Reid Rosefelt
aka Tiger the Frog
Some time ago, I put up a clip on YouTube for a short film I wrote and directed in 2003 called "Tiger: His Fall & Rise," starring my avatar and the late Adrienne Shelly (who went on to direct "Waitress") The film is pretty bad and the "music" I wrote for it is nothing I'm very proud of. This particular clip is largely driven by an Acid loop (which I purchased). But for better or worse, I did write it, people saw the film at festivals, and I copyrighted the film. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420252/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Today I found out that the Music Licensing Company Muserk has claimed that they own the rights to the music I wrote for the clip, and YouTube notified me that I have the right to dispute this. If they deem it to be a false dispute, they will toss me off YouTube.
The slogan of Muserk is "claim your rights."
This has actually happened once before with a few clips from this same film. In that instance, it was a fairly well-known film company that wanted to claim the movie scenes themselves, not just the music. In that case, I was able to resolve things with YouTube, but I never got an explanation from the company that wanted to take my stuff.
My guess is that many companies just claim ownership willy-nilly of thousands of things on YouTube, and monetize them until somebody complains. To be generous, perhaps they have some kind of computer algorithm doing this for them. Or maybe YouTube even does it. But that's a pretty wide net. Maybe that's okay for a first sort, but at some point, a human being needs to look carefully and determine if infringement did occur before planting their flag. They shouldn't just have YouTube contact a content producer like myself and accuse me of infringement of my own intellectual property. Otherwise, it is fraud as far as I'm concerned.
Has anybody else had experience with something like this?
Today I found out that the Music Licensing Company Muserk has claimed that they own the rights to the music I wrote for the clip, and YouTube notified me that I have the right to dispute this. If they deem it to be a false dispute, they will toss me off YouTube.
The slogan of Muserk is "claim your rights."
This has actually happened once before with a few clips from this same film. In that instance, it was a fairly well-known film company that wanted to claim the movie scenes themselves, not just the music. In that case, I was able to resolve things with YouTube, but I never got an explanation from the company that wanted to take my stuff.
My guess is that many companies just claim ownership willy-nilly of thousands of things on YouTube, and monetize them until somebody complains. To be generous, perhaps they have some kind of computer algorithm doing this for them. Or maybe YouTube even does it. But that's a pretty wide net. Maybe that's okay for a first sort, but at some point, a human being needs to look carefully and determine if infringement did occur before planting their flag. They shouldn't just have YouTube contact a content producer like myself and accuse me of infringement of my own intellectual property. Otherwise, it is fraud as far as I'm concerned.
Has anybody else had experience with something like this?