Ubisoft is helping out YouTube partners who have been hit with copyright claims, after the video-sharing site released some drastic and hugely controversial new rules that has led to the removal of many YouTube partners’ videos.
The new rules have seen copyright strikes being dealt out to videos via an incredibly flawed scheme which matches video footage and audio to existing content on the site. These copyright claims may not have even been solicited by the company themselves, but are enforced regardless. At the time of writing, these copyright claims take up to two weeks to dispute, in which time the ability to monetise them is removed.
Watch Dog developer Ubisoft has released a message to YouTube users affected by the new policy, saying: “As you’re probably aware, many YouTubers this week have suddenly been hit with various copyright claims related to in-game audio. In June last year, Ubisoft set out its policy opening the door for channels to make videos using game content and to monetise bespoke content.
“If you happen to be hit with claims on any of your Ubisoft content, it may be that some of the audio is being auto-matched against the music catalogue on our digital stores – it might show up as being claimed by our distributor ‘idol’. In such cases please take the following steps and we can get it cleared for you.
- Leave the video live for now.
- Send us the URL of the affected video and let us know who flagged it.
- We’ll get it cleared hopefully same day.
“Hope this helps, thanks for all your support over the past year and for all the amazing videos! Look forward to working with you in a very exciting 2014!”
Hopefully more companies follow suit soon, and finally an end can be put to “YouTubeageddon”.
