YouTube get involved? They're owned by Google, the company who's slogan used to be "Don't be evil" and then proceeded to do the exact opposite.
I think Rick Beato needs better legal representation. If UMG has repeatedly made complaints and lost, it indicates a pattern of abuse via the legal system - basically Goliath using its deep pockets to fund legal harassment via the legal system. Not only can UMG be held financially liable, but any and all of their lawyers participating in this scheme are subject to disbarment.
Why UMG would want this headache is beyond me. They're clearly not looking at the big picture.
People or companies with money can screw with the little guy all day long.
And that's turning into a real problem.
Geez, just look at our exec branch of government using the legal system to turn our system and way of life on its' ears. Oops sorry... didn't mean to go there but it is a fact.
Beato has become a go to for so many people. Musicians and non alike.
These kinds of legal actions have been going on since about 2006. It's often referred to as copyright trolling, and is sometimes done by individuals who have no connection to the companies that own the copyrights.
All YouTube's (or Alphabet's) CEO has to do is say,
"We are not cool with big players gaming our rules. Rick is staying on YouTube and we will handle these bogus takedowns ourselves without requiring him to do anything."
Can we expect anything else from the corporation that lost up to 175,000 masters of 20th century recordings in a fire and then hid that fact for over a decade? These people have no place in the arts.
Ted makes it sound like there are actual humans at UMG who are specifically and proactively targeting Rick Beato. I know how this business works and would be flabbergasted if this were the case.
No, this is a result of an automated process that scrapes YouTube (among many other sites/services) and serves DMCA takedown notices when it finds matches to UMG's content. UMG's piracy ops group has maintained this system for many, many years. The process does not, AFAIK, respect any minimum times -- and no, there is no magic number of seconds below which something is fair use; fair use is decided (by courts, and only by courts as the result of filed lawsuits) based on a totality of factors, only one of which is how much of the content was used/taken. A huge number of videos per day get this treatment. Given the large volume, mistakes and opportunities for abuse are inevitable at some level.
In this case it is unfortunate -- Rick doesn't use the Content ID system that would probably allow him to post his stuff. Although if he did, he probably would not, under the typical rules, be allowed to monetize his site, which would kind of defeat his purpose. I know that Rick has complained about this, and the fact that a) he doesn't understand how this system works and b) nothing has been done about it is, to me, more evidence that this is just a big automated process that UMG has no interest in interfering with. It has unfortunate side effects and they've decided in general that it's not worth bothering to tweak, because (among other things) any such tweak in one place would have unintended consequences elsewhere.
So no, I really don't think that there is some evil cabal within UMG to demonize Rick Beato, who I agree puts out a lot of great stuff that enhances everyone's appreciation of classic rock and classic rock musicians. It's just a huge process that happens to penalize him.
I worked at a UMG label for a couple years as an A&R guy and I can attest that this is 100% the case. Those automated claims generate an enormous amount of revenue that would otherwise go unclaimed. For all the Rick Beatos that play by the fair use rules (and I love Rick and subscribe!) there are literally billions of wedding videos and cover songs and podcasts that are playing entire songs without any clue of the copyright ramifications.
Also, this isn't necessarily a case of UMG being the bad guy. Those little claims can make the difference between working class songwriters paying their bills or not. For many people, this is their #1 stream of income. This isn't an evil empire situation as much as it is a system that actually works pretty well, except for when it doesn't.
AND YET - One would think that Youtube would have the ability to highlight certain creators and set them on different tiers so that these claims wouldn't cause these issues. Rick is one of the top voices on their platform. He shouldn't have to hire a full-time lawyer to comply with somebody else's automated system. Youtube could simply change their policy for folks with the gold plaque in the background of the shot.
Well said. However, having worked at UMG I'm guessing you can see how it would be a slippery slope if YT or any DSP (TikTok, Meta, etc) were to decide unanimously that certain creators were exempt from claims!
Yeah, I can believe this. On the one hand, right, there are no simple bright-line rules about what constitutes fair use. On the other, Rick's videos are clearly _well_ within not just the letter, but also the spirit of the definition.
