YouTube's copyright system isn't broken. The world's is.

WRITTEN BY: Tom Scott
SCRIPT ASSISTANT: Andrea Marks
CAMERA: Jamie Drew
CAMERA: Joe Stone
AUDIO MIX: Graham Haerther
EDITOR: Isla McTear
CAPTIONS: Caption+

WITH THANKS TO:
1901 Arts Club
The Camera Museum, Soho
Evan Edinger
The Lexi Cinema, Kensal Green
Mandy Celine
Abigail Thorn
Tim Bunn

LEGAL CAMEOS:

QUASI-LEGAL CAMEO:

MINECRAFT SEQUENCE:

MUSIC
Epidemic Sound
Canon in D solo piano recording courtesy of ProstoRecords and Envato Market
Canon in D rock recording courtesy of Kora3000 and Envato Market

STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY

PRODUCER
Reb Day

© Pad 26 Limited MMXX

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:09 Chapter 1: The Mess We're In
10:08 Chapter 2: No Copyright Infringement Intended
22:18 Chapter 3: Content ID
28:21 Chapter 4: Where Do We Go From Here
39:00 Trailer and Sponsorship
40:07 Credits and Outtakes

[astrrra]

Actually, don't ask photographers how much their gear costs. Unless you want to see a crying photographer.

[edisonyi]

Love how Tom always looks simultaneously 24 and 42.

[jackiemorey]

"We need to dramatically shorten copyrights"

*Disney didn't like that*

[elisha.schiff]

Love how the entirety of this video is Tom making absolutely *sure* this video won't get copyright strike

[simonr]

I was thinking that "death of the artist" would be a reasonable limit for copyright duration, but then I realized that it would create a new motive for murder.

[jamestreveil]

I think the biggest injustice is that you can't defend yourself without having buckets of money to spend on lawyers.

[_yerf]

Jay Foreman just can't exist without screaming once in a while

[dave_yarders]

You forgot a very interesting fact about copyright expiry! The Peter Pan clause. All copyright in the UK lasts for the author's life + 70 years, apart from one specific work: Peter Pan. The author gave the rights to Great Ormond Street Hospital and the law was written to make sure this copyright lasts forever.

[ARSZLB]

even as a fan of Tom’s content, i’m amazed at his ability to keep me interested in subjects like this for over 40 minutes straight. absolutely brilliant.

[MillywiggZ]

No red t-shirt.

This looks serious.

[zozodjr]

Convincing Legal Eagle to be a vampire is a decent flex

[athos]

Seeing Jay Foreman casually appearing as a lawyer made my day

[iquipthedip]

RIP TomReacts, you were ahead of your time.

[jorgeaura]

I just love how the legal system is set up in such a way that is cheaper to admit you are guilty than defending yourself in court. You are supposed to have a fair trial but that's impossible when you are facing a multibillion company that can hire as many expensive lawyers as they want. The justice system isn't just at all.

[quetzal]

The fact that you got an actual lawyer to perform as a vampire for a 10-second clip cracks me up to this day

[baddrivingsouthwales]

There are companies out there that just seemingly try their luck with claiming copyright on entire or parts of music videos by independent creators. A friend of mine had a claim filed against one of her videos for some of the footage…yet every second of footage was filmed by her; and it was just POV footage at a beach. Took her ages to get the claim settled.

[rebmcr]

I like how Tom's idea of annoying is just Tom but wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

[darnwrong]

Jay:

Glad to see my favorite youtuber got some screentime.

[nottsoserious]

Love how Tom has to add a criticism to all his examples to dodge copyright

[TheFifthHorseman_]

The copyright length, bad as it is, is *exceptionally* ill suited to software (in particular, video games) and its' rapidly changing industry. You end up in a situation where software is "protected" by copyright when it has not been commercially available for decades, is not directly useable on any equipment (or operating system) that's still produced, and more than likely the current owner has no interest in making commercial use of the rights but is more than happy to enforce their ownership.
The "best" solution there is probably to tie the length not to the date of creation but to the date of last commercial re-release (or sublicensing to a third party for publishing).