Youtube to manually review some claims

Google-owned YouTube is set to alter its algorithms to reduce invalid copyright infringement claims on its video-sharing site and soon it will begin manually reviewing some claims instead of the system automatically blocking disputed footage.

One month before, the First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was wrongly flagged by algorithms just after it aired. YouTube, the official streaming partner of the Democratic National Convention, had automatically put a copyright blocking message on the live-stream video of the event shortly after it ended.

Thabet Alfishawi, the rights management product manager for YouTube, addressing the issue of false positives and outright abuse of the system, said, “We’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed.”

The procedure till now.

Five years ago YouTube adopted a filtering system, which enabled rights holders to upload music and videos they own to a “fingerprinting” database. When YouTube account holders upload their videos, the algorithm known as Content ID scans new uploads against the copyright database for matches.If a full or partial match is detected, the alleged rights holder can have the video automatically removed, or it can place advertising on the video and make money every time somebody clicks on the video.

But if Content ID over-matches or a unauthorized person manages to feed the filter content it doesn’t own, a YouTube user could see her video hijacked through a false copyright claim because Content ID had largely functioned on auto-pilot.

The new rules that were announced yesterday, require the alleged rights holder to abandon the claim or file an official take-down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if the uploader challenges the match. 

“Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute,” Alfishawi said. “When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.”

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Garcia registers copyright for “Innocence of Muslims”

After making an unsuccessful attempt of last week to convince a California state judge to order YouTube to remove the movie trailer, Cindy Lee Garcia, the actress in the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims” refiled her case in federal court on Wednesday. In the Wednesday's filing, Garcia added copyright claims to her suit of unfair business practices, fraud and slander.

She also demands the YouTube to take down the 14-minute trailer for the film. According to her pleadings in the suit, it is stipulated that YouTube cannot couch itself in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because the company did not remove the video, even though the copyright owner, Garcia, demanded such removal. She’s also suing the hundreds of people who have reposted the video on YouTube.

A representative for YouTube didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

This is a strange case, wherein, someone is trying to prove that by acting in a film and “authoring” a performance, she is entitled to a slice of the copyright. Typically, actors do not bring forth this type of lawsuit because, especially in Hollywood, they sign release forms before working. Such an agreement grants producers various rights. 

Some of those rights include freedom from libel claims. Such rights disallow actors from attempting to halt both the distribution and presentation of a film.

Garcia’s lawyer, says that the only thing her client signed was a document that would authorize Garcia’s participation in the film on the Internet Movie Database, a film content site. 

Prior to re-filing the lawsuit, Armenta registered Garcia’s performance at the U.S. Copyright Office. In her registration, Garcia noted that she delivered “a dramatic performance and it was fixed to film,” versus a work specifically made to hire, and thus she became a copyright holder. 

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