It seems to me (and I'm far from the first person to say this) that it's up to Google to fix this. They could balance things out by saying that after some number (20?) of unsuccessful challenges against a particular creator, further challenges by that copyright holder against that creator will be ignored. Then it would be up to UMG to decide whether they wanted to change their system, or just live with that.
UMG would probably sue Google over this policy, but I doubt they would win.
the AI part of it makes it even worse. This is the world the globalists want to force us to accept ... of punishment and threats of being cancelled of one's livelihood without any evidence of harm and without any reason or recourse. This is the stablecoin / CBDC world they want us to accept. The hell we've all experienced by now of trying to reason with a bot. It all needs to implode.
As usual, a small department within a large corporation is working to meet metrics, metrics that were established without any understanding of their impact on the entire company.
@Bill - Yep! I've been following news like this since around 2006-07.
I once had an online radio show, and was amazed by the hoops people have to jump through to comply with online broadcasting laws. The worst thing: having to submit info. on long out of print recordings from other countries, as I'm *sure* no monies were paid to anyone even remotely connected to the musicians, composers and lyricists. A lot of the labels in question don't belong to anyone who's still living, and yet... I still wonder if the folks at the company that hosted my show were pocketing the royalties on those cuts, or else if some other corporation was taking them. It's an ugly business.
I believe this is the correct interpretation. I assumed something like this too. Beato is just caught in this automated process. It's not targeting him specifically.
Beato could potentially get access to Content ID to claim re-uploads of his videos (or portions of them), but that would not allow him to use UMGs IP in his videos without a claim (or a strike - I think people are very confused about a claim (not bad) vs a strike (bad)). Nor would it prevent reuploads of his videos to YT from also potentially receiving Content ID claims where UMG (or other label's content) was present.
(I worked at YT for ~7 years and in the music industry for ~20 (never at a major.))
Claims aren't strikes but you can't monetize with other people's content under content ID. You can only do it if you agree not to monetize. I do this with videos of covers that my band records. We don't care about making $0.0000003 cents, we care about posting videos for our friends to watch. Rick wants to monetize (and should, by all rights).
Right, I know that claims aren't strikes (also: I worked at YT on the music team).
You sure can monetize videos that have other people's IP- you can do it with 1) the correct license, or b) you can agree to share revenue via some other form of agreement, or c) you can arrange for the claimant to reimburse you for some amount (flat fee, %, etc).
Rick has done none of those - he is claiming (countering the UMG claim) that the transformative nature of his commentary/usage constitutes fair use and should therefore allow him to take all the revenue.
Right, in other words, you can always contract around the rules. You can't do any of this within the Content ID system per se. You have to approach rightsholders, which in Rick's case is dozens or hundreds of them. This requires hiring lawyers and so on. For what someone like Rick does, it's not practical. The one simple way I know of to monetize other people's IP through Content ID is through wearethehits.com, a third-party service that has arrangements with YouTube to do ad rev shares for covers of compositions from a catalog of a few million songs. We use this for our band's covers. It's easy to sign up for and they will send you that check for $0.0000000000003 if you really want it. But this only works for covers, not samples of sound recordings.
Great piece Ted! “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” ― supposedly said by Hunter S. Thompson, also attributed to P.J. O'Rourke. Not sure who actually said that, but it's true and is an understatement. Looks like Universal wants to harass Beato until he is forced off YouTube. Hope he sues their pants off. Great music writers and educators like you and Beato drive music sales and provide people with immense pleasure by exposing them to great music they have never heard and never heard of, and they go on to listen to it and their lives are enriched. Keep up the great posts!
I hope BEATO wins and finally BEATS the system of greed vs education/creativity! Rick is the reason I found The Honest Broker and subsequently tell all my musician friends about Ted’s Substack, nuff said.
