How Samsung washing machine bells cause YouTube copyright errors

To resolve this issue, YouTube did not expedite the dispute process but allowed rights holders to respond for up to 30 days. Instead, it sped up the appeal process, which occurred after the rights holder rejected the disputed claim and was arguably the moment a YouTuber’s account was at highest risk of termination.

“Plaintiffs will now have 7 days instead of 30 days to review the appeal before deciding whether to take down the video, release the claim, or let it expire,” YouTube wrote in 2022. ”. The appeals process helps you resolve your claim much faster!”

This update will only help YouTubers who intend to dispute claims, like Albino, and not the majority of YouTubers, who EFF reports appear to be scared to dispute Content ID claims are such that they often just accept “whatever penalty the system has imposed on them”. .” EFF summarized the predicament that many YouTubers are still stuck in today:

There’s a terrible circular logic that traps YouTube creators. They can’t afford to dispute a Content ID match because that could result in a DMCA notice. They cannot provide DMCA notices because those result in copyright strikes. They cannot accept copyright strikes because it could result in losing their account. They can’t afford to lose their accounts because they can’t afford to lose access to YouTube’s massive audience. And they can’t afford to lose access to that audience because they can’t rely solely on YouTube’s ad monetization, in part because Content ID typically passes advertising dollars to copyright holders when the right Content ID is in place. . Which they cannot afford to dispute.

For Albino, who said he had fought against multiple Content ID complaints, the sound of his Samsung washing machine activating its demonetization feature seemed like the last straw, causing him to lose patience with the process. YouTube dispute.

“It’s completely out of control,” Albino wrote on X.

Katharine Trendacosta, one YouTube researcher and EFF’s director of policy and advocacy, agreed with Albino, telling Ars that YouTube’s Content ID system hasn’t gotten any better over the years: “It’s gotten worse, it’s intentionally opaque and makes creators making it extremely difficult to navigate.”

“I don’t know any YouTube creators who are happy with the way Content ID works,” Trendacosta told Ars.

But while many people say YouTube’s system isn’t great, Trendacosta also says she “can’t think of a way to build matching technology” to improve it, because “machines can’t distinguish context.” . Perhaps if YouTube’s matching technology enabled human review every time, “it could be done” but “they would have to hire a lot more people to do it”.

What YouTube can do, however, is update its policies to make the dispute process less intimidating for content creators, Trendacosta told Ars. Currently, the bigger issue for creators is not how long YouTube takes to resolve the dispute process, Trendacosta said, but “how YouTube worded the dispute process to prevent you from disputing.”

“This system is frustrating,” Trendacosta told Ars, adding that YouTube warned YouTube users that initiating a dispute could result in a copyright strike that could result in their account being terminated. “What it ends up doing is making them say, ‘You know what, I’ll eat it, whatever.’”

YouTube, which has previously dismissed complaints about the Content ID tool by saying “no system is perfect,” did not respond to Ars’ request for comment on whether there will be any updates whether this tool can benefit creators or not. Instead, YouTube’s plan seems to be to have mercy on users who can’t afford to leave the platform because of their concerns.

“Completely understand your frustration,” the YouTube Team told Albino on X.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.