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      YouTube Content ID Copyright Claims Increased 25% in a Year

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Thursday, 29 February - 21:28 · 2 minutes

    content id logo To protect copyright holders, YouTube regularly removes, disables, or demonetizes videos that contain allegedly infringing content.

    For years, little was known about the scope of these copyright claims, but that changed two years ago when the streaming platform published its first-ever transparency report.

    These reports, which were initially published as pdf files, showed that roughly 99% of all copyright claims on YouTube are handled through the Content ID system. Since many claims are automated, participation is restricted to a few thousand vetted rightsholders to limit abuse.

    YouTube’s Revamped Transparency Report

    The Content ID system remains dominant and the number of reported claims continues to rise. YouTube recently released the most recent data on a new dedicated website , which confirms many of the earlier trends.

    The latest data show that YouTube is edging closer to a billion copyright claims received every six months, with 980 million Content ID claims in the first half of 2023. These claims were sent by less than 9,000 rightsholder representatives and are good for more than 99% of all copyright actions on the video platform.

    Content ID Transparency

    content-id h1 2023

    The vast majority of claims were automated with just 0.4% submitted manually. This means that millions of daily copyright actions are handled without human review.

    More Claims, More Money

    These are large numbers, but they’re also presented without context. Only if we start to compare them with previous years does a clear pattern become visible. The 980 million number represents a 25% increase compared to the same period a year earlier, during which 757 million Content ID claims were processed.

    One might conclude that rightsholders are frustrated by the increasing level of infringement reported on YouTube. Some probably are, but the Content ID system comes with financial opportunities too.

    Rather than simply making unauthorized videos unavailable, rightsholders can choose to monetize them instead. With 90% of all Content ID claims now monetized, it’s far and away the most popular option among rightsholders.

    As it turns out, YouTube has found a rather effective way of monetizing copyright infringement. As of December 2022, the video platform had paid out over $9 billion to rightsholders after running ads alongside videos monetized by Content ID.

    9 billion

    Top-Heavy

    The numbers reported above only apply to the Content ID system. While that’s responsible for nearly all copyright actions on YouTube, those who are not part of the system must use other options.

    For example, non-qualifying rightsholders can use the publicly available webform, as 198,512 people did in the first half of last year. Together, these people flagged about five million problematic copyright issues.

    The Copyright Match tool, which is accessible to nearly three million YouTube channels, added another 2.7 million copyright actions. The breakdown of all YouTube copyright actions shows that Content ID claims are by far the most used.

    youtube content

    The above shows that a small number of rightsholder representatives are responsible for most YouTube copyright actions. In total, more than 310,000 rightsholders reported issues, but just 4,828 were part of the Content ID system.

    These 4,828 Content ID members triggered more than 99% of all activity, averaging more than 200,000 copyright actions per rightsholder. The remaining rightsholders reported an average of 37 copyright issues in the same period.

    YouTube’s transparency report lags behind a little, but it will be interesting to see if the number of claims in the second half of 2023 surpassed a billion. That data will likely follow later this year.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      YouTube Copyright ID Claims Reach a New High

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 10 July, 2023 - 06:34 · 4 minutes

    sad tube To protect copyright holders, YouTube regularly removes, disables, or demonetizes videos that allegedly contain infringing content.

    While anyone can send a DMCA notice to the platform, most copyright actions come from the Content ID system that can only be used by a select group of copyright holders.

    For many years the number of claims rightsholders made on YouTube was unknown. That changed two years ago when the video platform launched its first-ever transparency report . Since then, the number of claims has steadily continued to rise.

    826 Million

    YouTube’s latest transparency report reveals that during the second half of last year, rightsholders claimed more than 826 million videos on YouTube. This is the highest figure since YouTube started reporting these figures and a 9% uplift over the same period last year when 759 million videos were flagged.

    youtube content id

    This increase in claims happened even though fewer copyright holders actively used the Content ID system. Entities utilizing the system dropped from 4,840 in the second half of 2021 to 4,646 during the same period last year.