Perhaps Beato should consider an alternative -- a competitor to Youtube. I don't know much about this, but there are other video channels that compete with Youtube and probably would love having such a big name as Beato (such as Vimeo or Yudu....) Hopefully he has all his episodes backed up and hopefully he can announce to all his followers that he's also available on "XYZ" platform, so that if UMG manages to screw him over at YouTube, followers can always find his presence elsewhere. Of course it would still be a big pain and lost effort for him, but at least he could rebuild somewhere else.
Of course, UMG would then go after Vimeo or Yudu. Maybe Rick Beato should transfer his library to Substack. Then we can see if Substack's commitment to free expression is as deep as the company claims. Substack has some heavy hitters behind it. They can bark back at UMG.
You're right, though my presumption is that anyone like Beato moving to another platform would get some assurances from such platform that they would not behave like Youtube, in having a three strikes policy. And your good point about Substack falls in that same category.
YouTube is free, which is amazing, but that is sometimes a problem -- *you get what you pay for*....a company that sometimes can be acting too much like an Overlord.
If some major YouTubers moved away from YouTube, to other platforms, it might make YouTube a little more responsive to creators, rather than be rigid when there is someone malicious out there like UMG.
We need something similar to anti-SLAPP legislation to punish bogus copyright claims. The only thing that will make them stop is to hit them in the wallet.
Thanks Ted! I have increased my music knowledge and appreciation 10fold thanks to Rick and you. I've gone out, bought records, downloaded music and watched countless interviews because of people like you both. Sincerely, thank you. If Rick gets taken down it will be akin to "Death by 1000 cuts." I feel like that's Universal's tactic. Chip away until he's gone. They have the time, money, resources and lack of awareness to do so.
Do you or anyone on here have any advice on what I/we can do to help?
Would love other creative ideas as well. But I trust Rick Beato has some suggestions on his site or videos as to how to help. Even if just a GoFundMe, we’d all be there.
YouTube could fix this by ignoring UMG harassment and put their foot down. It's their deliberate choice to let him twist in the wind. But why? I think they're a big lazy corporation whose illegal monopolist parent has just been given a pass yet again. They can do whatever they want. There is no accountability.
Doesn't X make occasional noises about starting a video section? Seems like an opportunity for them to me. But until we get true anti-trust enforcement, this crap is going to continue to happen.
Book publishers are experiencing the same thing. I wrote a book, Living in a World That Can't Be Fixed, Melville House, and included a Hendrix lyric as an epigraph to one chapter. Hendrix! White collar businessman flashing down the street pointing his plastic finger at me etc. That Hendrix. And Melville told me to take it out or get the Hendrix $ empire to sign off on fair use. So I contacted them and exchanged several emails and they said $600. Melville has been threatened with lawsuits and can't afford to defend fair use. It's something Trump understands well. The court system is not for justice, it's for intimidating and threatening and suing. Where this ends is in the end of free speech. Where's Frank Zappa when we need him!
And while they're at it, why not sue Ted for libel? Lawyers gotta earn their keep. They lose the case, of course, but by losing they win because Ted's bank account has a big dent in it from paying other lawyers to defend him. Pretty soon he's spending all of his time in court like some pathetic creature in a Dickens novel. As for Universal Music, it's just part of the cost of doing business. Whatever that means. Whatever their business is, it has very little to do with music.
Is there any way the average music fan can let UMG know it's acting disappointingly? I like what I've seen of Beato (his Ted Gioia, Rick Ruben, and Billy Strings interviews), and would hate for his channel to fail.
YouTube get involved? They're owned by Google, the company who's slogan used to be "Don't be evil" and then proceeded to do the exact opposite.
I think Rick Beato needs better legal representation. If UMG has repeatedly made complaints and lost, it indicates a pattern of abuse via the legal system - basically Goliath using its deep pockets to fund legal harassment via the legal system. Not only can UMG be held financially liable, but any and all of their lawyers participating in this scheme are subject to disbarment.
Why UMG would want this headache is beyond me. They're clearly not looking at the big picture.
People or companies with money can screw with the little guy all day long.
