Copyright for YouTube Creators With a Real Lawyer  🔗 **Source:** [Copyright for YouTube Creators With a Real Lawyer](https://share.snipd.com/episode/94a0b518-0692-4fc0-b838-62247e1355be) ## Highlights - **My Band Went Bankrupt Because Of A Bad Deal** - Paul Quinn recounts signing a bad management deal that took 17% twice, leaving his band bankrupt. - He describes how leverage in contracts favored managers and led to personal financial ruin while the manager prospered. Transcript: Paul Quinn I didn't understand it. And it allowed my manager, the manager of the band, to take 17% from each distribution. And that was the language they used. So what that meant was he took 17% when the money came into him. But then prior to paying each band member took an additional 17 percent. So after two and a half years, we ended up in bankruptcy and he bought a house in Boca Raton. ([Time 0:05:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/808d3743-8c35-4c80-8035-08ef562664af)) - **You License Major Rights When You Upload** - Uploading original work to platforms licenses them to copy, distribute, and (sometimes) make derivative works. - Paul Quinn explains platforms require those rights so they can host, distribute, and even create derivatives (TikTok) due to scale and moderation limits. Transcript: Paul Quinn Now, remember, can I give a prefatory statement before we get there? Because it might help put things in context. So when you create something that is original, and it is fixed in a tangible medium, which is statutory language, all that means is written down, recorded, something you can hold and Or see, you automatically are the copyright holder for that piece. Now, we can talk and we'll probably talk later about the advantages of registering that copyright with the Copyright Office. But nevertheless, you are the rights holder to that piece of original creation that's fixed in a tangible medium. When you are the copyright holder, there are certain rights that belong to you and you alone. And that is the right to publish it, the right to distribute it, the right to copy it, the right to make what's called the derivative work, meaning something that's very similar to it Or based upon it. These are all rights that belong to the copyright. When you upload something to a social media platform, you are giving that social media platform the right to do all those things. So they can distribute it. They can copy it. And they can, in some instances, especially with TikTok, is they can create derivative works as well. ([Time 0:06:41](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a1861c95-fc34-45d1-a713-5d53420991ca)) - **Scale Forces Platforms To Use Notices Not Deep Review** - Volume of uploads makes human moderation impossible so platforms rely on automated/notice systems instead of deep review. - Quinn cites 500+ hours uploaded to YouTube every minute and 1.4M TikTok uploads per hour to show scale. Transcript: Paul Quinn There are more than 500 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute. Yeah. That's 30,000 hours of content added hourly. Yes. 720,000 videos a day. Right. Well, it would be impossible for anybody to police that. I mean, they could solve unemployment in the United States. Maybe worldwide. You know, 1.4 million videos are uploaded to TikTok every hour. That's insane. Facebook doesn't give those, and Instagram, they don't give that data. But there are 100 million hours of video watched daily on Facebook. Wow. Insane. Right? So obviously there is a massive market. Although I will tell you, interestingly, I think the ability to rise above other content creators is very like the problems that people have in the music industry. There was very limited music that was released because it had to, you had to have the money to record it. You had to have a record deal with somebody that could distribute it. Whereas now, you know, there are tens of thousands of self-released songs uploaded to those streaming channels on a daily basis. ([Time 0:09:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d6ed43db-d263-4d6c-935a-02c20a73dfda)) - **Fair Use Is Decided By Judges Not Labels** - Fair use is judged case-by-case and becomes definitive only when a judge rules. - Paul Quinn emphasizes courts focus on whether the new work is transformative criticism or merely uses the original to monetize. Transcript: Paul Quinn As best as you can tell us what fair use is i i will tell you that fair use is the most claimed defense to copyright infringement. Yeah. But truthfully, so here's not the textbook legal answer. Here's the practitioner's answer. It's not a very useful doctrine. And the reason it's not a very useful doctrine is because how do you know when something is fair use? I mean, for sure, it's when the judge says it is. Right. So, and that means you've already been sued and raised it as a defense. Right. So, so in a case, now reaction videos are a big deal on YouTube. And in fact, there's information out there that says people will often prefer to watch the reaction videos than the original videos, which is great news for those reactors. But then the question becomes how, so you're certainly using material that is copyright, right? There's no dispute about that because fair use only applies to using something that already has a copyright attached to it. So the question is, what do you have to do to feel more confident that you have a fair use defense to copyright? Now, fair use traditionally, prior to social media, applied mostly to political commentary and to educational sources. Fair use within the reactor paradigm essentially involves this. There's a key word and it's one of those legal words, but it kind of makes sense. So what the courts are looking at is