The Rise of the Copyright Bots

guest · May 23, 2020

The Rise of the Copyright Bots
May 6, 2020
https://www.internetandtechnologylaw.com/copyright-bots/

The copyright bots have been unleashed, they have a mind of their own, and there is little that can be done to stop them.

Copyright bots, otherwise known as content recognition software, are automated programs that can analyze audio and video clips uploaded to a platform, then compare those Clips against a database of content provided by copyright owners to identify matches. The copyright owners can then review the identified matches to assess if they are actually copies, if they are authorized or not, and if any action is warranted.

The benefits of copyright bots for copyright owners are significant and groundbreaking. Historically, to identify unauthorized uses of their works, copyright owners have had to rely on their own manual searching or notifications from third parties. With copyright bots, copyright owners can easily and more comprehensively identify unauthorized uses of their works, enforce their rights, and expand their ability to monetize their works, all in a relatively effortless and sweeping manner.
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Such benefits, however, can lead to potential abuses.

First, content recognition software is not perfect. The software relies on algorithms to compare “fingerprints” and assess if a targeted clip matches the tracked clip in the software’s database within a certain range of probability.
Second, copyright bots disproportionately favor the interests of copyright owners. Many programs utilizing copyright bots receive commissions on any licensing fees or settlement payments collected by the copyright owner from matches identified by the bots, such that the programs are incentivized to flag as many close matches as possible, even if they are not identical.
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While copyright bots can ease the burden for copyright owners to police and monetize their works, the potential inaccuracies of the bots and the systems that operate them may lead to less than desirable results. In one reported instance, multiple claims were made against a 10-hour video of white noise uploaded to YouTube, even against sounds that the uploader had created himself.

In another reported case, a pianist received a claim from Sony Music for a video he posted performing a song by Bach, a composer who is long deceased and whose works are clearly within the public domain.
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guest · May 23, 2020

Copyright bots and classical musicians are fighting online. The bots are winning.
On Facebook and YouTube, Classical Musicians Are Getting Blocked or Muted
May 21, 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...1e349c-98ae-11ea-89fd-28fb313d1886_story.html

A few Sundays ago, Camerata Pacifica artistic director Adrian Spence, aided by his tech-savvy son Keiran, went live on Facebook to broadcast a previously recorded performance of Mozart’s Trio in E flat (K. 498), a.k.a. the “Kegelstatt” trio. At least they tried to.
The recorded performance was one of many that Spence had drawn from the Camerata’s extensive video archives.

Just minutes into the airing of the concert, Facebook issued Spence a notification that his video — an original performance of an hour-long piece composed by Mozart in 1786 — somehow contained one minute and 18 seconds of someone else’s work, in this case, “audio owned by Naxos of America.”

“They’re blocking my use of my own content,” Spence said later in a phone interview, “which feels dystopian.”
Or, more accurately, content identification algorithms dispatched across social media to scan content and detect illegal use of copyrighted recordings. You’ve encountered these bots in the wild if you’ve ever had a workout video or living room lip-sync blocked or muted for ambient inclusion or flagrant use of Britney or Bruce. But who owns Brahms?
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After the removal of his clips, Spence’s only recourse was to file a dispute with Facebook by filling out a single-field form.
It took nearly four days to clear the spurious claim, and in the interim, Facebook suspended Camerata’s access to live-streaming.
Clearing copyright claims has since become part of Spence’s new routine, casting emails into an opaque dispute system he describes as “the DMV on steroids.”

And the hits keep coming: YouTube blocked a recent live stream of a recorded Camerata performance of Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43, after it attracted a swarm of five automated copyright claims from different record companies.

“I have no protection for my own produced material,” Spence says.
These systems aren’t just disrupting the relationships between classical organizations and their audiences; they’re also impacting individual musicians trying to stay musically present — and financially afloat — during the crisis.
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“There is no good solution right now,” says Meredith Rose of the D.C.-based intellectual property advocacy group Public Knowledge. “Maybe in another couple of years they’ll get the technology to the point where it can actually distinguish between two recordings of Beethoven’s Fifth or whatever. But they’re not there yet.”

Likewise, the faith that platforms and record companies invest in these technologies may be as flawed as the systems themselves.

