Did You Know The Song "Whatever Lola Wants" Was In The Movie Platoon?

A few years ago I kvetched about how complicated and outdated copyright law is in an era of YouTube.
It gets even worse when the automated tools used to "help" don't work.  The lesson here isn't about copyrights and artist's legitimate need to be paid, but more about how automated processes fail.  (and) "When the Machine breaks down, we break down." -Staff Sergeant Barnes. 

In the time lapse movie of my back yard for 2017, I used "Adagio for Strings" as background music.  I can't say this style of music is to my normal tastes, but it seemed to fit well with the video and I had (relatively) recently watched Oliver Stone's movie Platoon which uses the song extensively.
Once uploaded to YouTube, my back yard time lapse was flagged for copyright content.  Fair enough - I originally thought the origin of "Adagio for Strings" was much older than it was.  But "Adagio for Strings" was arranged by Samuel Barber in 1936.  While Copyright Law has a lot of twists and turns, work from between 1923 and 1977 are generally protected for 95 years after they were published.  So by any measure, my time lapse video does contain copyrighted content.  Mea Culpa.
But when I looked closer at the YouTube flag, they said it had the song "WHATEVER LOLA WANTS LOLA GETS" - well that isn't right...  If YouTube is going to flag me and allow others to monetize my video, the least they can do is make sure their data is right and the right people subsequently get paid.

I disputed YouTube Copyright Content designation - in the dispute, there are several options, but there is not an option in the automated dispute process for "YouTube is a dumb-ass."

And then there is a list of 16 Claimants, but this list does not match anything close to what YouTube's search function shows as to who owns the rights to either "Adagio for Strings" or "Whatever Lola Wants."  And is the list of Claimants the owners of "Adagio for Strings?"  Or "Whatever Lola Wants?"  Or something else entirely?

Not unsurprisingly, my dispute was rejected.  No reason is given, but I suspect the rejection is just as automated as everything else.  Or at best, some flunky is paid to go through all the disputes that come in and serially reject all of them.
It is, quite frankly, not worth anyone's time (including mine) to correct this, but it demonstrates that the issue of copyright protection by YouTube and those who own the rights is a farce (especially for video's that will at best get a few hits in their lifetime).

The only conclusion to all of this is that I am wrong.  The system works.  Oliver Stone must have used "Whatever Lola Wants" in the movie Platoon and I've missed it all the times I've watched it.

So please sit back and listen to what YouTube says is Samuel Barber's and Richard Adler's collective work of "How do You Solve a Problem Like Maria" performed by Iron Maiden.

And somewhere around 2031, "Adagio for Strings" will no longer be copyright protected and YouTube will remove the content flag.  Right?
Or, since it is actually "Whatever Lola Wants" written by Richard Adler, it may be available around 2050.

YouTube is in Fifth Grade

I recently saw a "retrospective" on YouTube and was quite surprised to learn that it is only 10 years old.  Given how ubiquitous it is, it seems like it should be much older than that - perhaps not as old as the digital watch, but still definitely older than 10 years.
I still recall my first digital watch.  I probably got it some time in the mid to late 1970's.  It was small and square and ugly with rounded corners - sort of like a iPhone is now, so Jobs wasn't the original genius everyone pretends he is.  The LCD display was very small and the functionality was controlled by a single button with an inset set button.  I was pretty proud of it at the time; within a few years it was the kind of watch that was given away in a box of cereal.

The first video uploaded and available for public viewing on YouTube was Me at the Zoo on April 23, 2005.  The retrospective included a sidenote that YouTube's original incantation was as a dating video site.  Perhaps this is related to the origins of YouTube being on Valentines day of the same year.  If true, I'm glad the video dating site concept ended up in the dustbin - although I'm sure that concept exists now.

My initiation to YouTube was probably not too much later than that original video when a friend sent me a link to a video of a guy crashing his new helicopter.  I recall poking around to see what YouTube was, and thought the concept was intriguing.  The over-sharing world was just getting going in 2005 so the immensity of the concept was hard to grasp.  I can't help but wonder what happened to the guy in the helicopter.  The passenger compartment does not seem to have fared very well.

According to currently available statistics, YouTube has about 1 billion users - nearly 1/7th of the world's population and 1/3rd of the internet population.  I'm not sure if this is real, as I have to wonder how many of those are 'bots and how many are people who have multiple user accounts.  I also wonder if that includes unregistered lurkers?  Regardless, there are a lot of people watching YouTube.

There are approximately 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, which means more content is uploaded in 60 hours than was done in 60-years by the big broadcast networks.  This is not entirely true, since much of the network content ends up on the cutting room floor.  Much of the content on YouTube should be as well, and there is a startling amount of redundant material on YouTube as well.  YouTube has done a good job of the democratization of crap.
What gets staggering is the amount of space all these video's take up.  If we assume an hour of video uses about 10GB of space, that means 5TB of data every minute.  Much of the video on YouTube is lower quality and compression is actually much better than this, but even if it takes only 10% of this, the amount of digital space this takes is frightening.  It wasn't that long ago when memory was hundreds of dollars per megabyte and disk space was 10'sof dollars per megabyte.
Again, the democratization of crap.