    Applying some basic math to these figures reveals that copyright holders who actively used Content ID claimed over 177,000 videos on average over the six-month period.

    Money Machine

    While rightsholders are typically unhappy when people use their content without permission, YouTube has managed to reframe this problem as an opportunity. Instead of using the Content ID system to take videos offline, there’s also an option to monetize them instead.

    The concept of ‘monetizing’ piracy initially sounded a bit odd but the system has transformed into a healthy revenue stream opportunity. During the most recent reporting period, rightsholders chose to monetize over 90% of all Content ID claims.

    This positive take on tackling infringement seems to be quite profitable as well. During 2022, copyright holders were paid around $1.5 billion as a direct result of their Content ID claims. Since the Content ID system was launched several years ago, $9 billion in ‘claimed’ revenue was paid out to copyright holders.

    Million Dollar Abuse

    The revenue opportunities also come with a downside – scammers. In one recent case, two men set up a company to find and claim unmonetized music. Through a third-party partner with access to the Content ID system, the pair generated over $24 million in revenue from YouTube by falsely claiming ownership.

    The abuse didn’t go unnoticed and the repercussions were severe. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted the duo and last week the first defendant was sentenced to more than five years in prison .

    Intentional abuse schemes of this magnitude are relatively rare for Copyright ID claims. Across YouTube’s broader set of copyright tools, we see that YouTube regularly takes action against abusers.

    “We take abuse of our tools seriously — we terminate tens of thousands of accounts each year that attempt to abuse our copyright tools,” the company explains.

    In addition to money-driven schemes, copyright takedown abuse can also have a political or competitive angle.

    “Sometimes this takes the form of political actors attempting to censor political speech or companies stifling criticism of their products or practices. Other times individuals try to use our copyright processes to bully other creators or to remove videos they see as competing for the same audience.”

    99.5% Automated

    Aside from intentional abuse, errors can also be triggered by automation. Nearly all Content ID claims (99.5%) are processed automatically through fingerprinting technology. In these cases, potentially-infringing content is flagged by technology with limited human oversight.

    automated

    Automation saves YouTube and rightsholders a lot of resources but can also be a potential source of abuse and errors. This is one of the reasons why just a small group of verified and responsible rightsholders can join the program.

    Despite this hurdle, mistakes happen. YouTube specifically highlights an example where videos of the historic landing of NASA’s Curiosity on Mars were taken down globally. A TV company claimed the public domain footage as their own.

    “In Content ID the impact is multiplied due to its automated nature; one bad reference file can impact hundreds or even thousands of videos across the site.

    “In one highly publicized instance, a news channel uploaded public domain footage from NASA of a Mars rover and ended up making inappropriate claims against all other news channels and creators using the same footage, even against the NASA channel itself.”

    These mistakes are not caused by the automated processes themselves but are triggered when bad reference files are added to the Content ID database.

    YouTube notes that on the whole, manual Content ID claims are more than twice as likely to be disputed than automated ones (0.94% vs. 0.43%). Since there are 200 times more automated claims, these still account for the bulk of all disputes.

    —-

    A copy of YouTube’s latest transparency report, covering the second half of 2022, is available here (pdf)

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      Reddit Banned 5,853 Users for Excessive Copyright Infringement Last Year

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 10 April, 2023 - 20:13 · 2 minutes

    reddit-logo Every day, millions of people from all over the world submit posts, comments, and other content to Reddit.

    The social news and discussion platform has been around for more than 17 years and over time its popularity has only increased.

    With Reddit about to reach adulthood, the site has certain responsibilities. In recent years, these have included the publication of a transparency report documenting how various legal policies affect the site’s content.

