YouTube has been experiencing an upsurge in copyright and trademark claims over the last few months, which has lead to a large amount of dissatisfaction from content creators on the platform. It looks like the content streaming company has listened, and has announced that it is looking into the problem; and has also established a dedicated team to improve the quality of its actions.
To say that the YouTube copyright claim system is flawed is to be extremely kind. In its current state, the automated flagging system does not discriminate about how the content is used. This has lead to accusations that content owners (like movie studios and music labels) using the system to silence criticism of their work. Bad reviews on Yotube are simply flagged under copyright claims and the video is automatically removed.
It isn’t just bad reviews of movies or video games either. Music labels have been known to simply slap copyright claims on anything remotely connected to songs they own. These include song reviews and music that just happens to be playing in the background while people stream gameplay videos.
Content creators have been furious at YouTube for not allowing these claims and simply bowing down to studios and labels. However, the company has now promised to take action to restore videos with false copyright claims. The message from Youtube’s Policy Team also apologised to the community for making so many mistakes, and has said that the team will strive to do better by them.
Of course, only time will tell if YouTube is willing to take action against large corporations who are far too trigger happy with their copyright claims. The concept of fair use has come under scrutiny of late, mostly because content owners do not seem to understand what it actually means.
[Source: YouTube Help Forum]
