Your Videos Are Flagged For Copyright Infringement And It's All My Fault
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It's important that this information be available to those out there who may be a bit confused as to who is to blame for a majority of the Content ID claims occurring.
I work as a game composer and am only one of many who have fallen victim to some wildly inappropriate obfuscation of intent on behalf of third-party firms who did not appropriately communicate how they intended to help us.
It's my fault nevertheless for not reading the fine print. So I apologize. But more usefully, I offer you this perspective from the other side of the issue:
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To be fair, its all my fault: I signed up. I failed to read the fine print that may have eloquently explained just how this miracle would be accomplished. I assumed that the process would be invisible, or at the very least private, for my clients and those affected.
Instead, YouTubes innocent-until-proven-guilty approach threw a spotlight on everything, putting my clients in the nasty position of looking like they had unlawfully used my music.
Certainly, some people out there dont have licenses for using my music in their videos, but I have no quarrel with them. Im too small for their trespass to be making a meaningful impact on my income, and frankly Im pleased that they found the music enjoyable enough to feature.
In other words, this entire situation seems to have all been the result of poorly communicated strategies, and frankly YouTube doesnt need more bad press after the comment change. I have no problems with that, but others have raised valid discussion points more eloquently than I.
What concerns me is this flagging mess, because its explicitly the result of myself and hundreds of other music creators grasping at a will-o-the-wisp in the tangled woods of making a living from art.
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Let me be honest with you: its a matter of principle. I didnt sign up thinking Id be paying rent from this money. The whole system is designed for far bigger fish than I to profit.
I signed up because, as an artist, I am entitled to attribution whenever my work is used, especially when that use is without a license. I welcome people using and enjoying my music, just as I myself enjoy the videos they create with them. I just want people to be able to find out who wrote it.
But this brute force method is not what I had in mind, and until YouTube wrangles its partners into a methodology thats less thermonuclear, I need to forfeit that ad income and align myself with my clients, my listeners, and my admired game & video producers.
Because I dont make money from ads. I make money from writing good music for good people, and maintaining happy relationships with all of them.
So to those of you who have received notice on your videos as a result of my music: I apologize. Sincerely.
Chances are, many of my fellow composers are in a very similar position of having unwittingly contributed to this blitz, and while I cant speak for all of them Im confident that most of us did not intend for it to go like this.