As YouTube enacts a content ID sweep across all their channels, allegations have come up of illegitimate markdowns of gaming vlogs, as well as other channels.
What we know is video creators are coming up with Content ID Match claims which were presumed to come from the copyright holders themselves. Previous ‘offenders’, regardless of the content ID matches were warranted or not, will always be targeted first, and their videos inspected more meticulously. This work is actually mostly mechanical, with an algorithm checking if videos use more than 10 seconds of a trailer, as well as certain limits on cut scenes and game music.
Now, the allegation is, a lot of the claims are coming from one company called IDOL, which does distribution for many individual music companies. Their matches seem to include copyrighted footage because of the game audio. Therefore, IDOL may not be making legitimate claims, and may need sorting out on their end. Deep Silver, Ubisoft, Capcom, Naughty Dog and Codemasters have told Youtube vloggers to contact them in case they received these claims.
The content sweep itself, however, is only a small part of a bigger picture, as Google has just finished reassessing the Partner program following a lawsuit involving Fullscreen, a YouTube network, and the NMPA. Moving forward, YouTube Partners will have to work with Multi Channel Networks, either as Managed Partners or Affiliates. We won’t go through the details here, but in the plainest terms, the days of the Wild West on YouTube are coming to an end, and many of your favorite gaming channels may be making its way to pasture very, very soon if they don’t change with the times.
UPDATE: Google has released a statement explaining channels in these MCNs will now be part of the content sweeps moving forward. We're sharing the full statement verbatim below:
We recently enabled Content ID scanning on channels identified as affiliates of MCNs. This has resulted in new copyright claims for some users, based on policies set by the relevant content owners. As ever, channel owners can easily dispute Content ID claims if they believe those claims are invalid.