And that's turning into a real problem.
Geez, just look at our exec branch of government using the legal system to turn our system and way of life on its' ears. Oops sorry... didn't mean to go there but it is a fact.
Beato has become a go to for so many people. Musicians and non alike.
Leave him alone!
This an interesting demonstration of enshittification in action
These kinds of legal actions have been going on since about 2006. It's often referred to as copyright trolling, and is sometimes done by individuals who have no connection to the companies that own the copyrights.
All YouTube's (or Alphabet's) CEO has to do is say,
"We are not cool with big players gaming our rules. Rick is staying on YouTube and we will handle these bogus takedowns ourselves without requiring him to do anything."
Can we expect anything else from the corporation that lost up to 175,000 masters of 20th century recordings in a fire and then hid that fact for over a decade? These people have no place in the arts.
Wow, really?
Yes, it came to light in 2019, the list of artists is here and if you're reading this on a phone it's a long scroll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Universal_Studios_fire
It's for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cq8T7jgnRHc&list=RDCq8T7jgnRHc&start_radio=1
Ted makes it sound like there are actual humans at UMG who are specifically and proactively targeting Rick Beato. I know how this business works and would be flabbergasted if this were the case.
No, this is a result of an automated process that scrapes YouTube (among many other sites/services) and serves DMCA takedown notices when it finds matches to UMG's content. UMG's piracy ops group has maintained this system for many, many years. The process does not, AFAIK, respect any minimum times -- and no, there is no magic number of seconds below which something is fair use; fair use is decided (by courts, and only by courts as the result of filed lawsuits) based on a totality of factors, only one of which is how much of the content was used/taken. A huge number of videos per day get this treatment. Given the large volume, mistakes and opportunities for abuse are inevitable at some level.
In this case it is unfortunate -- Rick doesn't use the Content ID system that would probably allow him to post his stuff. Although if he did, he probably would not, under the typical rules, be allowed to monetize his site, which would kind of defeat his purpose. I know that Rick has complained about this, and the fact that a) he doesn't understand how this system works and b) nothing has been done about it is, to me, more evidence that this is just a big automated process that UMG has no interest in interfering with. It has unfortunate side effects and they've decided in general that it's not worth bothering to tweak, because (among other things) any such tweak in one place would have unintended consequences elsewhere.
So no, I really don't think that there is some evil cabal within UMG to demonize Rick Beato, who I agree puts out a lot of great stuff that enhances everyone's appreciation of classic rock and classic rock musicians. It's just a huge process that happens to penalize him.
I worked at a UMG label for a couple years as an A&R guy and I can attest that this is 100% the case. Those automated claims generate an enormous amount of revenue that would otherwise go unclaimed. For all the Rick Beatos that play by the fair use rules (and I love Rick and subscribe!) there are literally billions of wedding videos and cover songs and podcasts that are playing entire songs without any clue of the copyright ramifications.
Also, this isn't necessarily a case of UMG being the bad guy. Those little claims can make the difference between working class songwriters paying their bills or not. For many people, this is their #1 stream of income. This isn't an evil empire situation as much as it is a system that actually works pretty well, except for when it doesn't.
AND YET - One would think that Youtube would have the ability to highlight certain creators and set them on different tiers so that these claims wouldn't cause these issues. Rick is one of the top voices on their platform. He shouldn't have to hire a full-time lawyer to comply with somebody else's automated system. Youtube could simply change their policy for folks with the gold plaque in the background of the shot.
Well said. However, having worked at UMG I'm guessing you can see how it would be a slippery slope if YT or any DSP (TikTok, Meta, etc) were to decide unanimously that certain creators were exempt from claims!
It would also be easy for UMG to time the snippets used in order to avoid hassling the youtubers who follow fair use.
Yeah, I can believe this. On the one hand, right, there are no simple bright-line rules about what constitutes fair use. On the other, Rick's videos are clearly _well_ within not just the letter, but also the spirit of the definition.