to whether what you have done is transformative of the original. Are you just using the original with your face on it to try and generate revenue? Or are you actually making commentary, criticism, and are you therefore transforming the original piece subject to copyright into something that is yours? And that's why you'll often see on some reaction videos, commentators that stop them every 30 or 40 seconds. ([Time 0:13:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/912184c5-60ce-42aa-8edb-3f94f242a76c)) - **Make Reactions Clearly Transformative** - Make reaction content clearly transformative by adding substantive commentary and criticism rather than simple praise. - Paul Quinn suggests pausing and explaining technique (angles, key changes) to strengthen a fair use defense. Transcript: Paul Quinn Fair use within the reactor paradigm essentially involves this. There's a key word and it's one of those legal words, but it kind of makes sense. So what the courts are looking at is to whether what you have done is transformative of the original. Are you just using the original with your face on it to try and generate revenue? Or are you actually making commentary, criticism, and are you therefore transforming the original piece subject to copyright into something that is yours? And that's why you'll often see on some reaction videos, commentators that stop them every 30 or 40 seconds. Now, the more articulate your comment is, the more likely it is to remain transformative. So, for example, if you're watching a reaction of, say, a band, a song performed by your favorite artist, if you're stopping to say, hey, that was really cool. Don't you all think that was really cool? And then you go back into the video. I'm not sure that's transforming. If, however, you stop it to say, I love the way the video angle here switches from bottom to top. That helps accentuate face. And did you all notice the key change? ([Time 0:14:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e50314ea-6a46-44a1-b544-e802fb70b4df)) - **Platforms Let Claimants Choose Money Or Blocks** - Platforms route dispute money to claimants and expect courts to resolve contested rights, shifting enforcement to rightsholders. - Quinn notes claimants can choose revenue over blocking, and contesting requires litigation which is costly and slow. Transcript: Paul Quinn So in the music industry, for example, there's what's called a compulsory license. If I'm going to cover your song, you can't say no, right? As long as you've already released it. It's not something that, you know, you have any creator has the right to first release. So not that. But it's it's similar in the social media market. But it is weird that it goes back to you. And that is the way it works on all of the platforms. But here's the thing I think that is interesting about it going back to you, because what that relates to is what we talked about before on the massive number of hours of videos that are Uploaded that leaves YouTube, Facebook unable to effectively police it. Because I promise you, if you have a video and I believe it's infringing on one of my clients' rights and I issue a takedown notice to the social media platform, no one is analyzing the Nature of my claim or the nature of your defenses. So what they'll do is because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and we'll come back to that because I think that's a really important aspect. What they're going to do is when I make that claim is they're just going to pull it down. And then they're going to write to you and they're going to say, this is temporarily pulled down. Do you agree that you're not the rights holder? Right. If you then respond and say, I don't agree. I think I have a reasonable basis. YouTube's going to put it back up. Right. And they're going to say, if you want to contest this further, you have to go through the courts. And, you know, litigation doesn't serve many people. It's very expensive and it takes a very long time. I mean, I think the average amount of time it takes a copyright case to get through federal court. And this, of course, depends upon the copyright being registered. But if you've registered the copyright, it takes nearly two years to go through federal court. ([Time 0:17:56](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e30483fa-6eaa-44b2-ace9-7a7897d175b9)) - **Respond Quickly To DMCA Takedowns** - If a copyright takedown occurs, respond promptly and assert a reasonable basis to get platforms to restore content. - Paul Quinn explains DMCA safe harbor causes platforms to pull first and restore only if you dispute, so timely appeals matter. Transcript: Paul Quinn What they're going to do is when I make that claim is they're just going to pull it down. And then they're going to write to you and they're going to say, this is temporarily pulled down. Do you agree that you're not the rights holder? Right. If you then respond and say, I don't agree. I think I have a reasonable basis. YouTube's going to put it back up. Right. And they're going to say, if you want to contest this further, you have to go through the courts. And, you know, litigation doesn't serve many people. It's very expensive and it takes a very long time. I mean, I think the average amount of time it takes a copyright case to get through federal court. And this, of course, depends upon the copyright being registered. But if you've registered the copyright, it takes nearly two years to go through federal court. And the average cost to prosecute a copyright case is about $150,000. So unless your revenue is massively exceeding that so that it's a worthwhile business investment, the system doesn't really work very well to your advantage. And yeah, no one has the time