I logged in to YouTube today and was greeted by the following message, “You have videos that may contain content that is owned by someone else.” My first thought was, “Yikes – I am not intentionally a bad guy – nor am I intent on ripping anyone off – what had I done wrong?” It gave me a link to the offending video:
CHUM 2006 Drill Team Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM6drBOzVjo)
Then it dawned on me – we had used “You Raise Me Up” by Selah as the background for the drill team. My thoughts raced – this was non-profit and this was about handicapped children riding horses and showing what they could do in front of their friends family and fans. How could YouTube be so heartless as to take away the background music from such a lovely and poignant moment. As the cameraman, I even sniffle part-way through the video, it was so moving for me personally. The music was what made it so poignant and without the music there would be no point. What hoops would I have to jump through to get the so important music back? Could I pay money to license the music? Probably there would not even be anyone to beg to restore the music. How could big powerful YouTube be so heartless and not notice the emotion in this video and cut us some slack?
With all these negative thoughts in my mind, I clicked on the video, expecting to hear silence and the dreaded “copyrighted material removed” message. Without the music, the video was meaningless – so I knew I had no other choice but to take it down. And it had 1800+ views and from the comments, it also moved some of those viewers to tears as well.
The video started out silent, but about five seconds in, the music was there! And about 2 seconds later an ad popped up for “You Lift Me Up”. The Drill Team Video was still intact!
So I went back to the YouTube page where it said “Copyright Info” and this is what it said:
“Your video, Drill Team 2006 Video – Dedicated to Chum, may include content that is owned or licensed by these content owners: WMG Type: Audio content. No action is required on your part. Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video.”
Woah – the right thing just happened. I wonder if a human was involved in this – if so – thanks! Perhaps they saw that the video was very respectful of the original work and lovingly added value to the work without any attempt on my part to make money off the original work and instead my work hopefully in some small way added value to their work by honoring Selah’s work rather than ripping it off.
It is nice when things work out in a win-win for everyone. Thanks YouTube.