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Content ID’s Closed-Door Controversy

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There’s continuing controversy over YouTube’s Content ID rights management platform. You might think I’m talking about content creators complaining about video takedowns for music violations. But I’m actually referring to the growing number of artists demanding direct access to the Content ID tools.

Here’s a quick overview of Content ID from the artist’s perspective: a song submitted to YouTube’s Content ID system is available to creators for use in videos without extra permissions. Content ID will auto-magically identify when songs in its library appear in YouTube videos. The artist (or other rights-holder) can then elect to block the video, monetize the song’s placement in the video (via advertising), or forgo either action by ‘white-listing’ the video. Most of the songs in a major label’s catalog and many independents are a part of this Content ID library.

The problem is that artists and labels can only access these tools through a YouTube-approved third party. This party is usually someone like AdRev or a distributor like Symphonic. As expected, in the monetization option, the third parties will take a cut of any income. Some artists find a mandatory reliance on a third party aggravating, especially when giving up a share of the money is unavoidable.

There is a lawsuit against YouTube filed by artist Maria Schneider and the company Pirate Monitor to challenge this requirement, arguing that Content ID should open up direct access to anyone. The brunt of the argument rests on the challenges of those who can’t utilize Content ID. That is, if a song used in a video is not in YouTube’s system, the reporting and takedown process is inadequate and ineffective. In that case, the artist or label would manually ‘flag’ the video and wait for YouTube to take action. As you can imagine, it’s not an effective process.

YouTube argues that Schneider is not affected by any deficiencies in its approach, as reported in Complete Music Update. She uses a third party already, says YouTube, so she’s an example that the tools are readily available to anyone. Pirate Monitor also has its issues: 

As for Pirate Monitor, YouTube is more scathing about its involvement in the lawsuit. The counterclaim makes various allegations about the conduct of the anti-piracy firm, concluding that that conduct demonstrates why Content ID access is not available to all. It accuses Pirate Monitor of setting up various anonymous accounts on YouTube, uploading snippets of films controlled by its clients, and then issuing takedown requests against those uploads.

Perhaps, but one could look at Pirate Monitor’s alleged actions as to why Content ID should be more widely available. It’s become another system that encourages ‘gaming’ from those left out of its tools. 

You probably know my opinion. The point isn’t that Schneider has the access — it’s that she’s beholden to a third party to get it. With that in mind, I’d say an artist who licenses music under Creative Commons has a better case. 

I’ve written previously about Kevin MacLeod, a musician who allows free use of his music in anyone’s videos.1This strategy has paid off as MacLeod has gotten quite a few paid music gigs based on the widespread appearance of his music. A third party will not represent him because he doesn’t want to make money off YouTube placements — there’s no income and no cut. But, he needs the protection Content ID provides. MacLeod has run into others downloading his music and illegitimately submitting it to a service like AdRev without his knowledge. The videos with MacLeod’s songs are then monetized against his will with the income going to some shadowy figure. 

There’s little that MacLeod and others like him can do when this happens. They can’t access Content ID, the third parties reject them for representation as there’s no income, and YouTube — as expected from a huge corporation — is slow to respond (if at all). MacLeod eventually got YouTube’s attention, but it took a long time repeatedly pleading with the company. YouTube’s eventual solution? They gave MacLeod direct access to Content ID. It’s that easy — YouTube should find a way to open up Content ID for all. 

An In-Store Music Mystery

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Last month, an episode of the podcast Reply All aired that included a music mystery. Brian, the protagonist, recorded a jazzy version of a Christmas song with his friends, burned a few CDs, and uploaded it to YouTube. After views (and listens) never broke double-digits, he forgot about the song. And then, months later, he hears his song playing over the speakers as he shops in a major grocery store chain.

It’s a fun episode, and you should listen to it before reading any further into this post. I’ll end up spoiling it for you. Here you go:

Interesting, eh? The mystery is unsolved. The first question is: how would anyone get ahold of the song? It’s verified that Brian or his friends did not distribute the song through a service like CD Baby. Someone would need the CD or, more likely, the ability to rip music from YouTube. Next: How did the song get into the grocery store? At first, it’s naïvely thought that an employee played the music, but major stores all use music services like Mood Media (who now own Muzak, which you’ve heard of). This is mostly for licensing and rights purposes — it saves the stores from having to individually clear the rights to play music in a commercial establishment.1This leads to a fascinating discussion in the podcast about how the services select music for in-store play. For example, a song’s tempo should resemble the rate a shopper is pushing a cart down an aisle. Seriously, listen to the podcast if you haven’t. But a service like Mood Media would only acquire music submitted to them. This submission could happen directly or through a distributor like CD Baby.

There’s also an Occam’s razor theory that Brian misheard the music in the store and mistook it for his song. He’s given some entertaining tests to find out how well he can identify music. Brian passes with flying colors — he’s got an exceptional ear.

There are other theories thrown about, like the unlikely idea that the music service is pirating Christmas songs to avoid paying royalties. When you think about it, that’s more trouble than it’s worth — a large company isn’t going to spend time trawling YouTube and ripping songs, and if caught, the penalties and reputational harm would be enormous.

The episode ends with a big shrug. The case of the errant Christmas song remains a mystery. The hosts thought through every possible theory, and each is flat-out wrong or unverifiable. 

