Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

220 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetechnological approaches221Viacom’s litigation is the most public expression of conflict between the corporations andYouTube users who want, and are able, to upload copyright infringing material belongingto media industries such as television, music, and cinema. YouTube is caught between thecompeting demands of these entities: corporations feel uneasy about the lack of control, andusers dislike corporations interfering. 3 Corporations take the position that their products arecreating value for YouTube through traffic-driven advertising revenue, revenue to which theytherefore claim some entitlement. Some corporations believe that they should be benefitingmore substantially from YouTube, hence the size of the Viacom lawsuit, and the refusal ofWarner Music Group (WMG) to re-negotiate its 2006 partnership deal with YouTube at theend of 2008, because WMG regards it as an under-valued revenue-sharing arrangement.However, corporations may also have wider cultural concerns regarding how copyright infringementon YouTube challenges the way that corporations have traditionally been ableto determine the reproduction and distribution of their own products. They might feel thatthe ability of YouTube users to copy, re-edit, and share audio and video creates a worryingcultural situation in which new contexts of use are afforded to consumers, enabling them tobecome producers of cultural objects outside of the monetizing traditions of corporate intellectualproperty. It is unlikely that corporations such as WMG would see YouTube as a ‘vitalcultural archive’, or user video uploads of copyrighted works as ‘fair use’ within new forms ofparticipatory and networked society. 4On the issue of copyright infringing videos, YouTube seems to prefer concord over conflict.It has attempted to create a stable business, increasing potential advertising revenue by developingtighter controls of uploads and extending its partnership arrangements with rightsholders.YouTube provides a manual DMCA takedown notice system using a ‘Copyright ComplaintForm’ that anyone can use to request the removal of an uploaded video. It also runs an‘Audioswap’ facility that offers the uploader an opportunity to automatically replace the audiotrack of a video with one approved by YouTube’s content partners. The ‘Partner Program’ isused by YouTube to recruit content partners into revenue-generating opportunities that mightcircumnavigate infringement problems. YouTube partnerships allow the sharing of revenuebetween YouTube and the content partner by using tools such as ‘InVideo’ adverts overlaidover videos, banner ads, and other forms of marketing and branding.More advanced tools are available for professional content producers to protect their intellectualproperty. The ‘Content Verification Program’ allows content to be verified and ifnecessary to use the information supplied to make bulk submission copyright complaints.The major tool used by YouTube against copyright infringement is ‘Content ID’, including‘Audio ID’ and ‘Video ID’, which allows the swift removal of unapproved videos, and at thesame time provides the opportunity to monetize infringing videos without removal. This facil-ity marks a significant new development in the cooperative relationship between YouTubeand media conglomerates. The Content ID system lets rights-holders decide whether to blockthe upload altogether, monetize the video, or track the video to gain information about howit is being used. The tracking is achieved by ‘YouTube Insight’, a reporting tool that identifies‘user sentiment’ by recording views over time, analysing the most viewed parts of the video(‘Hotspots’) or the least interesting (the parts where people lose interest and close the clipdown); provides demographic and regional viewing statistics; compares the ‘claimed video’(such as an unofficial visual interpretation of a piece of music) with the official versions; andidentifies which external websites the video is being embedded in, and the keywords used tofind the video in search engines.YouTube employs several mechanisms to identify the 24 hours of video material uploadedevery minute, using reference files supplied by the participating rights-holders. Algorithmsare used to convert complete video files into shorter, fixed-size datum files, or ‘MD5 Hashes’.The hashes generated from new uploaded files can be compared to the database of referencehashes, allowing identical video files to be noted. Newer methods work in a similar way,providing ‘fingerprint’ files that match reference files to audio and video uploads that haveminor degradations or discrepancies (such as moving image reversal). The fingerprint filesare spectrograms: visual representations of the separated audio and video signals generatedfrom algorithmic frequency variations over time. 5 If the system finds a match, it followswhatever rules are attached in the database. The database can be updated on a rolling basisaccording to the decisions made by the rights-holder, or to cope with different instructions inrelation to different regions.Mary Gould Stewart, a User Experience Manager at YouTube, has given an illuminating videopresentation on this topic. In ‘How YouTube Thinks About Copyright’, 6 Stewart suggests that‘rights management is no longer simply a question of ownership’, but is a ‘complex web ofrelationships and a critical part of our cultural landscape’. Stewart maintains that YouTube isempowering content owners by providing a ‘culture of opportunity’, where ‘progressive rightsmanagement and new technology’ offer an alternative to simply blocking all re-use of intellectualproperty. YouTube’s approach, she argues, sustains new audiences, art forms, andrevenue streams that would otherwise be circumscribed.In her presentation, Stewart refers to an example of which YouTube appears particularly proud,the ‘JK Wedding Entrance Dance’ video. 7 This video consists of a five minute real- time recordingof the beginning of the wedding ceremony of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz, who weremarried in St Paul, Minnesota on 20 June 2009. The first upload by ‘TheKheinz’ was posted amonth after the wedding, when the bride’s father requested that the video be shared with relativesunable to attend the wedding. The video begins conventionally enough, with the closing3. Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, Cambridge:Polity, 2009, p.5.4. Paul McDonald, ‘Digital Discords in the Online Media Economy: Advertising versus Contentversus Copyright’, in Pelle Snickers and Patrick Vonderau (eds) The YouTube Reader,Stockholm: National Library of Sweden, 2009, p. 402.5. Eliot Van Buskirk, ‘YouTube Search-and-Delete Code Makes Money for Rights-Holders’, 21August, 2009, http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/how-copyright-holders-profit-frominfringement-on-youtube.6. See: http://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_stewart_how_youtube_thinks_about_copyright.html.7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0&feature=related.