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Brief 6: Copyright and Fair Use

A frightening world.


'Copyright'. It's a pretty scary word. It's not to be confused with 'copywrite', it's far more serious. The difference between the two words isn't just a couple of letters, it's a lawsuit. Copyright is the legal right, in many countries, that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to determine whether, and under what conditions, the work may be used by others.

Copyright is especially tricky. You can take all of the necessary precautions but can still bite the bullet when it comes to copyright strikes. A recent source of copyright issues has been from YouTube.

YouTube is a video media platform that allows users to upload videos of almost every variety, from vlogs to gaming videos. On such a popular platform, there are bound to copyright infractions. Full movies have been uploaded to YouTube, as well as the monetization of music unowned by the uploader. Certain companies are more proactive in protecting their content than others, which allows certain users to slip by without a warning or strike.

Copyright strikes can be dished out by anyone who claims they own content. This is a good thing, and also a bad thing, as users whose primary income comes from YouTube are stranded without income from the video that is claimed.

When a user has multiple claims on their account, they risk their account being terminated, and the YouTube support process has been historically tedious to navigate and get help from. Most claim appeals take weeks to process, and some videos can be left without making money for weeks during the time of the videos biggest jump in views. In layman's terms, the video is making no money for the user, even if it has the most views in YouTube history.

Whenever a claim is made, any money made from the video is sent to the claimant. You can probably guess where this is going. People can make and claim any video they'd like, so people often create fake company accounts on YouTube and claim videos by smaller channels. Smaller channels have less of a base to defend themselves and the worst that could happen to the fake company account is it's banned from the site. Another account can be created in minutes, years of videos cannot be.

This is a common occurrence and it shouldn't be. We should be working towards an open, free internet, as free as possible from scams and what's essentially roadside robbery.


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