Unfortunately, as has been my experience in the past with YouTube, creating and uploading them all wasn’t the end of the process. Then came the unique experience of dealing with copyright notices and claims. On my own songs.

Why am I getting copyright notices on my own music? Well…

YouTube’s copyright policies are currently, and for the foreseeable future, pretty awful. Being the third most visited site on the whole Internet, they’re in a unique position to educate the world about copyright. But ultimately all YouTube is really doing is confusing people.

If YouTube takes copyright so seriously, why are there so many millions of videos available there that seem to so flagrantly infringe someone somewhere’s copyright? You upload a video with your favorite song in it and nothing happens. And if anything does happen, either instantly or months later, it’s usually just a little notification on your account that they found something copyrighted in your video. It normally looks something like this:

You’re told you did something wrong, then told that it’s no big deal. It’s a remarkably mixed message. What am I acknowledging or disputing? That my video might have music in it that is owned by a third party? That the video available and playable? What?

No wonder there are so many misconceptions about copyright in our culture. My favorite YouTube description usually reads something like this:

It’s like walking out of a mall, stopping at the door, turning around, and yelling, “I DIDN’T PAY FOR ANYTHING IN THESE BAGS!!”

So, what’s going on here?

Say your video really does have “Dancing Box” in it. You’ve uploaded it, then you’ve received this message. You’ve probably noticed your video now has ads on it, as well, like the one above. YouTube’s Content ID system scanned your video after you uploaded it, searching for audio and video provided by record labels, movie studios, publishers, and more. It found something, and now it’s letting you know that. Except it’s not taking the video down. Why?

YouTube has deals with those labels, studios, and publishers. When “Dancing Box” is discovered in the video, finetunes (in this case) gets to place advertisements on the video and make money from it, rather than just have it deleted entirely. Ideally, this benefits everyone involved. Creators don’t get their videos removed, and the rights holders make revenue from the upload. But here’s where the system really shows its flaws, and not just because the message it sends is so muddled.

Let’s say you uploaded this video, but it didn’t actually have “Dancing Box” in it. Clearly Content ID made a mistake. So you click that “Dispute” button. Then this happens:

Note the trap of those first three questions. Granted, plenty of people out there think that’s all they need to do (again, no thanks to YouTube’s muddying of the waters).

But what if you made a video using one of my songs, as many thousands of filmmakers have, and it gets mistaken for a different song? Choosing “I gave credit in the video” here would actually be accurate, as that’s all I require for usage of my works. Same goes any of the other millions of Creative Commons-licensed tracks out there. There’s no option here to select “The material identified in this video is licensed via Creative Commons licensing.” There’s also no good reason for that option to not be included, especially considering YouTube allows you to license your videos via Creative Commons, and search for others that are similarly licensed.

But say your video is totally original content, like my videos are. They’re my album covers, my songs, videos created by me. Or say that the usage of that song actually could be considered fair use (though fair use is possibly the most misunderstood of all copyright terminology; those “legal requirements” mentioned are nebulous at best). And you proceed:

This form actually used to be a bit more complicated, but it’s no less intimidating now. “I understand that filing fraudulent disputes may result in termination of my YouTube account.” Yikes, but all right. You’re confident, no problem.

Finally, we reach what’s the most broken about YouTube’s copyright policies. In an effort to placate rights holders, the person reviewing your dispute is not someone from YouTube or Google. It’s not some independent third party. It’s the “rights holder,” whatever that actually means (could be the artist, could be a label employee, could be this week’s intern, who knows). The entity that “complained” about your video in the first place gets to decide whether their content is actually in your video.

Maybe they’ll be cool about it. Maybe they’ll realize it was a mistake. Maybe they’ll realize you do have permission. Maybe they’ll even have a clear and rational understanding of fair use (don’t count on that one). But while most fraudulent or mistaken disputes are removed or just vanish into thin air after a couple weeks, it’s entirely possible that intern is in a bad mood and decides that no, that actually is their song in that video and they reject your appeal.

YouTube does allow you to appeal once more, but again, it’s directly to the party who claimed the copyright in the first place. At that point, they have to either remove their claim, or send you legal notification that they’re completely serious about this claim thing and are possibly thinking about suing you. Your video gets taken down permanently. And what are you going to do? Are you actually willing and able to defend yourself in court? Few videos ever make it that far, but this is the ultimate destination of the process regardless.

“Think your video falls under fair use? Hope you’re willing to hire a lawyer.” That’s YouTube’s message to the creative world.

