Originally a comment by Jafafa Hots on IS cannot destroy these.
They may not be able to destroy public domain art, but US corporations are sure trying.
I have put up YouTube videos backed with public domain music. Every one has had a copyright claim filed against it despite the music being pre-1923, all of it acquired by me from public domain archives. One had three separate entities attempt to claim ownership of it.
I currently have one appeal under review, has been for a couple of weeks, where a company is claiming the rights to a song, “I Didn’t Raise My Son to be a Soldier,” recorded by the Peerless Quartet in 1914 – over 100 years ago. This is routine. These companies literally are downloading public domain works, adding them to their catalogs and claiming ownership, knowing that most people won’t dispute it.
Can anyone with legal knowledge say if there is some way to get these companies punished with more than a slap on the wrist?
I would hope for a fine that is essentially the entire assets of the company.
How long before they claim the rights to fire and the wheel?
It’s pretty complicated and I don’t want to bore anyone, but basically what these companies are doing is AVOIDING copyright law. The DMCA, as bad as it is, does at least provide punishment for making false claims.
But YouTube has in place a system that not only automates complaints from supposed content-owners, it also allows people who post videos to dispute the claims… but the key here is that this avoids the DMCA by replacing DMCA claims, and so the only “law” is YouTube’s terms of service. There’s no possible penalty for a false claim because the claimants haven’t actually filed a DMCA takedown request… and video creators also don’t get full information from YouTube about who is making the claim, so it takes some investigative work to find out who is.
And the “who is” is usually actually a 3rd party that scans for content on behalf of many supposed rights holder, and this 3rd partty is not obliged to disclose who they are making the claim on behalf of, other than stating “rights holder.”
Add to that that YouTube has contracts with some media companies not to allow things they don’t want posted even if they are not technically owned by that media company.
Bottom line is, users are bound by YouTube TOS, YouTube has contracts with media companies, after complaints were aired in the press Google/YouTube instituted a “dispute” process to allow users like me to dispute false claims, BUT the decision of the claimant (even if false) is final, and even if you can prove the item is public domain, YouTube may still take it down because of “contractual obligations.”
The whole system is built to benefit the companies and YouTube, who profit from ads on public domain material, and users have no recourse except to hope that the agent of the purported “rights holder” recognizes and “allows” the use of the public domain material (but of course, they are likely still profiting form the other people who were too cowed to dispute the claim on the same material) AND that YouTube also allows it.
This end-around should be seen legally as an abuse of the safe-harbor protection Google gets, but who has the money to sue them?
There are a lot of other details, if you can believe it I tried to make this explanation as short as possible.