“We built these systems around the presumption that everybody is either: A, a pirate, or B, should be a copyright expert,” Rose says.
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guest · May 23, 2020

Instagram makes it easier to see when you’re broadcasting music you can’t use
To help protect against accidental copyright infringement
May 20, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/20/...right-notification-licensed-update-guidelines

Instagram has posted its guidelines for using copyrighted music during live videos, Stories, and other posts on the platform, and part of the announcement includes a new update to the notification that pops up to tell users they’re using unlicensed art in ways that violate its rules. The changes to the pop-up notification are designed around helping users avoid Instagram’s automated interruptions — like muting or outright blocking — that occurs if a piece of licensed music plays for too long over or in the background of a live video.

Now, the notification pops up earlier in live broadcasts to give users more time to remove the audio so they can avoid having the stream disrupted or taken down. Instagram will also give clearer instructions to remedy the situation in the event a stream is automatically muted or blocked due to use of unlicensed music.

“These notifications are intended to alert you when our systems detect that your broadcast or uploaded video may include music in a way that doesn’t adhere to our licensing agreements,” reads Instagram’s blog post on the changes. “
Instagram is also reiterating that its policy around music usage includes unlimited use in Stories and when filming live music performances and posting those to the main feed.
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Instagram: Updates and Guidelines for Including Music in Video

This rapid rise in usage has created a lot of good during this crisis – raising money for frontline workers and underserved communities, driving awareness of healthy habits, encouraging people to stay safe by staying home, and bringing people together through new forms of entertainment. But it’s also highlighted some confusion across the community -- especially around the use of recorded music in Live on both Facebook and Instagram.

These guidelines are consistent across live and recorded video on both Facebook and Instagram, and for all types of accounts -- i.e. pages, profiles, verified and unverified accounts.
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guest · Nov 28, 2020

A Bot Made Frank Sinatra Cover Britney Spears. YouTube Removed It Over Copyright Claims.
November 27, 2020
https://futurism.com/bot-frank-sinatra-britney-spears-youtube-copyright

As artificial intelligence gets more powerful, it can give artists tools to create brand new mediums.

That was certainly the case with the high tech music duo DADABOTS, who earlier this year used a neural net to create a bizarre approximation of Frank Sinatra singing “Toxic” by Britney Spears.
But then, with no warning, YouTube took it down — sucking the AI-created ditty into the bureaucratic world of automated copyright disputes.

“We’re all really curious what this means for algorithmic music,” CJ Carr, one of the two members of DADABOTS, told Futurism when the song first got removed.
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Specifically, YouTube had hit the video with a “copyright strike.” That means someone had complained — and YouTube decided that DADABOTS had uploaded someone else’s property, removing the video instantly.

The strike itself had been filed by an anti-piracy firm called GrayZone Inc. But GrayZone never acknowledged Futurism’s repeated request for comment.
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Friedman and McLain hypothesize that GrayZone automatically scraped YouTube for potential violations and decided the song infringed on Sinatra’s intellectual property, making this a legal battle initiated by, fought over — and, for all we know — decided by algorithms.

“I imagine GrayZone’s model is to blindly send out takedowns knowing most people don’t refute them,” Carr told Futurism. “Bots versus bots! Sinatra has no copyright on what we made; it’s merely ‘in the style’ of Sinatra which is not an infringeable offense.”
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guest · Dec 13, 2020

Twitch suspends DragonForce guitarist Herman Li for playing his own music
October 31, 2020
https://happymag.tv/dragonforce-guitarist-twitch-ban/

Twitch has recently been busy with its comically oversized takedown hammer, smashing thousands of channels (Herman Li is hardly where this story starts or ends) for their unsanctioned use of copyrighted music under the auspices of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

While Twitch has not revealed any official reason for the suspension of Li’s channel, plenty of industry commentators have naturally suspected that it has fallen victim to the merciless automated DMCA takedown system, which offers creators no means of disputing or appealing bans to save their content.
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If even a well known and respected streamer such as Li can fall victim to the machinations of the copyright robots, it’d only be natural for any other streamer to fear for the safety of their channel, and in the case of professionals, their livelihood.
After a few days away from the platform, it seems Herman Li has been allowed back into the Twitch mainframe.

Though he hasn’t offered any information on why his Twitch account was suspended – or why he was unsuspended – but presumably the widespread outcry against his ban had something to do with it.
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