The article directs the spotlight to the many illegally uploaded films on YouTube and among other things Rights Alliance’s challenges in regard to access to the platform’s enforcement tool, Content ID.
In their article, “Google profits on film thieves” (published on Tuesday 17 August), the film magazine Ekko has carried out a thorough investigation of the many uploads of illegal films to YouTube and the platform’s handling of them.
Not surprisingly, the journalists at Ekko managed to find 31 pirated films on YouTube in just 15 minutes of searching – including a large number of Danish titles.
The article thus questions YouTube’s Content ID system, and in the article, the director of Rights Alliance, Maria Fredenslund, also directs criticism towards the lack of accessibility to the system for smaller producers.
Rights Alliance has been working hard for several years to gain access to YouTube’s Content ID, to better represent and protect members’ rights, but to this date, has not yet succeeded.
In the following excerpt from the article, Maria Fredenslund elaborates on the issue:
– Excerpt from the article –
Maria Fredenslund is the director of Rights Alliance, which helps Danish producers protect their copyrights.
She does not believe that YouTube is doing enough to rid the platform of illegally uploaded feature films.
“I do not think YouTube provides effective enforcement tools. YouTube is obliged to remove content that should not be there. I do not think they live up to that obligation,” she says.
Can YouTube be held legally responsible for what is on their platform? This is currently being investigated in a case before the European Court of Justice.
“The decision, together with a new EU directive, will serve as precedence as for whether the tech giant breaks the law, in so far as they do not make an effort to collaborate with the rights holders to remove the films on their platform,” says Maria Fredenslund.
From Maria Fredenslund’s point of view, the main problem is that only the largest film producers have access to the Content ID system. In Denmark, these producers are Nordisk Film and Zentropa as well as SF Studios via the parent company in Sweden.
In principle, this entails that smaller producers have to sit and watch each month to see if their films are uploaded to YouTube. It is not only time consuming, on a service where about 500 hours of material are uploaded every minute. It may also be challenging to find a particular movie among billions of videos.
And it is rarely enough to search for a title.
In many cases, you have to use other search names when you want to find a movie. The film thief may, for example, have posted the film with the protagonist’s name or camouflaged it with a completely different name.
Rigid system
If the producer discovers one of his films on YouTube, he or she can contact Rights Alliance, who will then ask YouTube to remove the film.
Because Rights Alliance does not have access to Content ID either. Rights Alliance has tried to obtain this since 2017 but has been rejected, due to the fact that it is a non-profit organization which handles several types of IP-rights.
“We do not fit into YouTube’s rigid system made for big business. They are not used to a company the size of us from such a small country. But as a whole, the system is enormously unfair,” says Maria Fredenslund.
Google decides whether a company has the competence to handle the legal responsibility to be part of the Content ID system. Nordisk Film does have this competence, but most Danish film companies are too small.
“In principle, you have to have someone to sit and administer it. Big filmmakers have better options, but even they can fall short. And the smaller film companies are falling all the way through. They do not have a chance.”
Protection of Danish values
An example is Robert winner Jesper Jargil. His documentary, “The Humiliated”, which depicts the creation of Lars von Trier’s dogma film, “The Idiots”, has been viewed 14.5 million times on YouTube – without the consent of rights holder Jargil.
“I am just shocked. Had I known that the film was on YouTube, I would have done something about it,” says the director.
If “The Humiliated” had been legally rented at a price of 39 DKK, it would have generated an income of 565 million DKK.
“Oh my god”, says Jesper Jargil. “But do I get access to some of the revenue that the film has generated through advertisements? I could definitely use them.”
Following our inquiry, Rights Alliance has helped Jesper Jargil get the film removed from YouTube. But he shouldn’t hold his breath for the money
Maria Fredenslund is hoping that YouTube will step up their game tremendously in the future.
“Copyright infringement is both illegal and very serious. Likewise, there are no shops where you can pull the goods off the shelves without paying. We must keep in mind that, for the Danish producers and artists, there can be quite far-reaching financial consequences subsequent to illegal distribution of their content. We must safeguard Danish culture.”