YouTube Takes Down Ariana Grande's Manchester Benefit Concert On Copyright Grounds

from the because-of-course dept

At a time when Europe is pushing for much greater filtering and takedowns, it’s worth a reminder that these kinds of systems pretty regularly takedown perfectly legitimate content — either content that is fair use or that is licensed. Case in point: this past Sunday, Ariana Grande held a huge benefit concert in Manchester called One Love Manchester. As you no doubt know, a few weeks back there was a bombing at Grande’s concert in Manchester, and her decision to put on a massive benefit concert right back in Manchester just a couple weeks later is impressive.

Except, for at least some period of time, the copyright gods didn’t want you to see it. Grande streamed the whole thing via her YouTube account. And… the concert was then promptly shut down by by Warner Music and Sony Music, saying that the stream violated their copyrights.

Now, chances are these were simply ContentID matches that were automated — rather than direct takedown notices as suggested in the tweet. And the video is now back, so some might argue this is no big deal. However, with the record labels demanding stronger and stronger filters, along with demands that content not just be taken down but then “stay down”, stories like this would only get worse and worse, and more and more perfectly legitimate content would get blocked.

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Companies: sony music, warner music, youtube

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Comments on “YouTube Takes Down Ariana Grande's Manchester Benefit Concert On Copyright Grounds”

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31 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: "sacred" copyright

This all seems a bit dramatic.

Seems much more likely this was the standard shotgunned “there are no consequence for a mistaken takedown notice”, probably done by a bot.

Certainly corrupt and problematic, but hardly the enemy of all life as described.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: "sacred" copyright

The real problem is when it comes time for them to deny this is a real problem. We’ll get the same classic lines of this being necessary to protect them from wild, unchecked piracy that will destroy them utterly and this was just another negligible anomaly in the vast sea of anomalies.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re:2 "sacred" copyright

“protect them from wild, unchecked piracy that will destroy them”

Yea, you know, it’s just so much easier for WMG and SME to say that the “Content ID” system blocked it when the “Content ID” system IS THEM – they blocked it because they don’t want to expend any effort; plain and simple.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: Re: "sacred" copyright

But because they’re aware that their standard shotgunning catches things like this all the time and they don’t give a shit proves their amorality. If they weren’t amoral dirtbags, they’d shut down their automated processes immediately, apologize, and not turn them back on again until they could be sure shit like this would never happen again.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: At least now we know who the real terrorists are...

All of America, that is, those in America who are Americans, disagree. All of Britain disagrees. That is, all the British in Britain disagree.

Clearly, you are either mentally disturbed or intentionally promoting a separate agenda based on something other than reality.

You deserve public condemnation for your statements. I hope either MI-5 or Tucker Carlson examine your identity and motives and publish the truth about your insensitive and obviously false statements.

Anonymous Coward says:

A very small TV station in a very very small town in New Zealand recently did a 12 hour live music show with 12 bands from said small town. It was broadcast on their channel, also through web-streaming – both of which worked without a hitch.
But they also streamed it live on you-tube…
Bear in mind that the bands that played were all playing their own songs, and that none of them have major label recording contracts, it was very small time stuff. But you-tube cut the audio from the stream after about 2 hours.

Anonymous Coward says:

It needn't even be the usual "baddies"...

…right now, the ENTIRE Github repository of the single open source app that can handle Pebble watches and Xiaomi bracelets (that I know of) – Gadgetbridge – has been down for almost a week, because the author of a similar for-pay app allegedly found some screenshots of his app in the “issues” section, allegedly in relation to requests for comparable functionality. Nobody really knows though, because IT’S ALL INACCESSIBLE NOW, taken down via DMCA.

Anonymous Coward says:

I’ve got to wonder if maybe Ariana Grande and her people might have been behind the bombing in some way. They certainly profited from it, and will likely continue to profit from it for the foreseeable future. I had never even heard of this singer before, and now I can’t avoid hearing about her.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

That is a really terrible thing to say. Why not blame the victims themselves, maybe they wanted to be famous, maybe they wanted to see pictures of their blood splattered on the walls, that makes about as much sense. I still find it unbelievable that thoughtful comments posted on this site by rational individuals are routinely hidden, while this type of garbage content is promoted for all to see. What a sick place this is, home to the un-assimilated garbage of society, and protected by Masnick and his crew of Pirates. Proud of yourself, Masnick?

My_Name_Here says:

Re: Re:

I know you are trying hard to be funny, but this time you come off as lame.

Asiana may or may not have the rights (depends who actually wrote and owns her songs), but she almost certainly does not have the rights to Justin Beiber’s material, nor that of any of the other artists that performed.

When you consider the list of people who appeared, and then consider all of the different entities that are involved, any one of them could have popped a DMCA notice or content ID could have popped for any of them, and boom, it’s done.

Streaming something live does not imply rights to keep it online after the fact.

So yeah, next time try thinking a bit.

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