[LONG THREAD]
If you’ve been following my problems with CCTV (China State TV), who used my music in a bunch of TV series w/out licenses & then put em on Youtube: it’s done. I won. (& I’m cc’ing @senjudiciary on this because they’re currently seeking input on the DMCA.) /intro

I beat China State TV & they resolved all of their infringements (that I am aware of) w/a license agreement. FYI CCTV is Chinese-Government-funded/backed TV. They used my music in reality shows & scripted dramas that were put on YouTube after being broadcast on TV in China./1

For my composer & indie songwriter/musician brethren, if you’re one to pursue unlicensed uses of your music** (**and you should be doing this), the “how” of this process is the thing you should pay attention to. I’m sharing the playbook with you. /2

The redux of the situation: May 2019 I was up to 17 takedowns/copyright strikes applied against CCTV's YouTube channel (of shows they ran on TV then put on YT, monetized) and YouTube still hadn’t terminated their channel. /3

Because CCTV was a “Premium Uploader” client of YouTube - a VIP-type service that YT provides to high-profile networks & corporations (for a fee) whose main benefit is “YT doesn’t scan your uploads against the Content ID database” - these TV shows that used my music /4

got 10’s of millions of streams that CCTV & YT co-monetized for several years. Music uses went undetected by Content ID because CCTV paid for the Premium plan that circumvented the Content ID database and took their videos straight to the platform. What does that mean tho? /5

Joe YouTuber uploads a video & as it uploads it gets scanned against the Content ID database for music recognition. CCTV uploads a video & it goes **around** that fingerprint database and goes straight to “live” status. This is the Premium Uploader Service at YouTube. /6

“Bypassing Content ID at upload” guarantees ad sales revenue (and ad commitments from CCTV to advertisers) from view #1 because they know that no music claims (recognitions of music fingerprints) will interfere with monetization. This type of guarantee is /7

ad-sales gold to a large broadcaster who can sell ads not only on broadcasts of the TV shows, but who can guarantee & promise eyeballs on ads from view #1 on the YT uploads of those TV shows. But to be able to make those guarantees u have to know that music recognitions won’t /8

de-monetize ANY of your videos - otherwise you default on yr ad sales commitments. The way to be able to promise this is to have YouTube’s Premium Uploader service, which guarantees that 100% of yr uploads will not be scanned against Content ID. It’s a service u PAY for. /9

**This is especially important for broadcasters in a country like China, where NOBODY licenses their music for TV shows: reality, scripted, streaming, DVD - none of it.** Note that everyone (including Youtube) knows & understands that this is how China’s TV networks work: /10

it’s just the way it is & always has been. Nobody in media/entertainment - publishers, labels, movie studios - will tackle the China problem because it’s too big to tackle & bcuz their laws don’t allow for any decent recovery. /11

Truth told, most publishers/labels don’t care: they know that pursuing China is futile. And the major publishers don’t have the headcount to assign people to chase down unlicensed uses on Chinese TV. /12

YouTube doesn’t say what its criteria are to get this VIP service, but it’s generally available to large corporations, bcast networks, brands, labels and MCN’s - especially MCN’s that are part of larger corporate entities like a record label or distributor. /13

FWIW, someone on the inside at YT told me that over the past few years they’ve been taking this service away from a lot of their VIP uploaders because of copyright infringement claims on unlicensed music uses. There’s an honor system /14

w/the premium uploader service at YT bcuz the assumption is that a high-end brand or legit broadcaster is definitely licensing their music. (spoiler: lots of them don’t, especially ex-US broadcasters & many large well-known brands. How do I know? Cuz I’ve caught them.) /15

If you’re keeping track here? YouTube makes $ from 2 things w/CCTV: 1) the Premium Uploader Service which charges a fee to use + 2) ad sales rev in China by co-monetizing 100% of everything that CCTV uploads from view #1 w/out interference from Content ID. /16

—> The bouncer at this bar is Content ID. CCTV got past the bouncer cuz they paid to be on the VIP list. Their uploads live on YouTube under an invisibility cloak. Premium Uploader service is the Champagne Room at the private club. /17

I only found the CCTV uses I found by using an outside detection service that revealed the CCTV uses as part of a standard wide-net crawl. Then that service found more. Then more. I did takedowns on every single one which also applied copyright strikes to CCTV’s channel. /18

