Classical Musicians Victimized by Erroneous Copyright Claims
"One or more actions were applied to your video because of a copyright match."
This was just one of two copyright claims that Amy Beth Horman received from Facebook Thursday, disputing ownership of videos of her daughter's violin performances. First, she received a copyright claim for a video of Ava's live performance of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto this week. Then, she got another for video she had posted in 2020 of then-10-year-old Ava performing "Meditation from Thais." These are both classical works that are in the public domain - not subject to copyright.
Nonetheless, classical musicians receive these kinds of dreaded messages on a regular basis if they post videos of their performances on social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.
Has the musician violated anyone's copyright? Almost never. These are automated copyright claims created by bots on behalf of big companies like Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group or Universal Music. If the bot finds that your performance has approximately the same notes and timing as one in their catalogue, they then claim that they own rights to your recording. But musicians have every right to perform and post a public domain work. Even so, musicians often find their recordings muted, earnings from ads on their performances given instead to the company filing the erroneous claim, and threats of having their accounts suspended or banned.
To elaborate: even if a work is in the public domain, a recording label may still retain copyright to a specific performance of that work, if it was published in the last 95 years. However, it appears that the copyright bots are not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between a record label's specific performer and a talented student.
"Truly, this happens every time I post now - and right away, within a minute or two," Amy told me. "It happens on both Facebook and Instagram." Ava, now 13, studies with Simon James at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. "We don't edit any videos of Ava, and we always either have permission to perform the works, or they are in public domain. My dad is a composer, so I know the rules well. I would estimate this has happened to us over 100 times, if I count all social media platforms."
And what happens, when there is an erroneous copyright claim such as this?
"They generally mute part of the videos, which is very annoying because it prevents people from being able to enjoy and listen to the full performance. Some videos have also been removed," Amy said. Of course, she always disputes the claims, but it's become extremely time-consuming. "It's just a constant part-time job to be responding to claims and updating disputes, filling out forms. Even when you aren't posting, they are claiming things from years ago! I have 16 emails from Instagram alone in December about reposting something they have removed from years ago. Even practice videos get muted or deleted."
And disputing an erroneous copyright claim doesn't always lead to justice.
"They have denied only a few disputes for us, but I know other people who - after multiple disputes - are still being denied, and their videos stay removed for months," Amy said. "I disputed her Ravel 'Tzigane' live performance, and they responded that no, they retain copyright, and they removed the video on Instagram. I submitted another form for that one, and I'm waiting for response."
Ava is a young musician, and her mother is posting her performances videos as a way of documenting her musical journey. In the case of professional musicians, these kinds of erroneous copyright claims infringe on their ability to publicize and even monetize their own performances.
And what is the recourse? You cannot argue with a bot.
Violinist Emil Chudnovsky, who started a Facebook support group called Musicians Exasperated by Baseless, Automated Copyright Claims, said it well: "Facebook requires us, the musicians whose performances are suddenly claimed by someone else, to both take action by submitting a dispute and to offer a rationale for why we think a dispute is legitimate. In other words, Facebook places the onus of action and of proof upon those whose own performances are being highjacked."
"To add the final insult to injury, Facebook then leaves the final word with the bot, of whether to retain or to relinquish the claim," said Chudnovsky. "The fact that there’s no human oversight even at that stage is shown by the number of times we’ve all submitted disputes on copyright claims made by Sony et al. on our performances, only to have a video (one that clearly features us performing a work of public domain, and not the alleged 'copyright owner') remaining muted or otherwise blocked - because the bot doesn’t judge itself to be wrong."
I will reach out to public relations representatives from several labels for comment.
Meanwhile, please feel free to share your experiences in the comments.
You might also like:
- Youtube copyright issues
- 100 Days of Practice with Hilary Hahn
- Dare to Record Your Violin Practice: Tips for Empowered Recording
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Replies
I get copyright claims on most videos I post, which is kind of absurd, in the vein that Andrew points out.
I've had good luck with Youtube backing down when I challenge, but the process is obviously opaque and geared towards faceless rights holders (but holders of what? That's not so important, because they usually hold the rights to a particular recording of a work in the public domain, so the real right they seem to hold is some opaque one granted by Youtube to the richest? The most litigious? Who knows...Youtube probably doesn't have much in the way of real humans making the decisions). Also, it doesn't really matter who sees my videos or doesn't, but it is obnoxious in its low-stakes Kafkaesqueness. The important lesson is to keep using ad-blockers!
I would like to speak to the manager of this reality, please....
One response is not to patronize companies that make use of such technology. Don't post on their services, and don't purchase recordings from companies that use it.
My son has had a lot of problems with this as well. He mostly now just posts short clips, which seem less likely to get copyright strikes. He's won almost all of his appeals, but sometimes it won't even let him appeal (mostly Instagram).
I only post videos on YouTube but have never had a copyright appeal get rejected there. I've also been pleasantly surprised that the software has worked for modern pieces where there actually is a copyright. Also, the good news with YouTube is that they do not take down your videos with copyright claims, you just cannot monetize them (hardly an issue for dad videos), because YouYube has the agreements in place to pay the copyright holders from advertising revenues. I get to post videos for free (each containing gigabytes of data) that friends, family, audition committees, whoever can watch for free, and legitimate copyright holders get paid. Works for me.
Many users have had appeals rejected. Moreover, the copyright claim system on these services is not in alignment with the foundational principles of law in the United States. Here, we are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Now although these systems are not in a court of law, I do not think the onus should be on the video poster to need to appeal, or prove their innocence. It should be the copyright holder that should have to prove a violation. There also seems to be no penalty attached to falsely claiming that various videos violate copyright when they do not.
It is a bad system, and thus I try to avoid supporting companies that use it.
It's not just talented students who get this. I get it too, especially when I post myself playing unaccompanied Bach. Usually my videos are for a Facebook practice group that I'm in, a document of my musical journey, not a performance. The Preludio from Partita in E and preludes from the 2nd and 3rd suite, played on viola, get reliably flagged and muted when I post them on Facebook. I like the YouTube solution quoted above. There is one member of my practice group who posts everything on Youtube and then links those to the Facebook group. I've never asked her why she does it that way, but maybe it's for these reasons, that YouTube won't mute it.
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December 20, 2023 at 01:17 AM · The bots are ridiculously oversensitive, to the point where they will flag obviously poor and mistake-filled recordings as matching a commercial recording of a piece.
I once uploaded a video taken from a cellphone on my music stand in my community orchestra's first rehearsal of a public-domain piece. It was obviously not the commercial recording. There were the expected errors from an amateur orchestra sight-reading a piece for the first time. The balance was also wildly off because of the placement of the microphone: the first violins and celli were muted because they were on the other side of the stand, and the violas and trombones were much louder than in any commercial recording because that's where the microphone was pointed. It would have been obvious to any human listener that this was not the same as any commercial recording of the piece.
The video got taken down, and my dispute was rejected. There was no avenue for further appeal because I didn't have enough followers.