    The report shows how Reddit’s content policy leads to the deletion of millions of posts per week, including spam, hateful content, sexualization of minors, prohibited goods, and harassment. As a result, more than five million user accounts were banned last year, either temporarily or permanently.

    DMCA Notices and Takedowns Increase

    The number is significant, especially when taking into account that it doesn’t include copyright-related complaints. Reddit’s responses to DMCA takedown notices and the site’s handling of excessive copyright infringement are listed separately in the “legal removals” section.

    These figures have been steadily increasing, and last year was no exception, according to the transparency report.

    “In 2022, we saw a 43% increase over the previous year in the total number of copyright notices received, a 126% increase in the amount of content reported for removal, and a 97% increase in the amount of content removed,” Reddit reports.

    Compared to other content removals, copyright actions are relatively modest. In 2022, Reddit received 254,632 copyright notices, in which rightsholders asked the site to remove 1,668,452 pieces of content. Of these requests, close to 80% resulted in items being removed.

    These numbers are relatively small compared to the dozens of millions of ‘content policy’ removals. However, they carry a different weight as the content is reported by third-party actors, instead of Reddit mods or bots.

    User and Subreddit Bans

    This increase is not limited to the copyrighted links and content removed, subreddits are affected too. Several popular Reddit communities have to jump through hoops to avoid getting banned but not all manage to do so. In 2022, Reddit booted 3,215 subreddits for excessive copyright infringement.

    According to Reddit’s transparency report, this is a 105% increase year over year but this percentage seems a bit high, as the site already reported 2,625 subreddit bans last year. That said, the trend is definitely up. If we go back to 2020, ‘only’ 514 subreddits were banned.

    A similar trend emerges for users banned for excessive copyright infringement. In 2020, 303 users were banned, increasing to 2,813 users in 2021, reaching 5,853 last year. That’s close to a twentyfold increase in three years.

    Fan-Notices

    Not all DMCA notices are accepted as true. As mentioned earlier, close to 80% are rejected for various reasons. This can simply mean that some information is missing, but there are also more notable rejections.

    For example, Reddit reports that several of the notices received didn’t appear to come from the legitimate rightsholder, but from fans instead.

    “The notices contained clear signals that they were submitted by the creators’ fans, who did not have express authorization from the creators to do so. A copyright notice must come from either the copyright owner or an expressly designated agent, so Reddit declined to process these notices.”

    All in all, it’s clear that Reddit has its hands full complying with DMCA takedown notices. With billions of pieces of user-generated content, this isn’t a major surprise. That said, it’s good to keep an eye on these developments with help from Reddit’s transparency reports.

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      GitHub: DMCA Repo Shutdowns Up 31% in 2022 But There’s No Need to Panic

      news.movim.eu / TorrentFreak · Monday, 20 February, 2023 - 08:15 · 4 minutes

    github-2 GitHub’s user search page currently reports a healthy 108 million users but that still means a few billion internet users are missing out.

    While notable alternatives exist , GitHub is a goldmine of information, ideas, and free education. That’s before considering the mountain of open source software available for download.

    From those building promising software from scratch to those who just love to tinker, GitHub has something for everyone. But like all sites hosting user-generated content, GitHub regularly finds itself in the middle of third-party copyright disputes in need of a solution.

    Software that may appear problematic at first glance cause almost no problems for Github. Powerful torrent site search tools, indexing software, and automatic content downloaders are rarely an issue. The same can’t be said for dedicated movie and TV show downloading apps advertised precisely for that purpose.

    Other pieces of code exist in contested gray areas, with the 2020 takedown of youtube-dl perhaps the best example. That matter is effectively ongoing, with GitHub making a stand for the future freedoms of developers in the appeal of Yout vs. RIAA .

    Since GitHub publishes all DMCA notices publicly, everyone gets an opportunity to see the law in action, beginning to end.

    GitHub Transparency Report 2022

    In 2022, GitHub received and processed 2,321 valid DMCA notices, an increase of almost 27% over the 1,828 notices reported for 2021 . For reasons we’ll outline later, this shouldn’t be considered a major issue.

