Selective Muting

Here is a look at the fourth of my list of possible solutions. Last week, I looked at the options for Content ID and determined that both the options for muting and blocking the flagged video have problems.

Essentially, a flagging system needs two things to work well: accuracy and precision. Accuracy is a measure of how well it can correctly pick out videos which violate copyright (amount of correctly flagged or correctly unflagged audio / all audio). The more videos it fails to flag (which the music industry cares about), the lower the accuracy. However, the more videos is misflags (which the users care about), the lower the accuracy as well. This is the problem of false flags. Precision is similar but doesn’t care about missed videos (amount of correctly flagged audio / amount of flagged audio). The problem with muting or blocking an entire video is that it is not precise: it’s possible that only a small portion of the video contains copyrighted audio.

So, how can we solve this? Well, on the user side, there’s the option of changing the audio. If the audio is the problem, just switch to new audio, and everything would be fine. However, we want to fix the precision of the system, so we want the system to do the fix itself. Thus, we need to have the system mute only the portion which has copyrighted audio. There are two ways to do this: a simple way, and a more complicated way.

1. The simple way: Mute the entire audio where there is infringing audio. Content ID should already know what audio is infringing copyright and can compare the audio is the flagged video with the audio in its database to pinpoint where exactly the audio can be found. It can then mute the audio in only those segments and leave the rest of the video untouched. In most cases, this will be good enough. Admittedly, there will be some instances where someone will talk over copyrighted audio (e.g. a Let’s Player talking over in-game music, where viewers want to listen to what he says), in which case muting everything might be less than ideal…

2. The complicated way: Remove just the infringing audio. I don’t want to go into the technical part of how this is done, but it’s essentially like a subtraction problem (though much more complex). You have audio (A) with multiple people (p1 and p2) talking. You have one person’s speech (p1) that you’d like to remove from the audio. Since the audio A = p1 + p2, you just subtract p1 from it, and you’re left with p2. Similar techniques are used to remove background noise from audio, and YouTube has a beta version of such a system to remove the copyrighted audio. If this method could be perfected, this should solve the entire problem of precision.

If at least one of these systems could be implemented well, Content ID would be greatly improved. Aside from that, the only problem to tackle is that of accuracy, which is extremely difficult. It can be improved by limiting who can claim copyrighted material (Verification) and by giving approval ahead of time (Whitelisting). The system will likely never be perfect, but by implementing all the solutions that I have mentioned in some way, a flagging system should be much improved, to a point where it should be difficult to further improve it.

Content ID Options

After quite a delay, I’m back to discuss the third of my possible solutions for the problem: changing the options for content owners (what they can do with videos containing their copyrighted audio). Let’s take a look at all the options that Content ID provides, and I’ll mention the pros and cons of them. For reference, this information is on the Content ID page, under the section “What options are available to copyright owners?”

1) Mute the video – Users may still watch the video, but the audio is muted. For instances where the entire audio is copyrighted, this is fine. The problem arises when only a small portion of the audio is copyrighted. This can be a bit overboard: as an extreme example, consider an hour long class project where you play a 3 minute song in the middle. That small segment causes your entire video to be muted, ruining it. Yes, this is a necessary option. However, consider implementing selective muting, so the precision of the flags is increased. If you can mute just that 3 minute song, both parties would be happy.

2) Block the video – This is similar but more extreme than muting. Essentially, this should only be done when copyrighted video is used (for example, video game content). As with muting, there is the problem of precision, but if selective blocking could be implemented, this option is not a problem.

3) Monetize the video – This is the problematic option. Essentially, YouTube has a partner program, through which it runs ads on videos and gives a portion of the ad revenue to the uploader. The more ads are watched, the more the uploader gets. With the monetization, content holders can run ads and get ad revenue on videos flagged by Content ID. Admittedly, this replaces the mechanical license in the music industry (I explain music licenses in more detail here, for those of you interested in the music aspect of this blog). However, this option opens up the possibility for fraud: instead of just stopping uploaders from gaining money, the content holder earns money in their place. Any false flag which is monetized results in fraud: the content holder earns money from another person’s material, which is exactly what Content ID is supposed to prevent.

Now, this sounds bad, and it potentially is. However, as long as the content holders are policed or verified, this option shouldn’t be a problem. Still, perhaps it would be better to have a period of time during which neither uploader nor content holder gets the money, until the ownership can be settled. It worries me that money can change hands so quickly at just the words of an imperfect, automated system… I will admit that this has not become a big problem, and I believe that Content ID’s verification process is to congratulate for that. However, any new system should be careful concerning monetization of copyrighted material…

4) Track the video’s statistics – The last in the list, this is the mildest and least problematic. Simply put, it doesn’t create a problem for the uploader, but it allows the content holder to see how that video compares with their own. For any allowed use of copyrighted materials, this is the option that will probably be chosen.

---

All in all, the options for Content ID are pretty good. Two problems exist, however. The first is one of precision: copyrighted content anywhere in a video causes the entire video to be affected. The second is one of potential fraud: monetization is based on an imperfect system and trust in the integrity of the content holders. The first can be fixed with other solutions. The second, however, might require changing the options and removing monetization.

What are your thoughts on these options? Is there anything I’ve missed? Are these problems as bad as I think they are? Do you have an idea of an option to add? Whatever you have to offer, I look forward to hearing!