Hasbro Legal 3: Rise of the Content ID

For those who haven't seen what's been going on recently, you probably haven't been checking your favourite artists social media; people on YouTube have been getting content claims. It's no coincidence it's all happening now; infact, there is a root cause for this pony censorship; YouTube Content ID.

In case you didn't know, Content ID has been destroying user-generated fan content since 2007. It's essentially a system for copyright holders to upload all their assets and have content on YouTube scanned for it to either take down, track, or monetise. Sounds great right? Sounds like a flawless system so copyright holders get what they're entitled to? Wrong. In more than numerous occasions it has had issues or not understood fair use.

Today, Laserpon3 (MasterPJ55) has been hit with a copyright claim and so has Silva Hound. For information on what they look like, see below

For the non-Dutch speaking general public, this translates to basically state PJ cannot earn revenue as Hasbro have claimed the content.

Exact same email PJ has received. They're onto us.

So now you're thinking "aww shit son. all my stuff is going to get taken down."

Yes, it will. However, if you choose to re-upload there are methods of getting around YouTube Content ID.

I can confirm that I have used these methods and tested them before putting this article out and as of June 7th 2014 this has successfully worked. Whether they change their algorithm I can't say but all we can do is try.

AUDIO: Static will not stop YouTube. Adding distractions or SFX won't either; it's not stupid. The only way I can so far avoid it is to actually modify the sound. If you slightly detune your sound, it usually gets through. Remember this is a robot. It also can sometimes mismatch similar sounding audio however so be sure to do it enough. If you're remixing an MLP track; process your vocals. A bit of vocodex never killed anyone. You might even make it better (y). Remember this system is similar to Shazam, you can use that to test your effects.

VIDEO: Mirroring = no. It doesn't work. The best way to do video is to decolour slightly. Try and slightly modify the video through effects and if possibly distort the image slightly near the center. If visual content is a match and you're not using Hasbro IP (this includes trademarks, ponies, characters, sets) then you can try and dispute it. Good luck though, YouTube Content ID has a dispute process like PayPal's; slow, and sided to one party.

This is an ever-changing issue so I will update this article as needed and if you have any tips you'd like to share comment them or tweet me @RubyMewMew or on the Horse News twitter or even in the comments!