IMPORTANT: even if you are a direct Content ID or AdRev user, YOU WILL NOT FIND THESE USES BECAUSE THE VIP SERVICE BYPASSES CONTENT ID ENTIRELY. How do you find these uses then? Well you have to hire another detection service /19

(Tunesat, PEX, etc) and hope that it stumbles across these uses. (In the case of CCTV, Tunesat found these uses randomly for me). But here’s where this ride gets a little bumpy, because ... /20

THEN came the false DMCA counter-notifications from CCTV because most people (including the Chinese government & their state-run TV networks) think “if I just push this counter-notification button then the claim goes away/video gets reinstated.” /21

When CCTV filed false counter-notifications (under penalty of perjury) against my takedowns, **admitting in the official notifications that they used the music**, YouTube **still processed those takedowns** & gave me the usual 10 days to file a lawsuit against CCTV or /22

YouTube would reinstate all the videos & remove the associated copyright strikes. It’s the strikes that are important to me, the music owner, here: the strikes restrict their channel, and those strikes are the only thing that forces CCTV to resolve these music thefts with me /23

because I am the only one who can remove them. UNLESS they counter-notify like they did here: a common tactic by corporations & individuals & nonprofits & YouTubers & dance companies & foreign TV stations alike. Why? Because they’re betting on you not being able /24

to afford to get a court order or file a lawsuit against them to stop the counter-notification from happening. It’s the get-out-of-jail-free card that the DMCA gives them & boy howdy does EVERYBODY use it. This is the true abuse of the DMCA system that nobody talks about. /25

Here’s the problem w/YT reinstating those videos tho: YT isn’t a neutral platform here: they make $ not only from CCTV paying for Premium Uploader service but also thru co-monetizing CCTV’s ad sales on YT which are guaranteed via “no content ID scanning” privilege. /26

So their decision to reinstate the videos directly affects their own income. This makes them “not a neutral platform” - & the DMCA protects an innocent neutral platform fr users who infringe. But what if you, the platform, not only incentivize the infringer to infringe by /27

letting them monetize whatever they post, BUT you also give them the *ability* to infringe w/out detection & then take a cut of the $$? & since you (YT) are also the owner of this casino & u can choose to stop anyone from seeing their music that might be on your platform - /28

and it’s in your financial interests to do so - are you still a neutral platform? Or are you just the mob boss who’s running the biggest casino in town? You can game your own system & you can let the big spenders cheat cuz you’re getting a percentage of the action. /29

This type of situation is a direct violation of the DMCA that YouTube claims to abide by. Violation of the DMCA could potentially lose them their “safe harbor” and make them liable for piracy & infringement on their site. And what about that 3-strikes rule? /30

Turns out that the 3-strikes rule isn’t really a rule. That 3-strikes rule YouTube touts here https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802032?hl=en & in their Terms of Service? It doesn’t apply if you’re a highly-monetized YT channel or a premium-service client of YT. /31

When one of these entities gets 3 strikes YT tells them “You have 7 days to either resolve this or file counter-notifications or your channel will be terminated.” So of course, what do they do? Just push the little “file counter-notification” button. Cheaper than licensing! /32

YouTube couches it as “there are many bad actors out there who do false strikes & we want to avoid someone waking up in the morning to find their channel gone bcuz someone put a bunch of fake strikes against it” (actual convo btw, 3x) /33

So there I was, with CCTV’s theft admitted in writing in the actual counter-notification about which YouTube says publicly “we eyeball every one of these to determine legitimacy & we don’t process all of them” - yet they had processed this one. Hmm. /34

So I gathered my data & emailed YT’s Copyright dept (generic email/they don’t give names or a contact even for pubs) including the counter-notification from CCTV that admitted the unlicensed music use & explained my position that YT was in direct violation of the DMCA bcuz/35

1) it had the admission of infringement in writing from the uploader IN THE ACTUAL COUNTER-NOTIFICATION which they say a team eyeballs for Premium Uploaders (so they would’ve seen the admission) & 2) YT directly benefited financially by removing copyright strikes & reinstating/36

CCTV’s videos because YT co-monetized the CCTV channel with CCTV & this direct financial involvement made them NOT a neutral platform but essentially a fiduciary partner of CCTV in monetizing CCTV’s content on YouTube. And /37

3) 17+ takedowns should constitute “red-flag knowledge” about a serial infringer uploader. These things are all direct violations of the DMCA, & could lose YouTube its safe harbor. /38

