stepping into other right holders’ IP territory.
“Therefore, an automated checking resulting in a heads-up notice can be a very effective tool in practice. I hope that many users make use of this free tool.”
It is also another proactive step to try and prevent copyrighted content appearing on the site.
“The more a content distribution website does on the front end to address copyright infringement issues, the less of a burden this creates for copyright owners,” said Timothy Casey, partner at Baker Hostetler.
“Stopping the infringing content before it is uploaded reduces the amount of work copyright owners have to do to police such websites, to generate DMCA notices, deal with counter notices and compliance issues, etc.”
The ‘steam-ripping’ problem
Despite the rise in services like Spotify that offer a vast music library to users for a relatively low monthly subscription, music piracy is still a genuine issue for copyright holders and musicians.
Over the past few years, the use of “stream-ripping” services has grown more than 1,390%, according to UK music rights body PRS for Music. PRS describes stream-ripping as “the obtaining of a permanent copy of content that is streamed online”, which now accounts for 80% of the 50 most popular music-only infringing sites.
YouTube is the most exploited service for stream-ripping, with 70 of 100 services offering copyrighted content ripped directly from legitimate YouTube music uploads.
PRS considers the new copyright flagging system a small but welcome step in the right direction, but urges YouTube to ensure its users to understand that passing the check does not give you a legal all-clear.
Jonathan Aitken, general counsel, PRS for Music, said: “PRS for Music welcomes the commitment by YouTube to take a more proactive role in identifying videos for potential copyright infringements.
“While we hope that Checks will provide our members with more control over how their works are monetised on the platform, YouTube must also ensure that users understand the limitations of the tool, and that passing the Checks stage does not automatically mean a copyright claim on the work cannot be flagged at a later time.”
‘Not an altruistic effort’
While copyright owners hope the system will be beneficial for them, YouTube also spies greater earnings from the posting of more authorised content.
Casey added: “This is not an altruistic effort. Any website using such tools is likely not doing so solely for the benefit of copyright owners.
“There are significant DMCA compliance costs for the websites that they would be able to avoid or reduce. YouTube also makes it clear that this also helps them to make sure they can monetise the content if found to be acceptable.”
This new system is just the latest in a long-run of updates from the website that has tried to improve its copyright-flagging process.
In 2018, YouTube introduced a copyright match tool designed to find re-uploads of content.
A year later, the platform introduced a system that required copyright owners to provide timestamps to indicate exactly where their content appears in videos when making infringement claims. Prior to this, it was generally unclear to creators what part of their video included infringing content.
With Checks, YouTube is moving more of the policing task to the uploader.
Rauer added: “The discussion on where, when and how service providers should assume responsibility for the content uploaded by their users has somewhat overshadowed the fact that it is the user in first place who should be sure about whether or not he or she has sufficient right to upload the content.”
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