Youtube catches Schubert’s Trout in classic copyright wash
NewsNot Schubert’s best tune, perhaps, but one known to a significant proportion of the human race – with the exception of the bots employed by Youtube.
The Google-owned video site has blocked a Samsung washing-maching ad which uses the Trout theme to signal its final rinse and dry. Youtube claims this is in copyright. Schubie-doo died in 1828.
Apparently, at the latest count, 950,000 Youtube users have protested.
Full story here.
Every week YT videos of church services and concerts across the land are taken down by these majors’ insufferable web bots and algorithsm. They are truly unfit for purpose and incapable of distinguishing between the multitude of performances of music that is hosted on its platform. It’s a case of guilty before proven innocent and amateur groups often don’t have the resoureces or knowledge to get things straightened out. These companies could do it better but choose not to.
Now, look, this Schubert guy needs to arrested for copyright violation.
Uh, we’ve had one of those Schubert/Samsung washer dryers for at least several years now. An unusual choice, but not unpleasant to hear. Some people are pretty late to this party in discovering this.
This happens all the time to those of us in the classical recording biz. Of course, It’s not the tune they’re claiming copyright on, it’s some recording of it. Some have even had live performances muted, when they could not possibly be a pirated recording! That’s why we live stream on Vimeo, not YouTube. Vimeo is a more professional product and doesn’t pull this sort of nonsense.
It make a TERRIBLE advertising jingle.
Just absurd. Waste time on important stuff not this. Time to eliminate bots and algorithms!!!
I think the punishment for YouTube not being zealous is too great for them not to have an over zealous algorithm. There are examples of copyright strikes based on some bedroom-based Muzak producer claiming copyright on things they’ve arranged.
But even when people have permission it doesn’t stop: Dave Herwitz used to have a lot of audio clips on his YouTube channel, all with permission of the labels. But it didn’t stop the algorithm and it’s not worth his time appealing
The weird thing is, by letting people share clips or even entire pieces, it expands the demand. Some labels and artists should get out ahead of this and recognise that the more people hear your stuff, the more they’ll want to hear!
Ian Bostridge posted a screenshot on Instagram recently in which he had been asked by AI if he had collaborated with Franz Schubert on a paper recently. Either AI knows something that us mere mortals don’t (and no-one will be more excited than me to learn that Schubert is in fact immortal and living on a desert island somewhere) or it is just rubbish!