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Comment by wackget | Hacker News Reader

The people at these companies probably do realise that literally nobody has ever tried to watch a video like Rick Beato's to simply listen to a piece of music. Anyone who is watching a Rick Beato video is watching it because of the theory, discussion, and commentary surrounding the music.

A record label has never lost a sale because somebody discovered they could "get music for free" by watching YouTube critique videos.

Realistically, what's probably happening is the labels have decided it's too (i.e. would cost too much money) to apply a nuanced approach to copyright striking and so are knowingly flagging everything containing snippets of their music whether it's fair use or not. They've simply decided to not care.

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There appears to be no cost or downside to falsely flagging, so it's unsurprising that they just spam flag everything on the off chance that they are able to do some damage to someone.

When you're a hammer, every problem is solved by whacking something. When your business is run by lawyers, every problem is solved with legal action.

> A record label has never lost a sale because somebody discovered they could "get music for free" by watching YouTube critique videos.

I'd imagine it's even the opposite, it's probably inspired people to listen to music they wouldn't otherwise. The record labels have spent a lot of time and money to shut down someone doing free advertising for their product!

The mindset that someone will buy a album because he have no idea about WTF it is and can not listen to it on the internet is really interesting to me.

Like, why would you even buy a album and add it to your collection if you have no idea what it is?

They're stuck in the 90s mindset where they're worried about people taping songs off the radio.

> someone will buy a album because he have no idea about WTF it is

Based on the advertising I see in Nashville's Music Row, I'm pretty sure that actually is their strategy. The signs they put out usually have only the artist name as meaningful information, which is only helpful if you're already a fan (I guess it does get their name into your brain otherwise), and a QR code. I have no idea who scans the QR codes.

Some people have told me it's really meant for other people in the music industry, but it feels odd that they'd have to find out about music by random signs on the side of the road.

They have no idea who Rick even is it's all automated. It's the biggest issue with the paper thin protection of Fair Use and the DMCA system where fair use is a proactive defense required to be adjudicated in court and the companies are not even required to review their claims for the possibility that it falls under fair use. It's exacerbated by the fact the Google's system isn't even properly DMCA, it's their own system with no legal consequences for false reports all based on minute audio matches.

I think it's bold to think it's conscious planning that's behind this behavior from UMG. Most of us work or have worked with large companies, we've seen for ourselves how dysfunctional they can be.

More than likely it is a subcontracted law firm that specializes in YT notices with automation. I seriously doubt that their in-house legal team do it at all. They might receive an email from the subcontractors with updates to their progress each day/week/month that rarely if ever gets reviewed by in-house legal.

> The people at these companies probably do realise that literally nobody has ever tried to watch a video like Rick Beato's to simply listen to a piece of music.

Do not anthropomorphize copyright lawyers

Absolutely, and especially obvious when you realize that he only plays a few seconds of the song typically before interrupting it or talking over it. It's not in any way even close to a replacement. Their behavior only makes sense in the context of absolute and utter greed

i'm sure they have lost sales though from bad reviews.

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