Rand Paul: Victim of Copyright Laws

[General Zod]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

If you're looking for Rand Paul's presidential announcement on YouTube, bad news. As of writing, the video has been blocked by the video streaming site, thanks to a copyright claim from Warner Music Group, as Vox's Andrew Prokop spotted.

Why? Did Rand Paul quote liberally from Waka Flocka Flame in his announcement? Did he hum Ween's "Freedom of '76" while praising the virtues of freedom?

No, the answer is almost certainly something else. Blame robots.

YouTube has a system called "Content ID," which allows the owners of copyright on material to automatically censor unlicensed use of said material. As described here, YouTube automatically matches videos against a big database of copyrighted material, including music, when the video is submitted. Then, copyright owners can, if they wish, block a video from being viewed.

During his announcement on Tuesday, Rand Paul entered and left to the song, "Shuttin' Detroit Down," as Business Insider notes. The song is a twangy lament about the state of the economy that dates back a few years; the copyright stamp on the YouTube video reads "(c) 2009 WMG." WMG, of course, is Warner Music Group.

We've reached out to both WMG and YouTube for comment, and will update this article when we hear back. But it's hard not to see some humor in the situation. Rand Paul's spirited cry against government intervention has been blocked from view because YouTube lets huge music companies preemptively apply copyright law.

Looks like Paul just got another plank in his campaign platform.

Update: A YouTube spokesperson responded without shedding much additional light: "YouTube’s Content ID technology gives rightsholders control of their content on YouTube. If a user believes their video was claimed in error, they can dispute the Content ID claim." We have not yet heard back from WMG.

I wonder if he actually asked for permission to use the song first.

[Simon_Jester]

I wonder if this has any impact on his willingness to say "corporations should have big automatic systems that can delete your content from the Internet without consulting you first because they've concluded you're using their stuff."

[General Zod]

I wonder if this has any impact on his willingness to say "corporations should have big automatic systems that can delete your content from the Internet without consulting you first because they've concluded you're using their stuff."

I tried to search for his position on copyright laws but I was overloaded with results on his recent takedown.

[Grumman]

But it's hard not to see some humor in the situation. Rand Paul's spirited cry against government intervention has been blocked from view because YouTube lets huge music companies preemptively apply copyright law.

The author of this article is an idiot. Youtube does not "let" them preemptively apply copyright law, they do it because Congress passed a law that says Youtube is legally liable if they don't.

[SpottedKitty]

I wonder if he actually asked for permission to use the song first.

It's become almost a meme in the last several years that political campaigns putting together snazzy "vote for our guy!" videos don't bother themselves with little things like asking for permission to use a song or music. The real fun starts when someone in the campaign latches on to the catchy tune, or the dramatic song title, or a few stirring words in the chorus, without realising the song itself is virulently against every principle their guy has been paid to act as if he believes in.

[Sidewinder]

I remember when Bob Dole ran against Clinton in 1996, and his campaign modified the lyrics to 'Soul Man' to read, "I'm a Dole Man." Problem was, they did so without first asking permission from the writers (David Porter and Isaac Hayes- yes, the voice of Chef in 'South Park'). Not that permission was likely to be given, as the writers were both black men- even then, the Republican Party had a reputation for being racist cunts and Nazi wannabes who want to turn back the clock to the time when slavery was legal.

[Joun_Lord]

This video seems oddly appropriate.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZl5LGornI[/youtube]

Edit: Can't seem to embed, could a passing mod help fix my failure?

[TronPaul]

But it's hard not to see some humor in the situation. Rand Paul's spirited cry against government intervention has been blocked from view because YouTube lets huge music companies preemptively apply copyright law.

The author of this article is an idiot. Youtube does not "let" them preemptively apply copyright law, they do it because Congress passed a law that says Youtube is legally liable if they don't.

From what I understand of copyright law and how Youtube ContentID works, ContentID goes above and beyond DMCA. Normally WMG would have to send Youtube a DMCA and Google would have to forward that DMCA to the uploader and take down the video until the uploader responds. With ContentID rights holders upload a song and tell Youtube how to handle videos with that song (take down, receive majority of ad revenue, etc). ContentID then analyzes that song and detects any video with that song. It then applies whatever mass decision the rights holder set to videos it detects.

Basically ContentID is an automated mass DMCA tool. Youtube provides this to placate rights holders (and their legal teams) even though it's not required by law.

[slebetman]

TronPaul and the author of the article is right: ContentID lets copyright owners to preempt video uploads. There is nothing in the law that requires this. What the law requires is for the copyright owner to file a DMCA take-down request for each copyright violation. ContentID allows copyright holders to instruct YouTube to block content BEFORE any copyright violation takes place. That is the definition of "preemptive" copyright enforcement. And it's not required by the law (though, it is also not technically illegal for Youtube to offer such a service to copyright holders).

Technically speaking, ContentID was a brilliant invention, typical of Google, that most people considered impossible to implement at the time it was released. A lot of people these days would still argue that it's not feasible/practical to implement for companies smaller than Google.

[Darth Nostril]

This video seems oddly appropriate.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iZl5LGornI[/youtube]

Edit: Can't seem to embed, could a passing mod help fix my failure?

You've got to delete the 's' from the end of https.
Annoying I know, it's caught me out before.