My work as an unconventional classical artist and teacher is being undermined by absurd copyright claims from big companies. In this video, I speak up for my rights.
Very sorry you've had to suffer this kind of treatment, Phil. It must be very dispiriting. I wish you every success in getting these companies to see what an inexplicable and damaging mistake they are making
I, for one, truly appreciate your presence on YoutTube. Your music is truly beautiful and your well-grounded approach is refreshing. If RU-vid doesn't work out for you, I will gladly watch your videos elsewhere. Thank you for what you do.
Phil, I hope you don't let this get you down. You are a true artist and very gifted, and much appreciated by your audience. The corporatocracy that many of us live in must be pushed back against or they will stifle everything creative and beautiful with their quest for power and profit.
Thank you so much! Well, the way human society is plagued by destructive, exploitative, ruthless behaviour gets me down at times - I've lived with the fantasy of going off grid in the back of my mind for years. But ultimately, I do what I do for love more than anything else. So that keeps me connected to the world!
The reason you are getting copyright strikes for playing public domain works is that, even though there is no longer any copyright on the music score, any modern performance of same can be copyrighted. That is referred to as a mechanical copyright. The algorithms used by YT are not sophisticated enough to distinguish one performance of the work from any other. Your only option is to challenge the strike and be explicit that the performance is yours alone and not that of a contemporary artist playing the same piece and hope that your explanation is accepted (good luck with that). I ran into a similar problem some years ago when I posted audio restorations of 78 rpm records (on which the mechanical copyright had expired). I was challenged on those. Apparently, some company had their own commercial restorations of the same original recordings and the algorithm notified them of my posting. I was able to have the posting accepted but the hassle was so great that I stopped posting audio only performances on YT and just went to SoundCloud. I haven't had any such problems on that platform but I realize that doesn't help you. Have you considered writing a letter to the CEO of the offending company and explaining how abusive their actions are?
I know how the mechanical rights confusion can be used for obfuscation of the actual legal position , but legally, the rights to my recording and performance are 100% my own!
@@PhilBestMusic Well, of course, I never implied otherwise. That isn't the issue. The issue is trying to convince a deaf ear of that fact. There really isn't any confusion about a mechanical copyright. It either exists or it doesn't. In my previous comment I neglected to mention that, when I was making appeals against similar bogus claims on YT, I also noted that, not only was my posting not violating anyone's copyright, that falsely claiming any such infringement could be interpreted as fraud in a court of law.
Sorry to hear that. This happened a lot to many recently. As I already commented elsewhere, this has EVERYTHING to do with YT's crappy way of dealing with copyright. They do not require evidence from the claimant of holding any rights, and they even grant them the power of deciding over our disputes. This has been going on for too many years. If that's not madness, I don't know what is. I could have claimed that video, for that matter. Either we all unite and speak out, and do something, or this goes on forever.
I don't remember if it was live, but it was surely public domain pieces played by the channel owner, not commercial recordings. I'll have to look into my history. I'll get back to you soon.@@PhilBestMusic
@@PhilBestMusic it happened to me several times, this is why I deleted everything I had on YT besides one horrible performance. You might remember that I told you to quit YT back in 2020... more details in a dedicated comment
@@PhilBestMusic Rick Beato is the expert on this matter, he has made films about it, and either has already or soon will be speaking in Congress about AI copyright.
Okay so let me elaborate more on some hints that I gave in previous comments. First, some context: people can post on YT copyrighted work because Alphabet (then called Google) made agreements with the recording labels. To allow that, *in exchange* Google is paying the labels *lots* of money, which they get from advertising. As you have seen from your revenue, the money you get from advertising is pennies (if you are lucky), so Google can make this arrangement only because YT is *huge*. Only when you multiply those almost-but-not-exactly zero amounts by huge numbers of visitors and viewers you get a decent revenue. The context above is essential to understand the key point: the revenue is so small, that there is NOBODY EVER watching videos, making copyright claims, accepting the challenge or making the strikedown requests. Not even for viral videos! It is all automatic, programmed and in the way to allow the copyright "holders" to literally make "money for nothing". Google does not give a s*** about your work, let alone about fairness of the process, they care only about the platform as a whole. Individual revenue per video is so small that even at minimum wage, having somebody watching your video or talking to the copyright holder is a huge loss of money, even if only for 0.01% of the copyright claims. As such, they NEVER do it. It's all software (algorithms as they say, but as somebody who has studied algorithms in computer science I can't use that word for that meaning, because it's too sloppy). Sometimes the software accepts your challenges, sometimes it doesn't. With those copyright stuff, you are literally "playing poker online" with Alphabet's computers. This has happened to me several times, always with out-of-copyright work that I was playing live, and very sloppily. You know how bad I used to play, there is no chance that any human being would make a copyright claim of that crap, literally (find me on vimeo if you don't believe me). A computer, doesn't care, just sees some vague similarity with the registered copyright work.... and then the "playing poker online" starts. Unlike you, for me most of the time they did *not* accept my challenges, until I grew tired and left the platform, deleting what I had uploaded but one tiny thing (don't even remember why I left it there). I hope you will leave too, so I can completely quit this utterly broken place and follow you wherever other place you decide to go. All the best!