What’s next? Often nothing, actually. Your video gets ads on it that you don’t make any money from. Great, I’m sure you always wanted advertisements on that video of your grandma’s birthday party just because it had some music playing on the stereo in the background. Like this one:

Or perhaps your video gets removed from YouTube entirely. Whatever the rights holder decides to do. On YouTube, the rights holders that participate in the Content ID system are judge, jury, and executioner. And lawyers with a firm grasp of copyright law and fair use, apparently. There’s not a lot of ways for the little guy to win. Think of it this way: if Baauer was having a rough day and decided to take down every single “Harlem Shake” video on YouTube with a just couple of mouse clicks, he could actually do that. Clearly I’m oversimplifying how that would actually go down, but that’s basically how it works.

So I uploaded all of my songs to YouTube and I actually feel pretty lucky (!) that only a handful of them were identified as containing copyrighted music. Technically they all contain copyrighted music, as all of my music is copyrighted (another common misconception: free, or even royalty free, doesn’t mean “not copyrighted”). But in the case of my song “Chance, Luck, Errors in Nature, Fate, Destruction As a Finale,” Content ID decided it was a Missing Persons song. It’s not, of course, though it does use a similar synthesizer at one point, so perhaps the error wasn’t totally Content ID’s fault. But in the case of “I Am a Man Who Will Fight for Your Honor,” some copyright troll decided to throw a claim down and see what happened.

Now, If you’re not familiar with the concept of a YouTube copyright troll, let’s take what we’ve learned about Content ID and use it for evil.

Find a video with someone’s original music on it. Then get in touch with YouTube. The conversation will go something like this:

You: “Hey, that song is mine!” *evil laugh*
YouTube: “Okay, I trust you. Should we take it down for you?”
You: “Nope, just put some ads on it and send me the money every month.” *louder, more evil laugh*
YouTube: “Check’s in the mail.”

Maybe the video’s creator doesn’t notice the copyright notification. Or maybe they don’t understand it. Or maybe they don’t care. The video’s still live, isn’t it? Do that to enough videos and have enough people not notice or mind, and you’ll get a decent check from Google every month. That’s copyright trolling. YouTube’s copyright policies are such that it will always be a problem. And since most major artists have their songs attached to a Content ID partner already, the songs that end up getting caught in the copyright troll crossfire are ones like mine.

I applied to become a part of the Content ID system about a year and a half ago. I don’t actually want to take any videos down, nor do I want to put ads on them. More than anything else, I just want to prevent copyright trolls from claiming the songs are theirs. My application was rejected. Apparently my publishing company, You’ve Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (a real legal entity, affiliated with ASCAP), doesn’t fit the Content ID requirements at the moment. They didn’t elaborate further. But if someone like me, with hundreds of songs in thousands of YouTube videos doesn’t qualify, then you can probably guess who the system was ultimately built to benefit.

So what’s the solution? It’s all in education, isn’t it? YouTube has this amazing opportunity to educate the world about copyright law and Creative Commons. Instead, it’s all warnings and disclaimers. They put out this sort of inane, insulting garbage…

…and then it’s somehow a surprise when people are still confused. All of those warnings. Literally, “YOU COULD GET SUED.” And then nothing happens to your video, or millions of others, besides some ads showing up. All that talk and what, I can still watch years worth of full episodes of Late Night with Craig Ferguson anytime, anywhere? All that noise about copyright, yet so much silence where it counts.

Major problems aside, YouTube is YouTube. I actually really love YouTube, I just wish they were more progressive in their copyright education materials and policies. Maybe going forward things will improve, but for now, YouTube’s copyright policies and Content ID system are just something I have to deal with if I want to share my music with the world.

I can’t state this clearly enough: if you have received a copyright notification on a video on YouTube that contains one of my songs, it was not from me. Please dispute it immediately using the “I have a license or written permission from the proper rights holder to use this material” option, and give them my email address, chris@chriszabriskie.com, if they have any questions. That will usually make the dispute disappear within a few days. If you have any other troubles, please contact me directly.

Well, that was quite an experience. It was my first SXSW and it was wonderfully overwhelming and fantastic all around. Everyone in Austin was suspiciously nice, I met a lot of amazingly intelligent and talented people, and I heard a lot of great music. Can’t complain.

Our panel seemed to go well, based on the discussions I had in the hallway afterward if nothing else. And it was well attended, especially considering that the neighboring rooms simultaneously held panels featuring the likes of Amanda Palmer, Fat Joe, and Kenny Loggins. But everyone else missed out on a really great discussion about Creative Commons, performance royalties, GEMA, YouTube, and much more. A very special thanks to everyone who came out and joined in, and to Jason and Wolfgang for inviting me along.

But that was just Wednesday. I stuck around through the rest of the week to be inspired by a long list of other panels and amazing musical performances. Wonderful discussions about the future of copyright, archiving our musical heritage (including my own), political activism, and, of course, Virtual 2pac. I sat in a small room with the lead singers of Spoon, Superchunk, Nada Surf, and The dBs as they passed an acoustic guitar around, played songs, and talked about their songwriting process. Chuck D explained how Napster changed the world. My wife went and saw an interview with Depeche Mode while I enjoyed a discussion with an FCC commissioner about noncommercial radio. Every day, every hour, was just packed full of these sort of learning opportunities. So glad I went.

