Judge seems unconvinced that YouTube Content ID dispute should be granted class action status

completemusicupdate.com:

A US judge seemed to indicate last week that he isn’t convinced that an ongoing legal battle over who has access to YouTube’s Content ID system should be certified as a class action.This all relates to the lawsuit originally filed by musician Maria Schneider.

She, and other independent creators, take issue with the fact that – while bigger copyright owners and content aggregators get access to YouTube’s Content ID rights management system – independent creators and smaller rights owners do not.They either have to ally with a bigger entity that has Content ID access, or manually file takedown notices in relation to any videos uploaded to YouTube that contain music or other copyright protected material without licence.

But, Team Schneider argues, YouTube’s manual takedown system is cumbersome and impractical.YouTube, of course, is obliged to remove copyright infringing material from its platform when made aware of it in order to qualify for safe harbour protection from liability for any infringing uploads.

The argument goes that, for copyright owners not granted Content ID access, the Google video site isn’t doing enough to meet that obligation.There are other elements to the legal dispute too, including allegations that YouTube removes some key copyright data from files on its platform, such as the ISRC that identifies a recording.All of this has been rumbling on for some time.