I know that machines are doing everything here. And to say that they're sloppy is an understatement. Scanning digital audio material for a match would be easy. Is it sloppy or almost clever that these machines can quickly find very different performances of the same music and slap a claim without there needing to be a definite match? I wonder if you've ever heard about the Joyce Hatto scandal a few years ago... Human beings failed to hear what machines could have picked up so easily. So the human element here, that I feel is important to mention, is the policy decision to keep the system running in this way. Is it broken that it doesn't serve users well or is it working perfectly in service of the corporate agenda? I can't leave RU-vid right now. I'd need some visibility on another platform first - perhaps Vimeo, although they are becoming more expensive, it seems. I think right now this common issue needs some voice, it needs to be a story. That's the only hope to effect any change. Hence my decision to do this uncharacteristic piece. I may attempt to spread it further afield. All ideas welcome! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your supportive words! Thank you!
@@PhilBestMusic I wish you the best and truly hope you can achieve a change. I am not holding my breath, though, this has been a very longstanding issues and they have expressed no intention to even *look* at the thing, let alone admit it is a problem, and I'd say forget about finding a solution. In the grand scheme of things, classical music is a tiny niche of YT, and people doing their own work/arrangements are a niche of the niche. Plus, YT has no incentive to consider the thing, because if they do, they risk alienating their main stakeholders (the big ones with the copyright), which may pull out of the deal or increase their financial requests. On the other hand, if they upset people like you what do they risk? Absolutely nothing, at most you could leave the platform, which with your small footprint they would not care much, but even worse you sadly are locked and can't even leave. Typical corporate strategy, I've seen it happening many other times in different industries in my life. Since I've been so negative and I do not intend to let you down, let me repeat that I truly wish you the best and really hope you can achieve a change. Perhaps one way could be if you and many others join forces and bring forward a class action or something like that, since apparently that's one thing that they do hear (see EU lawsuits against them). Unfortunately I have not collected the contacts of the people who have been affected. The only one which I remember from the top of my mind is ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-l9P-LdJVDp8.html (and they apparently were also nudged to delete the comments in response of mine, but from what I wrote there you can probably guess how the conversation went).
Thank you! It's fine! I'm well aware of my relative helplessness in this situation being realistic (some would say pessimistic!) by nature. Some kind of class action would be marvellous but I guess there'd need to be a lot of voices behind that for it to be remotely possible. Anyway, the story is being told here. Maybe that's all that's possible. We must keep pointing our fingers at bad behaviour even if nothing happens. All the wonderful articles, books and documentaries that uncover gross injustice or corruption which just continues anyway! That's the world we live in!
This is very wrong indeed. Very sorry you have to deal with this. I value your playing and insights greatly. Realistically most music RU-vidrs get this kind of ludicrous strikes. But it's wrong, it's an outrage. But do keep at it! It's your and our passion!
This is very disappointing. Your take on music is wonderful and I love your videos. It's a shame that you have to stand up to the google giant, it's just an unwelcome distraction from what we all know you want to do.
Really sorry to hear you’ve also become a victim of this automated bullying. It seems that pretty much everybody who does enough streaming has to deal with it :-/
Sorry to hear that your videos/performances doesn't deserve this I'm also wondering why they did this to you since your performances are very original by the way the only way is to speak up and to defend that you haven't done any of illegal copyright claim issues I hope this issue will end and keep up the good work sir
Thanks very much! The system has gone haywire, it seems! You're quite right, all we can do is find the courage to use our voices. It's a noisy world out there though!
Since fraudulent copyright claims seem to be proliferating and RU-vid doesn't want to know or care enough to protect their content creators maybe it's time for a RU-vid creators Union to bring lawsuits against the organisations making bogus claims. Unity is strength and if you guys don't fight for your rights you will lose them.