Amazingly, YouTube changed their position a few days later, sided w/me & canceled those false counter-notifications & said “we will leave the content offline.” THIS HAD NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE IN MY 7 YEARS OF EXPERIENCING THIS. /39

BUT here’s the thing: with 17 takedowns against CCTV (& presumably 17 copyright strikes) that should’ve terminated their YT channel. So why was it still live & fully monetized? /40

Ads everywhere, forced pre-roll ads, ad breaks throughout long shows. Then something new happened: a couple new CCTV videos hit my Content ID dashboard. Huh?? /41

But CCTV was a Premium Uploader client whose uploads bypassed Content ID scanning - why were their vids suddenly hitting my CID dashboard?? This revealed something v important: /42

**YouTube had taken away CCTV’s access to the Premium Uploader service**. It’s the only explanation for why CCTV uses of my music were hitting my Content ID dashboard. Why would YouTube take away that service? /43

My guess: bcuz YouTube now had what the DMCA calls “red-flag knowledge” about a “repeat infringer” - and if they continue to enable that infringer (which also benefits YT directly financially) they could lose safe harbor. (“Safe harbor” is their DMCA forcefield.) /44

So they prob just cut ties w/them to limit their liability: to be able to say “when we got red-flag knowledge of this repeat infringer we terminated their Premium Uploader service” (but not their account, ahem). /45

But I wondered about the copyright strikes in addition to CCTV’s vids remaining offline: if I had placed (now 21) copyright strikes, how were they still fully monetized & operational? /46

I emailed YT Legal to ask if in addition to leaving the videos down, **they also left the strikes in place.** Crickets. A few followups got me the usual YT answer “Unfortunately we do not disclose user account information yada yada yada.” /47

BUT then CCTV emailed me to try to get the strikes removed. This was progress: I had names & email addresses. 1st they said they had the rights to use the music (they didn’t: I’m the only one that could’ve granted those licenses) /48

then they said China’s TV shows are all covered by fair use under US copyright law (UMM NO THEY ARE NOT. CHINA IS NOT GOVERNED BY US LAW: CHINA’S TV NETWORKS ARE NOT GOVERNED BY US LAW - CHINA IS GOVERNED BY CHINA’S LAWS, NOT OURS) /49

So CCTV did eventually come to the negotiating table but only bcuz I think YT warned them that termination of their channel was eventually possible. CCTV’s been slow-walking the resolution since May 2019, but they’ve remained at the negotiating table with me. /50

But why were they still at the table w/me? Why would they still be engaged w/me, some rando composer (with v legit claims against them, but clearly not a major company that was going to take them to court) if their channel was still active? I was left to assume that YT /51

abandoned them & said “Fix this.” YouTube needed to show that they had dealt w/a serial infringer+red-flag knowledge+non-neutral platform status & they did that by terminating VIP uploader service, canceling the false counter-notifications & cutting ties (sorta) w/CCTV. /52

And they were likely only 1 more strike (from anyone) away from their YT channel being terminated so they absolutely need me to retract mine bcuz they had no options left: YT canceled their false counter-notifications cuz I called YT out for /53

their direct financial stake in the outcome of this conflict being in favor of CCTV. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. (Stick with me here, musician friends: this stuff is important for indie composers, songwriters, musicians and indie labels & publishers to know.) /54

CCTV got my music from torrents and pirate download sites, used it in their TV shows as underscore (no TV networks in China license their music, it’s 100% theft), then put those shows/series on YouTube & co-monetized them w/YouTube for years. /55

Even with Content ID I never would’ve discovered these uses because CCTV was a Premium Uploader. The only way for me to have found these uses was to be someone who 1) owned his pub & masters 100% & 2) hired a detection service ($$) to crawl all of Youtube. For years. /56

[Take a moment to realize how many needles you have to thread to find yourself in a position of finding these uses like CCTV’s in the first place: you have to be using ID services outside of Content ID+CID & even then it’s a crapshoot] /57

Re the torrents and pirate download sites, CCTV admitted that’s how they got the music. And the official position of the CCTV Copyright Department (yes, they have one although I don’t know what they do because it sure as heck ain’t anything to do with copyright) was /58

“we read on a website that all music from the U.S.A. is Creative Commons so anyone can use it for free.” (Note: they wouldn’t tell me what website & also that’s 100% false but it’s China so up is down & left is right, our position is that the sky is red & not blue etc). /59