    All DMCA notices for 2022 are available for viewing in GitHub’s DMCA repo , covering instances where GitHub took content down or asked users to remove infringing content instead.

    Asking GitHub users to remove or modify content can help to prevent an entire repo from being taken offline – particularly useful when other projects rely on the original repo’s code.

    Processing Erroneous, Abusive, and Other Notices

    Thanks to transparency reporting in general (Google is the largest contributor by volume), abuse of the DMCA takedown system is regularly exposed. Most commonly, fraudulent notices are used to wipe out legitimate content.

    In other instances, DMCA notices may go further than the law allows, contain errors, or even massive blunders. The targets of those notices can object via a DMCA counter notice. If the notice sender does not initiate timely legal action in response to a counter notice, disputed content is reinstated.

    Some notices may present an opportunity to fix problems less formally, and GitHub can sometimes play a role in helping the parties reach an understanding, including by the sender retracting the complaint. Reversals apply when a seemingly valid DMCA notice is processed by GitHub but then invalidated by subsequent information.

    “[W]e received and processed 36 valid counter notices, one reversal, and seven retractions, for a total of 44 notices that resulted in content being restored in 2022. We did not receive notice of any legal action filed related to a DMCA takedown request during this reporting period,” GitHub reports.

    In any event, GitHub seems to work harder at resolving issues than other major platforms, which is a plus in a widely abused takedown system.

    Anti-Circumvention Complaints

    Narrowly-defined exceptions aside, software designed to circumvent technological protection measures, in place to protect underlying copyrighted content, is likely to violate section 1201 of the DMCA . Manufacturing, importing or offering these tools to the public is prohibited so if GitHub receives a complaint, a response is required.

    As the continuing youtube-dl controversy demonstrates, a middle ground exists where rightsholders believe they have a clear anti-circumvention claim but others completely disagree . As a result, GitHub routinely scrutinizes claims made under section 1201.

    When rightsholders file an anti-circumvention complaint with GitHub, the platform seeks additional information before taking action against a repository. Complainants are asked to supply information on the technical measures , explain how they effectively control access to copyrighted material, while showing that the project on GitHub circumvents those measures.

    A unique feature of anti-circumvention notices is the lack of an official counter notice. That may explain why so many rightsholders have used them in place of regular takedown notices over the past several years. GitHub has certainly seen an increase.

    “The proportion of takedown notices that allege circumvention increased significantly in 2022 compared to 2021,” GitHub reports.

    In 2022, 15.7% of all notices sent to GitHub alleged circumvention, compared to just 5% in 2021. In 2020, similar allegations appeared in just 3% of notices.

    Back in 2018, less than 2% of notices carried a circumvention claim. GitHub says it’s conducting an investigation to shine more light on the growing popularity of these notices.

    Content Taken Down Overall

    In 2022, GitHub took down 25,501 projects , including repositories, gists, and GitHub Pages sites. After processing counter notices, retractions, and reversals, 114 projects were subsequently reinstated. The final figure for 2022 was 25,387 projects permanently taken down, a 31% increase over the 19,276 projects reported in 2021. GitHub appears unconcerned.

    “The number 25,387 may sound like a lot of projects, but it’s less than .02% of the more than 200 million repositories on GitHub in 2022,” the Microsoft company notes.

    Receiving no complaints for 99.98% of uploaded content is quite an achievement but for some rightsholders, that’s still not good enough.

    In notices sent to Google, they demand the removal of Github URLs from search results. They fail to achieve that goal 90% of the time showing once again that if content needs to be removed, the only effective method is targeting the source.

