Guilty until proven innocent

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, I think about YouTube’s Content ID system that should protect owners of copyright-protected material, but causes several issues on the side of the content creators.

In 2007, the video sharing platform YouTube implemented the Content Identification (Contend ID) algorithm to protect owners of copyright-protected material. Copyright is a legal right that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. For this purpose, the Content ID system provides owners of copyright-protected material with a tool to upload a sample of their work. Subsequently, the algorithm automatically scans uploaded videos for matching content and issues Content ID claims, if matching content has been found. If a video has a Content ID claim on it, then it is up to the owner to decide whether or not the user can reuse the material. In most of the cases, the owner allows the reuse of the material in exchange for putting ads on the video. However, the owner can also mute or even block the video in order to prohibit the reuse of it. In the end, the Content ID system ensures that owners of copyright-protected material get paid for their work.

Unfortunately, the Content ID system is flawed as it frequently misidentifies videos, issues false Content ID claims and works under a “guilty until proven innocent” system. This is especially problematic, as a Content ID claim is not just a simple warning. Instead, it automatically diverts ad revenue from the content creator to whoever has uploaded the sample to the Content ID database. In case of a false Content ID claim, the user can dispute it which starts a lengthy process as the copyright owner has 30 days to respond. During this time, the user can not monetize the video and thus gets no revenue from the ads running on it.

The flawed Content ID algorithm is, however, not the only problem. Once a company has access to the Content ID system, it can upload samples of material they do not own. This led to the problem, that some companies started to exploit the sytem by uploading false samples in order to claim content they do not own.

In the end, the automated Content ID system is needed to protect owners of copyright-protected material as hundreds of hours of video are uploaded every minute to YouTube. However, the “guilty until proven innocent” system and the method to automatically divert ad revenue to a third party based on a single sample in a database is not a good way to treat the content creators who made YouTube to what it is today. Unfortunately, as long as YouTube has no strong competitor, content creators can not do much to fight this system.