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Started December 14th, 2011 · 4 replies · Latest reply by burkay 12 years, 4 months ago
Not a question, but something that happened last month to me.
I'm a member of YouTube for many years. I watch a lot of videos and occasionally upload some. Several months ago I was greeted with the message my account was now enabled for monetisation. That's cool, but I don't have videos that get a lot of views and I don't have a lot of subscribers, so I thought I'd start a video series on Minecraft to try and get more attention and maybe earn a little. Which then of course I could donate to Freesound.
So I did, made a few videos and in one of them I used some samples from Freesound. Klankbeeld's "horror ambience 12" and ERH's "swell pad" are the two I found useful to add some atmosphere. Thanks guys, they're great!
In case you're not familiar with YouTube's monetisation process: on upload, I get the option to enable monetisation, and there's a text field in which I can claim I have all the rights to use the video commercially. Of course with above mentioned sounds, I do have that right, they're both CC Attribution licensed.
So I was surprised when one week later I received an e-mail from YouTube saying they had disabled monetisation, because I had not supplied sufficient proof to back my claim. Well, I had given them a link to klankbeeld's and ERH's user page instead of the actual sample's page, so I figured I'd just try again and give them those links.
Yet one week later once again YouTube had disabled monetisation on the video, again for the same reason. This was all wrong. How could I not have provided enough proof, when I gave links to both samples? Isn't it obvious they're released under CC-BY license?
I began a long search for any possibility to directly contact YouTube. It seems it's nearly impossible to just send an e-mail to them. However, buried deep in their forums, a user had once posted it, for future reference, it's copyright@youtube.com. I e-mailed them, once again giving all the links, giving links to the license, quoting from the license, even providing links to the exact second in my video where I had the attribution.
Not expecting much, I sent it and thought I'd never be able to monetise that video anyway. Which is too bad, because that would mean I probably wouldn't use any more Freesound samples in future videos.
However, 10 days later I received a reply. They said they could not find on the sample page that ERH's sample was indeed released under CC-BY license. This I found very odd, because it's very clear to me that it is. One look at the page tells me that. Also, apparently they had no problem with klankbeeld's sample, and that one has the exact same license and the CC notification is on the exact same location on the page. So I e-mailed them back (this time I actually could simply reply to the e-mail), saying just that. The sample is released under CC-BY and it says so clearly on the sample page.
Expecting a reply to take another 10 days, probably more, since by then it's Christmas, I just forgot about it again, but just hours later, I received a reply. Now they suddenly did see the Creative Commons logo and link and approved my monetisation request, finally.
Moral of the story: if YouTube is rejecting your videos for monetisation and you have Freesound samples in it, check the samples you used actually can be used commercially and e-mail them at copyright@youtube.com, explaining where they should look to find the CC logo; attach a screenshot if you want to make it really clear. But in my experience it does pay off to seek direct contact and if you receive a lot of views on your videos, it will be worth it.
So do you think the CC link is not clear enough on the sample page? Should maybe Freesound have a separate page people can link to when applying for monetisation, so YouTube employees can quickly see the samples may be used commercially?
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go create more videos, and I will use Freesound samples if I think they add to my video's atmosphere.
What a story,
I do not know anyone who works as carefully as you. What perseverance. Great, but sad that youtube reads poorly.
Thank you for using my sound recordings I will say. Go ahead. I have only a few non-commercial sounds.
If you credit properly in the folm, and maby in the comment-text, you do all you can.
I promise, if you send me a link of every film with my sound, I comment the youtube movie, will give permission there. Is that an option for you?
Maybe that helps.
I hope you can view movies quickly.
My most used license : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
I great with al the respect and wish you a nice and Merry Christmas and a happy new (youtube-)year
ps When you make more than $1.0000.0000 send a few dollar to freesound. haha
Thanks klankbeeld, well, it's all fixed now, thankfully. I don't think a YouTube comment would be sufficient proof either, and it wasn't even your sample they didn't see the CC license on.
But yeah, "de aanhouder wint", as we say
And of course I would support Freesound if I ever made anything like that I have donated in the past, unfortunately lost some source of income, so haven't been able to donate for a long time. But I'm a longtime and loyal member here, so if, or I should say, when I get a decent amount, I will surely donate some
And a Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to you too, and to all of Freesound.
So YouTube users, remember this E-Mail:
copyright@youtube.com
!!
Good to know!
Thanx: http://www.freesound.org/people/nemoDaedalus/