[Update: YouTube's PR team got back to us with some more information on the Content ID system. According to YouTube's help site, content matches for "so-called Royalty free production music libraries" -- see also: the music used in Party Hard -- must be routed to YouTube employees for a "manual review." We asked why the Party Hard Content ID matches went through if they were reviewed by a person rather than the site's automated system, but YouTube declined to comment.
Destructoid was also told that YouTube had implemented a team dedicated to Content ID that has allegedly resolved millions of claims and protected YouTube users from fraudulent claims. YouTube declined to tell us when the team was first implemented or comment on any specific examples of the team's success.
YouTube also clarified that a new version of the Content ID revenue system was in place, where revenue would be held on videos with a disputed Content ID claim. If the YouTube uploader disputes the claim within 5 days of the original claim, all revenue will be held from the first day of the Content ID match. After the first 5 days, revenue is held from whenever the dispute was first filed.
Although that all looks good on paper, the details of YouTube's Content ID dispute process falls more in line with the anecdotes I've heard from various YouTubers. If you want to dispute a Content ID match, here's how it goes. YouTubers can dispute the claim, at which point the claimant has 30 days to either release the claim (agree with you and drop the Content ID match), uphold the claim, or submit a Copyright Takedown Request, which essentially annihilates your channel with a Copyright Strike.
If they uphold the claim, you can appeal the upholding, which gives them another 30 days to either release the claim again, submit a delayed Copyright Takedown Request (which gives you 7 days to apologize and give up, so your channel isn't ruined with a strike), or submit a Copyright Takedown Request. If you get a copyright strike, then you must file a counter-notification, which gives the claimant 10 days to "provide [YouTube] with evidence that [the claimant] has initiated a court action to keep the content down."
And that's it folks, it couldn't be easier than that; multiple stages of arbitration, during which all revenue on the video is held by YouTube. Best-case scenario, the claimant gives up at stage one and you get your video back along with the revenue held during the process. Worst-case scenario, if you follow this process all the way to the end, you've missed out on 70 days of revenue (that's between four and five paychecks, for those of you on a biweekly payment system) and the nature of American copyright law means there's a good chance your channel will be stuck with a copyright strike. So, yeah. I'm happy to admit that I was wrong -- your money isn't completely lost during the Content ID appeal process, but I didn't know that appealing Content ID claims gave the copyright holder the chance to hit you with a copyright strike. That's not much better.
Again, I must stress, YouTube gave a blanket "decline to comment" when asked for examples of the Content ID team's success.]
Video game YouTubers and indie developers exist in a sort of symbiotic circle. The YouTubers are always looking for the next underground viral hit (Five Nights, Hello Neighbor, Minecraft, et al), and indie developers could earn a strong following off those initial five minutes of fame, turning that into a successful follow-up game or even just a long tail for their primary release. As is the case with the mainstream press and developers of all stripes, that back-and-forth is understood but generally unspoken. But if one side goes off the reservation, like when a game developer starts hitting YouTubers with Content ID claims or when a YouTuber demands money in exchange for coverage, that never works out well for both sides.
In the case of Party Hard, a game from Ukranian developers Pinokl Games and published by indie label TinyBuild, the conflict between developer and YouTuber was not really instigated by either side. For once, this is not a case of bitter game developers trying to censor unflattering criticism. It's just a case of YouTube's Content ID system scraping up against the realities of independent game development, with Let's Players' caught in the middle.
via destructoid http://ift.tt/2lZ1UjZ