It seems to me (and I'm far from the first person to say this) that it's up to Google to fix this. They could balance things out by saying that after some number (20?) of unsuccessful challenges against a particular creator, further challenges by that copyright holder against that creator will be ignored. Then it would be up to UMG to decide whether they wanted to change their system, or just live with that.
UMG would probably sue Google over this policy, but I doubt they would win.
the AI part of it makes it even worse. This is the world the globalists want to force us to accept ... of punishment and threats of being cancelled of one's livelihood without any evidence of harm and without any reason or recourse. This is the stablecoin / CBDC world they want us to accept. The hell we've all experienced by now of trying to reason with a bot. It all needs to implode.
As usual, a small department within a large corporation is working to meet metrics, metrics that were established without any understanding of their impact on the entire company.
Or on what the company deals with.
@Bill - Yep! I've been following news like this since around 2006-07.
I once had an online radio show, and was amazed by the hoops people have to jump through to comply with online broadcasting laws. The worst thing: having to submit info. on long out of print recordings from other countries, as I'm *sure* no monies were paid to anyone even remotely connected to the musicians, composers and lyricists. A lot of the labels in question don't belong to anyone who's still living, and yet... I still wonder if the folks at the company that hosted my show were pocketing the royalties on those cuts, or else if some other corporation was taking them. It's an ugly business.
I believe this is the correct interpretation. I assumed something like this too. Beato is just caught in this automated process. It's not targeting him specifically.
Beato could potentially get access to Content ID to claim re-uploads of his videos (or portions of them), but that would not allow him to use UMGs IP in his videos without a claim (or a strike - I think people are very confused about a claim (not bad) vs a strike (bad)). Nor would it prevent reuploads of his videos to YT from also potentially receiving Content ID claims where UMG (or other label's content) was present.
(I worked at YT for ~7 years and in the music industry for ~20 (never at a major.))
Claims aren't strikes but you can't monetize with other people's content under content ID. You can only do it if you agree not to monetize. I do this with videos of covers that my band records. We don't care about making $0.0000003 cents, we care about posting videos for our friends to watch. Rick wants to monetize (and should, by all rights).
Right, I know that claims aren't strikes (also: I worked at YT on the music team).
You sure can monetize videos that have other people's IP- you can do it with 1) the correct license, or b) you can agree to share revenue via some other form of agreement, or c) you can arrange for the claimant to reimburse you for some amount (flat fee, %, etc).
Rick has done none of those - he is claiming (countering the UMG claim) that the transformative nature of his commentary/usage constitutes fair use and should therefore allow him to take all the revenue.
Right, in other words, you can always contract around the rules. You can't do any of this within the Content ID system per se. You have to approach rightsholders, which in Rick's case is dozens or hundreds of them. This requires hiring lawyers and so on. For what someone like Rick does, it's not practical. The one simple way I know of to monetize other people's IP through Content ID is through wearethehits.com, a third-party service that has arrangements with YouTube to do ad rev shares for covers of compositions from a catalog of a few million songs. We use this for our band's covers. It's easy to sign up for and they will send you that check for $0.0000000000003 if you really want it. But this only works for covers, not samples of sound recordings.
Great piece Ted! “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” ― supposedly said by Hunter S. Thompson, also attributed to P.J. O'Rourke. Not sure who actually said that, but it's true and is an understatement. Looks like Universal wants to harass Beato until he is forced off YouTube. Hope he sues their pants off. Great music writers and educators like you and Beato drive music sales and provide people with immense pleasure by exposing them to great music they have never heard and never heard of, and they go on to listen to it and their lives are enriched. Keep up the great posts!
I hope BEATO wins and finally BEATS the system of greed vs education/creativity! Rick is the reason I found The Honest Broker and subsequently tell all my musician friends about Ted’s Substack, nuff said.
I too found out about the honest broker thanks to Rick.
Absolutely. Me too!
And the Honest Broker is how I found Rick Beato! YT needs to step up and fix this!
