Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Youtube is scanning your videos

Yesterday I uploaded a video on Youtube that I created with photos and used some background music that i downloaded from net. In an hour, Youtube sent the following email to me.


Dear sanjaykattimani,
Your video, RishabHomeVideo.m2ts, may have content that is owned or licensed by Yash Raj Films Pvt. Ltd..  No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,

- The YouTube Team
 © 2012 YouTube, LLC
901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, CA 94066 

So whats Google/Youtube up to?
Youtube is scanning all the videos that you are getting uploaded and scanning for music that matches their video/audio library. In case it matches, sends out the above warning message. This is a smart way to reduce/fight copyright infringements.
May be this was part of Googles privacy policy changes. I didn't read them. Did you?

I feel this is the best for copyright owners as they are suppose to get their share. At the same time if they start going after users like us to collect royalty, we would rather drop those songs and use some general public licensed music. Or better, I may end up creating my own music?? :)


Update 1/22/2017 - Noticed that YouTube still lets you continue to upload your videos, It certainly does not let you monetize (Earn on the ads) your videos. Its not hard to find royalty free music for most of your compositions though.