Caught By the Copyright Fuzz

Today, as I was nonchalantly wandering the interwebs, I happened to click on a link to a Youtube video. And instead of going to the video, I was confronted with a weird, red page.


If you're having a hard time making that out, it says:

We have received copyright complaint(s) regarding material you posted, as follows:

• from Sony Music Entertainment about Bill O'Reilly and the Fetal Position: Subtitled Version - craftyactivist
  Video ID: Tq9PSHf_XK0

Please Note: Accounts determined to be repeat infringers will be terminated. Please delete any videos for which you do not own the necessary rights, and refrain from uploading infringing videos.

The odd thing here is, that I have two copies of that video uploaded. The one removed was the subtitled version. I don't know if that was a choice or an accident, but so far, they have not disabled the non-subtitled version. If you look at the blog where I first posted these videos, you'll see that only one is still playable. The videos are identical except for the addition of subtitles and a subtitle key.

And now I'm at a loss. Both videos were initially flagged, but only one has been removed. Am I supposed to just delete the other one? When I was first aware that Sony had made a claim on my videos, I disputed both claims, and now I can't figure out what additional steps to take to figure out how to follow YouTube's Terms of Service.

The thing that concerns me most, is that I don't have any idea what steps to take to prevent this from happening in the future. To date, I've made and uploaded about 10 videos. This is not the first time the content matching system has picked up on my work: I posted a video just about a year ago that featured content from National Geographic's special, The Human Footprint. I was delighted when they decided they would advertise on that channel. The music that accompanies it is originally by Nine Inch Nails, but I used a remix that was created by a remixer in Germany, TweakerRay.

He commented on my video and actually keeps a collection of videos featuring his work on his channel. We could be creating a community that rewards artists for trading and re-contextualizing content. I wasn't secretive about the song I chose to accompany the video. I specifically chose Alice In Chains and the song Rotten Apple as a metaphor, highlighting the way some pregnant women have been forced to give up their bodily sovereignty. Some people commenting on the videos have asked what album it was on, presumably so they can purchase it. I highly doubt anyone wants to listen to the song with O'Reilly screaming over it.

Unfortunately, that is not the direction that music companies have decided to go in. Earlier this year, the EFF was soliciting test cases to fight Warner Brothers as they used automatic content matching software to disable videos. That seems to be what happened in my case, though I can't be certain. I do know that the one they chose to remove was the one that appeared in the responses to the YoungTurk's video analyzing the same Bill O'Reilly show. So was I punished for trying to participate in the larger conversation?

Or for being nice enough to type out the lyrics for deaf viewers?

For those of you who haven't seen it, you can still watch the video in question. I would love to talk to anyone who has successfully fought one of these takedown notices. I also would like to get people's opinions on whether or not my work qualifies as fair use:

And for the curious, here's TweakerRay's playlist, "Cool Videos with my Nine Inch Nails ReMixes". Give that man a hand for being so talented and so nice about sharing his work, would you?