Huge increase in Warner YouTube takedowns
p2pnet news view P2P:- Corey Vidal isn’t a pirate, “but he’s been branded one as a result of the licensing spat between Warner Music Group and YouTube,” says CNet News, going on
“On YouTube, Vidal posted a humorous video tribute to John Williams, the man who scored the soundtracks for such blockbuster films as Indiana Jones, and Star Wars. In his clip he included some of Williams’ music. By now, everybody knows that YouTube removes videos that violate copyright law. What’s different about Vidal’s work getting pulled is that when he posted it in October, he was permitted to use Warner’s music.
“Until last month, YouTube had an agreement with Warner – one of the four largest recording companies – that allowed video creators to include the label’s content in their clips. Last month, talks to renew the deal broke down and that means YouTube and its users no longer have access to Warner’s library. For this reason, the case is much different than YouTube’s high-profile fight with Viacom or run-of-the-mill piracy that once flourished on the site.”
There’s always so much crap flying around between and among Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and the many and various entities they hope will sell their ‘product’, it’s impossible to keep up with it.
In the process, Warner Music has been, and still is, being very silly, p2pnet posted in January.
Little did we know how silly.
“It is no secret that Warner Music Group is issuing record numbers of takedowns to Youtube but until now I haven’t seen much in the way of statistics,” says Youtomb, built by MIT Free Culture, a student organization at MIT.
What’s the purpose behind it?
“YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns,” says the About page. “Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.
And what does it show for Warner?
A staggering increase between this year and last which is even more mind-boggling considering we’re only into month three of 2009.
- 2008: 1,440, takedowns
- 2009: 3,707, takedowns
“In just the first three months of 2009 Youtomb has recorded nearly three times as many takedowns than all of 2008,” says Youtomb. And, “The numbers are even more ridiculous when they are broken down by month,” it says.
“Notice the bulk of the 2008 numbers are actually in December and arguably part of the same crackdown effort,” says Youtomb continuing, “I hypothesized that WMG is likely far more aggressive now with regard to video takedowns. To prove this I measured the ‘lifespan’ of a video by subtracting the date of the takedown from the date the video was created. I used both mean and median measurements against a “crackdown” date of 2009-01-30. My assumption was that after this date the official heavy lifting of purging all the known videos would be done and they would start monitoring for anything new.
“I rounded up into whole days just to make this easier to read but the trend is pretty clear. Digging a little deeper I broke down the lifespan of videos by month starting with November 2008 (just slightly before the crackdown) and measured the mean and median life spans again:
“If you want to run these numbers yourself feel free to submit this query to our public database,” adds Youtomb:
SELECT time_created, timestamp
FROM artifacts
WHERE status = ‘down:copyright:WMG.’
OR status = ‘down:copyright:Warner Music Group.’
(Thanks, Oliver)
CNet News – YouTube users caught in Warner Music spat, January 27, 2009
being very silly – Warner Music defecates on own doorstep, January 27, 2009
YouTomb – Statistics on Warner Music Group Takedowns, March 8, 2009
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
valid sql
March 11th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
SELECT convert(char(8), time_created, 102) AS PostDate, convert(char(8), timestamp, 102) AS LastDayOnline. datediff( d, convert(datetime, timecreated)), convert(datetime, timestamp)) As DaysOnline
FROM artifacts
WHERE patindex(’%copyright%’, status) > 0
better sql …