So long story short, I’m in the penalty box for YouTube. I had the ability to upload longer than average clips all was going well and good. I grabbed a video with viral-potential from Facebook because no one had done it yet. It was from my home state, shared by one of my friends so I figured I had the jump on it and could possibly get some visibility for my channel.
I sucked it down and uploaded it to my channel. It was the MA guy yelling at the sunfish “I think it’s a dead whale, Jay!” and apparently there is some Biggie in the middle of it. I honestly didn’t listen to the whole thing and was going forward with the assumption that the audio for it was awful considering it was on a boat, the guy doesn’t shut up, and there was so much going on it was not a focal point of the video.
All of these things would seem reason enough for something being passed for copyright reason. I got caught up in fighting it. It was the principal of the thing, this had a lot of viral ability and by me saying someone else had a copyright to the section, they could get all the commercial revenue from it. A million views could potentially add up to a lot.
Maybe they saw the same thing I did, maybe the Biggee was more pronounced than I thought… in any case I lost the case, lost the appeal… never in my experience had I had a copyright issue I couldn’t explain away. Something not being the focal point of the video, aka “back ground noise”, being incomplete, none of these reasons were accepted this time which I felt was unfair. A human just needed to review this, it must be automated — so I continued. At some point I was warned if I appealed, or took it further I could get a strike. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I was wrong.
For those wondering why my YouTube is blank — here’s why. I could do it up on Vimeo or some other site, but in truth — I don’t think anyone’s that interested in watching my game play videos enough to care. I’ve got another couple months on my 6 month “sentence” so just know I have been trying, but my hands are tied.