And I've contributed my own crap to this heap.  My paltry contribution consists of some 30ish videos which have been collectively watched about 1200 times.  Stanley Kubrick I am not.
I've previously maligned the hopeless situation of current copyright law trying to deal with the democratization of crap.  I don't think this situation will be resolved any time soon.  Neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton have pledged to take a look at this "from day one!"
Still, the ability to strip the audio off of existing YouTube videos is a great functionality.  I'm sure it would never be used to flagrantly abuse copyright claims.

YouTube video ads are much more intrusive than they used to be, but I guess content owners and Google need to make money somehow.  I'm going to agree with Tim Kreider that Content Creator is a rather vulgar euphemism for creative types.  Another manifestation of the democratization of crap.

So YouTube now brings us full movies and full TV shows ... for a cost.  Along with brethren Hulu and Amazon, no real need to have cable anymore unless sports are critical to watch in real-time.  It is even possible to watch what Family Guy called "The gayest music video of all time" or watch American Dad, um, investigate the Cheetos aisle.

Of course, people like me who are fortunate enough to live in an area so rural that there is no DSL or cable internet access are not fortunate enough to be able to stream gobs of video.  Damn the data caps!  "That should be criminal," screamed the IT guy at work.  I guess this is also a factor of me being cheap, since even if I go over my limit, the cost isn't exactly prohibitive financially.

It is actually pretty hard to imagine a world without YouTube now.  In addition to being entertaining, YouTube is a mechanic, a chef, teacher, maybe even a pilot, but hopefully not like that guy in the helicopter.

Hopelessly Complicated

It will never happen.  But, indecipherable complication never affected legal principles.  Lawyers write and revise indecipherable laws, meaning we need more lawyers to interpret and further create and revise - an ever expanding circle.

A few years ago I created a video which I posted on Youtube that included most of a popular song.  Shortly after uploading, I got a notice from Youtube that the video potentially contained content owned by someone else and was not available everywhere.  They removed the audio from the video, but informed me that the full video was available in a few obscure countries like Azerbaijan.
That started me down a rabbit hole of looking into what is legal and not legal with respect to Copyright.  As far as I can tell.  Nothing is legal.

"Nothing is true.  Everything is permitted."  Assassin's Creed

Since then, the situation seems to have improved somewhat?  I've had "Content ID Notices" from Youtube and they throw adds on the videos.  This seems fair enough, but despite hours spent reading what I can on Copyright law, understanding the legalities is impossible, pointless.

To be fair, Youtube has done a good job of creating several tools.  The words between the lines still leaves some ambiguity.  I'm not sure how to interpret, "If you're comfortable with a third-party claim on your video, no action is necessary on your part."

The US Copyright Office has a publication that tries to help.  I wonder if this document is copyrighted?

Wikipedia gives a summation of the history of copyright (and everything on Wikipedia is true).

If I had to guess, it goes back farther than this.

I may not be able to use the above image.  BUT!!!!!!!!!!  Maybe I can.  Since I am using the above image to make an educational point about the further complicated legalities and humor involved with a cartoon of a stone age man and a copyright symbol, the use of the cartoon likely falls under that of Fair Use.

And quoting from the US Copyright Office, "The distinction between what is fair use and what is infringement in a particular case will not always be clear or easily defined."

What I find most amazing about this situation are the automated tools for identifying potentially copyrighted content within seconds of posting.  According to Youtube, Content ID scans over 400 years of video every day.  That...is amazing.  

Basically, Youtube has created an automated version of the long-running TV game show Name That Tune and maybe even the never-created TV show Name that video.

Yet even more amazing is that record labels have the time to worry about this.  Scratch that, they don't.  Youtube has over 6 billion hours of video which equates to 684,000 years.  They just have to threaten Youtube and Google creates these amazing tools to scan, block, monetize, mute, etc.

The lunacy of worrying about some dork's personal video using a song in the background removes credibility from the whole situation.  In the several years I've had stuff on Youtube, my total viewership equates to less than 500 views; of videos which potentially may contain copyright material, it is far less than half of that.  An untold number are likely automated hits and not real views.

The situation is even more complicated than Youtube though.  From what I've been able to decipher, using a popular song in a work presentation could be prohibited.  Using a karaoke version might not.  Creating a photo montage for use in my living room might be allowed.  Including a popular song in a photo montage at a wedding reception could be prohibited.  Coincidentally playing a song while showing pictures on a video screen at a wedding would probably not be.  Posting a video of this coincidence online could potentially be prohibited.

And so, we are where we are.  It would be nice to be able to pay a nominal amount to legally use an obscure artist's creative work but the process to do so is ridiculous for the common dork; the cost a complete black box.  I guess Youtube has done us a favor by creating the legal limbo of monetizing videos.  Please click on the ads.

Disclaimers:
Anything stated or implied in this post is not an admission of legally or illegally using material which may or may not be copyrighted or may or may not be used under the principle of fair use.
This posting may contain material which otherwise may be copyrighted, links to copyright material and/or may be copyrighted itself.  However, I am unsure if the copyright is owned by the author or Google or both or neither.