Perhaps Beato should consider an alternative -- a competitor to Youtube. I don't know much about this, but there are other video channels that compete with Youtube and probably would love having such a big name as Beato (such as Vimeo or Yudu....) Hopefully he has all his episodes backed up and hopefully he can announce to all his followers that he's also available on "XYZ" platform, so that if UMG manages to screw him over at YouTube, followers can always find his presence elsewhere. Of course it would still be a big pain and lost effort for him, but at least he could rebuild somewhere else.
Of course, UMG would then go after Vimeo or Yudu. Maybe Rick Beato should transfer his library to Substack. Then we can see if Substack's commitment to free expression is as deep as the company claims. Substack has some heavy hitters behind it. They can bark back at UMG.
You're right, though my presumption is that anyone like Beato moving to another platform would get some assurances from such platform that they would not behave like Youtube, in having a three strikes policy. And your good point about Substack falls in that same category.
YouTube is free, which is amazing, but that is sometimes a problem -- *you get what you pay for*....a company that sometimes can be acting too much like an Overlord.
If some major YouTubers moved away from YouTube, to other platforms, it might make YouTube a little more responsive to creators, rather than be rigid when there is someone malicious out there like UMG.
We need something similar to anti-SLAPP legislation to punish bogus copyright claims. The only thing that will make them stop is to hit them in the wallet.
As has been mentioned many times elsewhere, 3 strikes should work both ways. That would put a damper on these idiotic claims.
Maybe Rick Beato should take his 2000 episodes and 5 million subscribers to a new platform. Maybe others would move too.
And Creators are now faced with AI stealing all their material.
Thanks Ted! I have increased my music knowledge and appreciation 10fold thanks to Rick and you. I've gone out, bought records, downloaded music and watched countless interviews because of people like you both. Sincerely, thank you. If Rick gets taken down it will be akin to "Death by 1000 cuts." I feel like that's Universal's tactic. Chip away until he's gone. They have the time, money, resources and lack of awareness to do so.
Do you or anyone on here have any advice on what I/we can do to help?
Would love other creative ideas as well. But I trust Rick Beato has some suggestions on his site or videos as to how to help. Even if just a GoFundMe, we’d all be there.
YouTube could fix this by ignoring UMG harassment and put their foot down. It's their deliberate choice to let him twist in the wind. But why? I think they're a big lazy corporation whose illegal monopolist parent has just been given a pass yet again. They can do whatever they want. There is no accountability.
Doesn't X make occasional noises about starting a video section? Seems like an opportunity for them to me. But until we get true anti-trust enforcement, this crap is going to continue to happen.
Aren’t they scraping copyrighted works to train their LLM’s?
They are dealing with copyright law, for one. It's an awfully hard thing to fight.
AI company’s don’t seem to have any problems!
This isn't related to that.
Book publishers are experiencing the same thing. I wrote a book, Living in a World That Can't Be Fixed, Melville House, and included a Hendrix lyric as an epigraph to one chapter. Hendrix! White collar businessman flashing down the street pointing his plastic finger at me etc. That Hendrix. And Melville told me to take it out or get the Hendrix $ empire to sign off on fair use. So I contacted them and exchanged several emails and they said $600. Melville has been threatened with lawsuits and can't afford to defend fair use. It's something Trump understands well. The court system is not for justice, it's for intimidating and threatening and suing. Where this ends is in the end of free speech. Where's Frank Zappa when we need him!
And while they're at it, why not sue Ted for libel? Lawyers gotta earn their keep. They lose the case, of course, but by losing they win because Ted's bank account has a big dent in it from paying other lawyers to defend him. Pretty soon he's spending all of his time in court like some pathetic creature in a Dickens novel. As for Universal Music, it's just part of the cost of doing business. Whatever that means. Whatever their business is, it has very little to do with music.
Is there any way the average music fan can let UMG know it's acting disappointingly? I like what I've seen of Beato (his Ted Gioia, Rick Ruben, and Billy Strings interviews), and would hate for his channel to fail.
Let’s crowd fund a lawsuit fund so Rick Beato can sue for harassment.