Of course, we did the live music thing at night. I can’t even remember every band I saw. We skipped most of the larger showcases and tried to hit as many smaller shows as possible. I did go out of my way to see The Thermals, who were wonderful as always (I’ve probably seen them 7 times now in four states over the last 10 years). Hutch is one of my favorite songwriters, and they played nearly all of More Parts Per Million during that set, so it was a pretty perfect half-hour as far as I’m concerned. One of the bands that played earlier in the evening, Blessed Feathers, really impressed me. Great songs. Chvrches were great, In the Valley Below were great, everyone was great.

I also went out of my way (way out of my way, walked about four miles there) to see Kind of Like Spitting perform in a small airplane hanger behind a kickboxing academy. Weatherbox, Caravels, Joie de Vivre, as well, all just amazing sets. The poor power strip keeping everything live could barely handle their energy. Also had my first taste of Four Loko that evening, so there’s that. (I didn’t hate it!!)

Possibly my favorite performance I saw the whole week was by Dance for the Dying, a band out of D.C. that I have loved ever since I first discovered their songs in Rock Band. It was a wonderful surprise to find them playing at lunchtime in a small bar, and their set was just fantastic.

I know SXSW probably doesn’t seem worth it for a lot of bands, especially “smaller” ones. It doesn’t pay well upfront, it’s a decent trip if you’re not already on tour, and you’re competing with about 100 other bands at any given moment for Austin’s attention. But I’m grateful for the artists that made the trip, especially the ones I would probably have never heard of otherwise.

So thanks for being so nice to me, Austin. Hope to see you again next year.

I can’t believe SXSW Music is next week. We’ve been planning the panel I’m on for what feels like forever. I’m super pumped, but also a little nervous, I admit. Not about the panel, I could talk about Creative Commons and music licensing all day, just about the whole experience. It’s my first SXSW, so I’m sure I’m not prepared for how crazy the week is going to be. Couldn’t be more excited!

I’ll be there all week, Tuesday through Sunday, so if you’re planning to be around Austin in any capacity, please get in touch via email, Facebook, or Twitter if you’d like to meet up!

Before I released The Dark Glow of the Mountains, I spent a couple years writing and releasing vocal records with the invaluable assistance of Marc Sirdoreus (better known as Marc with a C). Those records have been out-of-print for quite a while, but they’re now back online at lofiisscifi.bandcamp.com. No definite plans for the future of the band, but both Marc and I would love to play some shows and record more music together, so stay tuned.

America’s Parking Lot makes its television debut on ESPN Classic tonight! It’s a really wonderful documentary (not just because of my music). Even if you don’t care about the NFL, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Thanks to your votes and support, I’ll be speaking at SXSW 2013, participating in the C3S: Putting the Revenue in Creative Commons panel during SXSW Music! The official date for the panel is still forthcoming, but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to vote and make it happen. I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully I’ll be seeing some of you there!

Very happy to announce that Brent Chesanek’s City World is making its international debut in competition at CPH:DOX 2012 (that’s the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, for the uninitiated). This includes two screenings, November 3 and 9, as well as Brent’s participation in a seminar on Hybrid Cinematography on November 11. Incredibly excited about this.

Not to be entirely outdone, I’ll be attending the nearly simultaneous Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival screening of City World on November 3.

But wait, there’s more! As if two concurrent screenings on two continents wasn’t enough, City World will also be playing at the Indie Memphis Film Festival on November 3 (starting literally half an hour after Ft. Lauderdale!).

It’s a busy weekend for a film we’re super proud of, so I hope you’ll be able to make one (or more!) of the showings. If you’re at CPH:DOX or Ft. Lauderdale, please come say hi to Brent or me. We’d love to meet you.

SXSW’s PanelPicker voting for 2013 has opened, and I’m actually one of your choices this year. I’ve been invited to be a part of the C3S: Putting the Revenue in Creative Commons panel, speaking about Creative Commons, independent music licensing, and the Cultural Commons Collection Society. So, if you have a second to vote, why not give us a quick thumbs up and let SXSW know that you’d like to make the panel a reality?

My seven-year-old son and I host an occasional podcast called CGI Snake. We released our third episode recently, so if you’d like to hear a bit about the dangers of swallowing video projectors (if you’re a shark), among other equally intellectual discussions,  then it might be worth a listen.

And I’m also super pumped to have recently joined the amazing team at Treehouse. We’re trying to change the world through affordable and entertaining technology education. You can already hear a good bit of my music and sound design work in our most recent releases, and there’s so much more to come. See you around the island!

That’s it for the moment. I hope you’re well and enjoying the new album. Thanks for listening, cheers!