What I find more interesting is 17 U.S.C. § 512 (i):
(1) Accommodation of technology. — The limitations on liability established by this section shall apply to a service provider only if the service provider —
(A) has adopted and reasonably implemented, and informs subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network of, a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers; and
(B) accommodates and does not interfere with standard technical measures.
(2) Definition. — As used in this subsection, the term “standard technical measures” means technical measures that are used by copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works and—
(A) have been developed pursuant to a broad consensus of copyright owners and service providers in an open, fair, voluntary, multi-industry standards process;
(B) are available to any person on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms; and
(C) do not impose substantial costs on service providers or substantial burdens on their systems or networks.
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Thus, they don't have to provide Content ID themselves, but they have to allow for a third-party Content ID that doesn't have all the strings attached.
> If they no longer have a formal relationship with the
> artist and no longer have the artist's original works to
> have the Content ID system compare to
That sounds like the mother of all punitive damages lawsuits waiting to happen.
Somewhere a scumbag attorney's wallet is getting warm, and he has no idea why.
As for them no longer being able to identify other instances of your work after you sever the relationship with Google: once you do so, they've got no license from you that authorizes them to keep authoritative copies of your works around.
"My, it's a nice collection of songs you have here...it'd be a shame if you didn't accept these pennies for the effort we are going through to give them to you..."
Considering a sync license is a very solidly established issue (just ask Monster vs. Beastie Boys), I think YouTube is really setting the stage for a hard, hard reality check.
[1]: http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/waves_audio_wins_case_aga...
Google is paying this person for use of their work. They have knowledge and it could be argued that they obtained a license. They want to renegotiate the terms of that license. The DMCA isn't a tool to be used to force artists to license their content on terms that favor YouTube.
The actual safe harbor text (17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(1)(A)):
i. does not have actual knowledge that the material or an activity using the material on the system or network is infringing;
ii. in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent; or
iii. upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, acts expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material.
It's certainly questionable whether Content ID gives Google "actual knowledge" of infringement happening. But the rule isn't that content only has to be taken down when given a DMCA notice. Once Google has "actual knowledge", they need to take action.
And I think that's the alternative that Google would do. Videos that match the Content ID would be removed. I think the issue is that the artist doesn't want to be so punitive to fans who are caught in the middle. Google knows that artists don't want to hurt their fans and is leveraging that against them. I don't think this would become a DMCA issue at all. It's more an issue of Google having the market power to be a price/terms setter. Google seems more than willing to use Content ID to block infringement, but also has the positioning to reply to the user, "this artist has decided you, the uploader who worked hard on that video, that you're not allowed to use their music. Maybe you should hate that artist and like one of these other artists. . ." A bit of hyperbole, but you can see how an artist wouldn't want to position themselves that way.