How do we align ourselves? With the side who's agenda is totalitarian, global, corporate government - or the side who supports individual freedoms and sovereign nations? This sounds silly when talking about music, but it's coming at us from ALL angles. This is a small taste of what is to come if the WEF and WHO get their way. When wrong think, wrong speak, and "wrong music" become a part of our daily lives. Let's all think about that next time we vote and/or protest.
@@PhilBestMusicthe clear solution is heavy penalties for false claims. The recording industry lobby is not in favour of that unfortunately. Love your channel. Thanks for your incredibly inspiring playing and videos!
Thanks so much! I agree completely - false claims should have consequences. Lets keep hoping that some sense will prevail -no this issue and so many much graver issues in the world, eh?!
@@PhilBestMusic Yes, and we begin to realize this most profoundly when it begins to affect us personally. Keep on bringing beautiful music into this troubled world! 🙂❤🎹🎶
I feel with you, it's ridiculous that somebody claims to own musical heritage... it's almost like claiming to own the rights on the english language. I watched the video and liked it, found it a sweet idea. Keep on but yea probably not with classical pieces your music is worth it aswell :)
Thanks! But to be clear, they're not claiming to own the music itself (they couldn't!). They're claiming to own the performance and recording rights, or more specifically claiming that the recording and performance were not done by me but by an artist that they represent. They're claiming I've used a recording! That's why I mentioned finger-syncing!! It's truly hilarious - almost!. I will definitely keep on recording classical music.
Oh yes I got it, but to me this seems just like a way to bypass that they can't own the rights on the music. So they make it own the rights on the performance, which is kind of the same in my humble view. :)
They do own the rights for a performance and recording of this piece - and that's right and proper. But they do not own the rights to MY recording and performance! When you perform and/or record music by a living composer, there are royalties due to you for the work of creating the performance and producing the recording, and separately also to the composer for their work of creating the composition. This is how it should be! People should all be paid and acknowledged for their work. The composer's rights are not part of my particular issue because Debussy's rights expired a while ago!
@@PhilBestMusic haha Phil yes yes I got it, don't wanna turn this into an argument. Just for the fun of explaining ourselves to each other let me elaborate a bit further since I haven't seemed to make my point properly clear. What I meant is, there are historical artists who can not be exploited officially by companies anymore because they are long long dead and gone and their music turned into a public good. Yet there are they who find a way around it by claiming particular performance rights. It's kind of like if you own the rights to debussy. Since they don't really compare the performance, they just go around and piss at everybody who plays this piece by debussy. Therefore it's a workaround not being able to claim rights for the music of debussy. I so to say zoomed out and didn't look at your particular case anymore but the system behind it. Okay I hope I made myself clear, in any case, case closed. All the best :-)
Hi Phil. The RU-vid algorithm brought me here, but I'm reserving my seat by choice. That's a really fucked up thing. I saw on Instagram fairly recently that pianist Maya Purdue had the same issue (can't recall if she received the claim on YT or Meta, but it really doesn't matter). Have you ever tried disputing the copyright claim? And if you have, what has happened?
Thank you! This has happened to me numerous times now. I disputed all the claims and they were subsequently dropped. This time, Believe Music responded to my dispute by saying that their claim is valid. Insane! So I deleted the video and decided to tell the story.
I don't know. A machine could easily tell the difference between my performance and the one they claim it to be. The digital information would be entirely different!
@@PhilBestMusic so some lackey searches by text for performances of all their recordings? In that Halloween video you didn't list all the pieces, did you?
Oh I usually know which recording/performance they claim I've used in the video, as it's stated in the claim and so it's easy enough to find. That's what makes it all so utterly bizarre. It's kind of amazing! They're accusing me of using a performance that sounds nothing like mine both musically and production-wise And yet, they shamelessly make the claim. I mean... No words... This is the world we live in though, as we often discuss, right? Truth is no longer relevant, it seems!
As if you would go through the trouble of finger syncing someone else's performance when you can do a much better one! Honest it's just hilarious when you think about it!
I am a music hobbist and have my own instrument which I improvised over backing tracks. I got one strike. UTB sent the link to me which their algorithms found. The music was written by a artist who sold his song to APPLE who trademarked it to one of their Video Editing Apps. Unknown to me. So, I am writing my own music, now. I feel like a real winner🎉❤❤ The corporation do just as the name implies.-Incorporate- Grab all the music, Put it all in their envelope ✉️ and claim it . With the intro of synth, I worried then what would happen to musicians. So, it has all boiled down to this.😢...... Has anyone been duked by the BandLab, n-tracks, Spotify, etc. Are they grabbing song artists' music scores, too. You know they have producers partners.