This is another symptom of Google's extreme "let's make algorithms do what people usually did". In an effort to automate everything and minimize employee-customer interaction, Google creates automated systems that work correctly 90% of the time. The 10% of the time it doesn't work correctly, you're fucked, and there's no way to contact anyone at Google to dispute or fix things.

Google just doesn't care at this point, because trying to fix the remaining 10% apparently costs more than the resulting good user experience / satisfaction would generate. This is also very visible in AdSense and Gmail. I think Google just doesn't like edge-cases.

Highly relevant Dilbert comic: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2001-02-25/

I am a Content ID publisher - the point of it is, if you sign up with YouTube as a partner, you commit to not upload content that you didn't produce (in so many words).

So in an ideal world, every piece of content from a Partner would be unique and original, and Content ID would work as intended.

The key is - 100% unique and original - it's not original if it's 2 anchors introducing a clip of the Mars landing.

The problem here isn't just YouTube - it's partners that are uploading content that they did not entirely create.

The system only works if people cooperate; if news orgs contribute original content and claim it (and other uploads) everything is ok - the problem is that news orgs are just dumping content on to YouTube without thinking about that.

We accidentally published a movie review to YouTube and CID claimed it, and for the next 3 months I was constantly releasing claims, until I finally unclaimed our own movie review completely to stop the matching.

TL;DR - publishers are very much at fault, as much or more as YouTube is.

I don't think the system is technologically broken -- I just think companies should be subject to big fines for wrongly claiming ownership.

I mean, fines like $5,000 per false claim.

That will stop abuse of it, real fast.

YouTube has become a Kafkaesque nightmare, at least for regular users. They recently opened up monetization to everyone, but if you actually try to use it, half your videos will go "under review" and you will be asked to provide proof that you own all the content. They won't tell you specifically what you have to provide, and nobody I know has managed to figure it out or get a video out of this state. Of course, there is no way to contact anyone or get any more information.

Apparently, "full partners" can actually get real customer service and avoid these problems, but you need to get on the order of 1000 views/day before they offer you that, which most people never achieve.

I will absolutely never do business with that company.

Perhaps it would be a start if Google would recognise public domain content before matching against claims of other content owners.

It seems like when you submit material to the content ID system, the first thing it should do is check it against material that's already been registered. Conflicts found there need to be resolved before that material is used to automatically send out ownership claims.

This change would surely weed out a big chunk of these false claims, and would put a lot of the effort for doing so squarely on the shoulders of the claimants.

Hmmm could this be used to turn the tables. What I'm thinking is you buy a area of land that needs clearing up - video it and when it is claimed as copyright you then sue the copyright abuser to clear up the land as they claimed its there rubbish. Not best example but hopefuly shows how this can be levelled.

What has happened is alot have loaded up alot of common things and sounds and as such any autobot will match them up with pretty much anything you do in some situations.

Can bet if you upload a video of your first born that it will match up with something somewere else. It's like patent trolls, only automated, utter nightmare.

This is also one of those moments were I liek the UK libel laws as deformation of character under the guise of falsly breaking copyright of somebody else's contents is one of those area's were you would have fun in court and fiscaly rewarding.

I think a different monetization systems is necessary here. One that can allow for the Youtube-like company to tell the media moguls to go fuck off.

Sounds like copyright law requires updating and people should stop using YouTube.

Why won't he just change site? YouTube isn't the only video service out there.

CT tech junkie is a great site run by brilliant folks doing some awesome work.

This is probably a bug, and will be treated as such. I wouldn't worry about this one.