How to inform YouTube a video is no longer under copyright?
I was importing this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IADZtE2-Aws into my youtube account, famous tracking shot from Wings 1927, and at the copyright determination step Youtube told me it was under copyright but the owner allows it to be shown on Youtube.
Which is incorrect - it entered public domain in 2023.
Makes me wonder if there is some metadata in this file that is newer than the film and that is what is copyrighted, or is it that the copyright was claimed on years past and Youtube neglected to check when that claim was going to run out?
How does one let them know that the copyright has run out?
You can’t. They refuse to let you. The closest you can do is to dispute a copyright claim (as mentioned by another); but YouTube refuses to be a judge in that case, and even if you’ve provided good, provable information, the claimant can still just reject it and (as far as I can tell) instruct YouTube to make it a copyright strike of the three-strikes-and-you’re-out kind. Seriously. The system is designed to be abused.
And even if your claim is allowed (whether the claim is released, or it lapses in your favour after 30 days), the claimer can still keep on claiming the same thing, so if you or someone else uploads it again, it’ll be silently claimed and you’ll have to go through the rigmarole all over again. This makes no sense at all if it was actually about copyright law with equitable treatment of all, and shows a bit what I mean by “designed to be abused”.
I gave more info and stats from my experiences with melody claims of public domain hymns in 2020: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27004892. So much casual fraud.
You can go into YouTube studio, select the video, then go to "copyright" ... click the three little dots connected to the claim, and then "dispute." From there, select "public domain" or whatever is applicable.
It's kinda buried, but occasionally I get claims for songs not even in my video, so I had to go digging for it.
Also, make sure you're using the video from 1927, and not a later release which may have a different copyright.
I suspect this is because it’s only entered the public domain in the US. The rules are different territory by territory, and in a lot of European countries it is life + 70 years based on principle participants. Given Charles Rogers - one of the starring actors - didn’t die until 1999 (aged 95!) in some European countries this film won’t be public domain until 2069, incredible as that seems. Even if you go in the director, who died in 1975, that makes it 2045.
The claim could be audiovisual or audio only, and might be for the whole video or just a few short segments. The claim might also apply different policies based on territories (public domain in the US does not imply it is public domain worldwide). If you are sure about it, then dispute the claim, and dispute the next one if necessary, even if that’s under DMCA. Then all they can do is file a lawsuit, which they won’t do.
Full disclosure: I worked with contentID for the past 10 years.
I've heard Youtube is pretty active solving these kind of issues when mentioned on Twitter/X so you might try that.
Not ideal, but one possible solution is to upload the video to something like peertube, then put a video on youtube saying that youtube incorrectly adds copyright strikes for this content and that people need to unfortunately view it on peertube instead
found this; which appears to be only about "your" videos:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797454?hl=en&co=G...
If you didn't upload it i guess they dont want to hear from you.
recall hearing about soemone's wife wanted to post a memorial video on the husbands account after he died; he'd put up a lot of stuff on early youtube; they basically told her FOAD and added ads to the videos.
If you are just concerned about being able to upload it and not have it taken down you can adjust the b&w color timing or do some restoration work on a few frames and register that tweaked version as a derivative work with the copyright office. You can then upload that version which you will hold the exclusive copyright to and can upload yourself to content id.
This should be part of the strike process. Any copyright claim should be required to disclose the expiration.