While searching for videos on YouTube, almost everyone can say they have come across the following message or some variation of it: “This video contains content from Vevo, who has blocked it on copyright grounds. Sorry about that.”

The message appears instead of the blocked video, with the name of the content owner changed to match the content of the video.
Sometimes this is reasonable; it keeps people from trying to upload entire songs that they do not own. Other times, however, this is less reasonable; a video can be taken down because of a few seconds of copyrighted music that was unintentionally playing in the background.

Of course,  infractions that small would never be struck down by a person watching the video for copyright infringement, and therein lies the problem. The problem is bigger than copyright law. It is how Youtube is enforcing it. YouTube staff is not taking down videos: bots are.

YouTube uses bots to scan uploads for copyrighted material, and these bots invariably make errors. Videos that would never be flagged for copyyright violations under human review are being flagged under a bot’s faulty judgement, and the system to appeal a copyright flag is so full of holes and problems that it may as well be impossible to get a strike removed.

The problem is not copyright law; of course it is within YouTube’s rights to keep themselves out of trouble. The way this rule is being enforced, however, needs to change. It’s unfair to all of YouTube’s users.

Click here to read the opposing viewpoint by contributing reporter Makoto Hunter