[NB: my music was 1 or 2 cues in each show: dozens of other pieces of music were used in these shows too: stolen library tracks, film scores, SoundCloud rips, all kinds of stuff - lest u think that someone thought my music was so special that all of China wanted to use it /60

in its TV shows. No: my stuff was peppered in there alongside of tons of other stuff: I’m just the one that took the video down for It. I say this bcuz if you’re a composer reading this & thinking “I’m not famous so my stuff wouldn’t be on those shows” I’m here to tell you /61

that you’re wrong: your stuff is out there. And this is the part where I tell you again that you should be using detection technologies to find them.] /62

SO I write all of this here because I finally got - after nearly a year of persisting - a signed license & payment for all of CCTV’s infringements (that I know of). We have a contract & I have payment for the past unlicensed uses of my music in their TV shows. I WON./63

Let me say this again in shout mode: I WON. I BEAT CHINA STATE TV. BUT... this isn’t finished just yet. How come? /64

Cuz what turned up in the process was that MCSC (China’s ASCAP/BMI) collects lots of $$ from China’s broadcasters for public performance royalties BUT doesn’t distribute it to the music used in their shows. Why not? /65

Because they can't know who to distrib it to bcuz they’ve never required any of their broadcasters to do music cuesheets declaring usages. Ever. But wait: if China’s broadcasters are paying 10s of millions of $$ to MCSC every year, /66

And music cuesheets are the tool used to identify who gets perf royalties, but no broadcasters in China actually DO cuesheets, then who’s getting all that perf royalty income? WHERE IS ALL THAT MONEY? WHO GETS THE MONEY?? (Spoiler: we don’t know) /67

So my question now is: where the heck are my performance royalties for all the TV shows on CCTV, HunanTV & Beijing BTV (BTV) that used my music without licenses for the past 10 yrs? /68

Now that CCTV is resolved, this is the next piece: figuring out how to get my performance royalties from MCSC. I’m trying hard to pursue that now & I hope the end result comes with a healthy dose of change & accountability. /69

This is the 4th Chinese TV network I’ve nailed for copyright infringement in the past year & it’s now the 4th one that’s been brought to heel w/ a license agreement and a fee for their infringing uses of my music in their TV shows & YouTube videos. /70

But the million-dollar question here is, what made these stick? How did I win in China of all places, which is totally lawless where IP is concerned? /71

The answer: 1) takedowns and copyright strikes against their Youtube channel, and 2) enough DMCA knowledge to know that Youtube was violating the DMCA. /72

My 100% legitimate takedowns/copyright strikes against their YouTube channels forced CCTV to come to the negotiating table and make good for their thefts. And if you use CID, AdRev, Tunesat, or any detection technology, your recourse when you find an unlicensed /73

use of your music on YouTube is a DMCA takedown notice which carries a copyright strike with it. You hear lots of people complain about takedowns and how bad they are. Y’know what? Takedowns are NOT bad: they are good. /74

The ability to issue a DMCA takedown notice is your remedy when someone steals your creative work. If used correctly & properly, they are the only real recourse that you as an artist/music owner/composer/publisher have when your work gets stolen. /75

So when you hear these wildly hyperbolic stories about someone’s video getting taken down accidentally or EFF & Public Knowledge send out rallying cries saying that copyright strikes are breaking the internet & destroying free speech around the world, I’d like to ask that /76

you take those cries with several grains of salt & realize that you may not be hearing the full story. You may not be aware that fights like mine are going on in the background against major corporations & TV networks & ad agencies & YouTubers & religious orgs & /77

dance companies & right-wing extremists & all kinds of money-making endeavors that used music without paying for it. You should also know that most settlement agreements for infringements have confidentiality language in them /78

which is why you don’t often see me on Twitter revealing the outcomes of some of the claims I was initially public about on here. Just because you don’t hear much about it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. /79

And that also applies to your music, Joe Composer reading this, bcuz your stuff is out there too in these same TV shows as mine, & in ads & corporate web content & in all kinds of /80

commercial contexts - without your permission & without paying you for its use. Content ID, AdRev, Tunesat, PEX - these technologies are the X-ray that will reveal all to you & you should definitely begin to explore them. /81

Fingerprinting technology is how you find these: whether you choose to monetize the thefts of your music or pursue legal action is up to you. But better the devil you know. I’m not under any illusions that my story will change this landscape - I’m just some guy and not a/82