But I have a theory. It’s a theory that’s not touched on in the episode. And, if Brian did hear his song, I bet I’m on to something. I wrote the Reply All team to let them know my idea. Here’s what I told them:

My guess is the song was indeed unscrupulously downloaded and put into circulation. But it wasn’t the music supplier who did this. The clue was when the representative asked if the song could be available from an aggregator like CD Baby.

Let me now give you two examples that will help illustrate my theory:

Check out this article about a ‘music artist’ grabbing songs that don’t have many plays, downloading them, and then releasing them as his own (via 5 Magazine). 

And on my blog, I wrote about Kevin MacLeod, who makes music and lets people use it for free in their YouTube videos in exchange for credit. But then someone downloaded his songs and, claiming to be him, registered them with YouTube’s Content ID. This unsavory person was able to monetize the videos that are using Kevin’s music.

So, here’s my theory: Someone is searching YouTube looking for Xmas songs with very low play counts. I’m sure there’s a lot of unreleased, amateur Christmas music on YouTube. And, the lower the play count, the less likely anyone uncovers this scheme. This individual then downloads the songs using a stream-ripper and then collects them into a Christmas ‘album.’ Then this ‘album’ is sent to a service like CD Baby or directly to an in-store music service. The ‘album’ is released under this individual’s name — not Brian’s — to get royalties and payments from places like major grocery store chains for plays.

That said, two factors do *not* support this theory. First, I played the song off the YouTube video for Shazam. A distributor like CD Baby would usually give the music to Shazam’s database. When I tried Shazam, it either could not identify the song or misidentified it. (There was one version of the same song that Shazam suggested that had a very similar piano style, but no drums or sax.)

Another factor is YouTube’s Content ID, as mentioned above. Like Shazam, most distributors would make their aggregated music available to Content ID. If that were the case, Brian’s original video would get flagged.

But we could be dealing with someone who does this kind of thing *a lot* and knows what they are doing. Some distributors will let the artist tell them which outlets to supply music to and which to exclude. I would guess CD Baby and Distrokid offer this option. So, if the individual who ripped this music is explicitly targeting in-store play outlets and the royalties from those, the distributor could be told only to give the music to in-store play music suppliers. In other words, no Spotify, no Shazam, no Content ID. Thus, there’s even less chance to discover this scheme.

The individual could also have a direct account with the in-store music supplier, bypassing normal distribution channels (and thus also Shazam and Content ID). If that’s the case, this person does this a lot — the in-store music services will only deal directly with labels and artists submitting content regularly. 

This secret person could be a ‘professional’ — supplying lots of unreleased holiday music ripped from YouTube, repeatedly played over the season (which, as noted in the podcast episode, is getting longer and longer), and collecting royalties. 

That’s my theory, but I suppose we’ll never know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Opening Up Content ID for Everyone

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Complete Music Update:

The eight Congress members who wrote to [Google CEO Sundar] Pachai last week acknowledged the benefits of Content ID, writing in their letter that “we appreciate Google’s efforts to combat the illegal distribution of content on YouTube”. However, they then said: “We are concerned that copyright holders with smaller catalogues of works cannot utilise” the copyright tools. […]

Expanding on this point, the Congress members’ letter goes on: “It has come to our attention that access to the Content ID system is only granted to companies that ‘own exclusive rights to a substantial body of original material that is frequently uploaded to the YouTube user community’. We are concerned that copyright holders with smaller catalogues of works cannot utilise Content ID, making it more difficult or impossible for them to effectively protect their copyright works from infringement and, ultimately, impacting their livelihoods”.

I’ve faced this issue as a music publisher. I’d rather directly submit my works to Content ID than through a third-party distributor, especially as many of our tracks are production music and not commercially released. I’ve reached out and received crickets.

YouTube’s requirement that an applicant’s catalog has to be already ‘frequently uploaded to the YouTube user community’ is a head-scratcher. Applicable music should be in the Content ID system in advance. If it takes multiple viral videos to get an acknowledgment from YouTube, then there’s money due to songwriters left on the table.

Prolific music producer Kevin MacLeod brings up another problem in his interview on 2 Girls 1 Podcast. MacLeod lets anyone use his music for free in videos as part of a Creative Commons license. As an independent music creator, he didn’t have direct access to Content ID. And using a third party for Content ID made no sense. Most of his music is not commercially available and, as anyone could use his music — no questions asked — there’s no money to be made on the distribution side.

The dilemma for MacLeod appeared when other people started claiming his music using Content ID through third-party distributors. That’s right — nefarious folks were seeing this unregistered music racking up views on YouTube and took advantage by registering it as their own.

Eventually, after repeated appeals to YouTube, MacLeod was able to work something out and get direct access to Content ID. But only after the nightmare scenario of video creators using his music, trusting there would be no issues, and then having their videos monetized or pulled by an unknown party.

I planned to set up a Creative Commons catalog for non-commercial user-generated content through my publishing company. But MacLeod’s story gives me cold feet. There’s no way I’m allowing our music used on YouTube without an assurance the rights won’t be questioned. Perhaps Google will heed Congress’s concerns and give rights-holders a choice — to use a third party for Content ID or go direct. That’s not so different than how SoundExchange operates. So, file this story under ‘fingers crossed.’