    GitHub’s Transparency Report 2022 can be found here

    From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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      China Roundup: TikTok receives most government requests from India and US

      news.movim.eu / TechCrunch · Sunday, 5 January, 2020 - 16:00 · 3 minutes

    Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch’s China Roundup, a digest of recent events shaping the Chinese tech landscape and what they mean to people in the rest of the world. This week, TikTok, currently the world’s hottest social media app, welcomed the new decade by publishing its first transparency report as it encounters rising scrutiny from regulators around the world.

    TikTok tries to demystify

    The report, which arrived weeks after it tapped a group of corporate lawyers to review its content moderation policy, is widely seen as the short video app’s effort to placate the U.S. government. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, is currently probing the app for possible national security risks.

    TikTok is owned by Beijing-based tech upstart ByteDance and has been rapidly gaining popularity away from its home turf, especially in the U.S. and India. As of November, it had accumulated a total of 1.5 billion downloads on iOS and Android devices, according to data analytics firm Sensor Tower , although how many materialized into active users is unknown.

    The transparency report reveals the number of requests TikTok received from local regulators during the first half of 2019. Such orders include government requests to access user information and remove content from the platform. India topped the list with 107 total requests filed, followed by the U.S. with 79 requests and Japan at 35.

    The numbers immediately sparked debates over the noticeable absence of China among the list of countries that had submitted requests. This could be because TikTok operates as a separate app called Douyin in China, where it claimed to have more than 320 million daily active users (in Chinese) as of last July.

    TikTok has taken multiple measures to ease suspicions of international markets where it operates, claiming that it stores data of U.S. users in the U.S. and that the app would not remove videos even at the behest of Beijing’s authority.

    Whether skeptics are sold on these promises remains to be seen. Meanwhile, one should not overlook the pervasive practice of self-censorship among China’s big tech.

    “Chinese internet companies know so well where the government’s red line is that their self-regulation might even be stricter than what the government actually imposes, so it’s not impossible that [the TikTok report] showed zero requests from China,” a person who works at a Chinese video streaming platform suggested to me.

    It’s worth revisiting why TikTok has caused a big stir on various fronts. Besides its nationality as a Chinese-owned app and breathtaking rise, the app presents a whole new way of creating and consuming information that better suits smartphone natives. It’s been regarded as a threat to Facebook and compared to Youtube, which is also built upon user-generated content. However, TikTok’s consumers are much more likely to be creators as well, thanks to lower barriers to producing and sharing videos on the platform, venture capitalist David Rosenthal of Wave Capital observed . That’s a big engagement driver for the app.

    Another strength of TikTok, seemingly trivial at first sight, is the way it displays content. Videos are shown vertically, doing away the need to flip a phone. In a company blog post (in Chinese) on Douyin’s development, ByteDance recounted that most short-video apps budding in 2016 were built for horizontal videos and required users to pick from a list of clips in the fashion of traditional video streaming sites. Douyin, instead, surfaces only one video at a time, full-screen, auto-played and recommended by its well-trained algorithms. What “baffled” many early employees and interviewees turned out to be a game-changing user experience in the mobile internet age.

    Douyin’s ally and enemy

    A recent change in Douyin’s domestic rival Kuaishou has brought attention to the intricate links between China’s tech giants. In late December, video app Kuaishou removed the option for users to link e-commerce listings from Taobao, an Alibaba marketplace. Both Douyin and Kuaishou have been exploring e-commerce as a revenue stream, and each has picked its retail partners. While Kuaishou told media that the suspension is due to a “system upgrade,” its other e-commerce partners curiously remain up and running.

    Left: Douyin lets creators add a “shop” button to posts. Right: The clickable button is linked to a Taobao product page.

    Some speculate that the Beijing-based company could be distancing itself from Alibaba and moving closer to Tencent, Alibaba’s nemesis and a majority shareholder in Kuaishou. Yunfeng Capital, a venture firm backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, has also funded Kuaishou but holds a less significant equity stake. That Douyin has long been working with Alibaba on e-commerce might have also been a source of discordance between Kuaishou and Alibaba.