YouTube to Change Content ID System After Monetization Complaints

YouTube has announced that it is “developing a new solution” to its current Content ID System after backlash from both content creators and 3rd party copyright claimants.

Under the current Content ID system, when a video is claimed and/or being disputed all monetization is suspended, meaning no one earns money from the video. A consequence of this, as Channel Awesome‘s “Where’s The Fair Use” (#WTFU) campaign pointed out, is that creators who produce content as their main source of income lose out on money and have their livelihoods threatened.

Finally replying to creator campaigns and complaints from major companies that YouTube is hiding behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and cutting their profits, Content ID Group Product Manager David Rosenstein has posted details of the new system that will be implemented in a few months to the YouTube Creator Blog:

“Today, we’re announcing a major step to help fix [the current Content ID system]. We’re developing a new solution that will allow videos to earn revenue while a Content ID claim is being disputed. Here’s how it will work: when both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, we will continue to run ads on that video and hold the resulting revenue separately. Once the Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, we’ll pay out that revenue to the appropriate party. We’re working on this new system now and hope to roll it out to all YouTube partners in the coming months.”

The blog also includes a pictorial digram of how the system will work and continues on to say that YouTube “strongly believe in fair use” and “want to help both the YouTube community and copyright owners alike better understand what fair use looks like online”.

Speaking to The Daily Dot, Channel Awesome co-founder Mike Michaud was optimistic but indicated that problems do still exist:

“It’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t fix the issue of false DMCA take downs, nor does it fix the loss of all monetization on a YouTube account that has a chance of happening after a DMCA is issued, even if the DMCA take down is completely invalid.”

The reaction to this announcement has been largely positive across the internet, with many sharing Michaud’s sentiments that the change is a step in the right direction.