at the social media channels to actually address these issues. So they take the easiest route out. ([Time 0:19:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/099f13eb-6b8b-4e3b-9790-3a23be9aea04)) - **Register Key Videos For Stronger Legal Leverage** - Register your important videos with the Copyright Office to unlock statutory damages and recoverable attorney fees. - Paul Quinn recommends registering high-value episodes because prevailing plaintiffs can get defendants' attorney fees, making lawsuits viable. Transcript: Paul Quinn You should do so. It is not expensive. You can do it online. You go to www.copyright and you would be probably be the audio visual form that you would fill out. And it don't quote me on how much it costs because I haven't looked for a little while. There was a time, I'll tell you, when my job was filing copyrights for people, but it got so easy that I feel too guilty to take the money off of everyone. So I just tell them how to do it and they go off and do it themselves. But I think it's $45. It might be as high as $75 to register. But even so, yeah. Well, I mean, that only becomes a problem if you decide I've got a thousand episodes and I want to copy all of it. Travis Maybe just your most important ones, maybe. Paul Quinn The one that's probably going to make the most revenue or the one that's most likely to be stolen and ripped off. That's what I would strongly recommend going for. But once you do it, it does give you certain rights that you don't have in the absence of doing it. Remember I said right at the beginning, it's still, your piece is still copywritten as long as it's original. And now with substantial input from a human, we can talk about AI later if you like, but- Oh, we're going to, yes, we will, yes. And in a fixed medium, right? Those are the points. It's still copyright. But once you register, I'll tell you the most important advantage it gives you is not the statutory damages that it does allow a judge to use. The most important thing is it gives the prevailing party attorney's fees. So now, of course, you can't get blood from a stone. So you've got to hope the person that you're suing is financially able to pay your fees. But I think we talked before, the average cost for prosecuting a copyright lawsuit is approximately $150,000. Well, if you've got $20,000 of damages, that's passed Business 101 is not going to file that lawsuit. But if you've got $20,000 of damages and if you win, they have to pay your attorney's fees. ([Time 0:27:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a619aff4-5d67-4e09-ad96-509f672eb32f)) - **Fight Weaponized Strikes With A Legal Letter** - If you face weaponized takedowns, collect the striker's identity and send a lawyer letter alleging misrepresentation under Lenz. - Quinn notes Lenz requires a good-faith analysis before filing takedowns and letters can prompt reversals. Transcript: Paul Quinn Before you make a complaint, the complainer must perform a good faith analysis before issuing the takedown notice, right? So, and if they don't, they can be liable for misrepresentation under the copyright. So the reason I mentioned that is in the examples you gave, there is no legitimate reason to take it down. And so there has been no fair use. ([Time 0:38:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c2a76212-dedc-4c47-91b0-e6af0da6fb7a)) - **Use Trademark To Combat Deepfakes And Clones** - Deepfakes and voice clones may be better addressed through trademark and publicity rights, not copyright. - Quinn explains trademarks protect likeness/voice in commerce and can give nationwide remedies across states unlike patchwork state claims. Transcript: Paul Quinn That is not actually subject to copyright, but it is subject to trademark. So you would be able to file a trademark for your likeness and voice, because they are unique to you and you use them in commerce. So there are a number of actors on the West Coast that have started doing this. Now, the problem is $45 to $75, right, to file a copyright, $1,800 to $2,200 to file a trademark. But here's the thing. You're only trademarking you. And so if, you know, you think you are likely to be, I mean, no one's deepfaking me. I don't have to stress about that. I'm not going to do it. But, you know, if you, I know, I just read, well, gosh, I don't know if it's last week, but I read recently that Matthew McConaughey has just done this. Because how people tend to use those deep fakes if they're being subtle about it. And this happened before AI, but with impersonators, right? People that did good impressions is to sell or market a specific product. They will use that person's voice, thereby giving the audience the impression that that person is endorsing that product. And you can't do that. So, but trademark, now there are other causes of action, but trademark is more effective. And I'll tell you why, because if you look at the way TV and social media and radio works is that stuff is played in every state of the union. Right. Copyright or trademark, then whatever order that court gives is going to impact every single state. If you don't have a registered trademark or a registered copyright, you are left filing a lawsuit in all 50 states under those states' laws and how they impact the thing you're complaining About. ([Time 0:47:15](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c130ec9b-8fd9-4e94-80ed-d2c5a926a453)) - **Only Copyright Human Contributions In AI Work** - Only claim copyright for the human-created parts when using AI; wholly AI-generated works likely aren't copyrightable. - Paul Quinn warns that if the whole work lacks substantial human involvement, you cannot register copyright. Transcript: Paul Quinn In order for a copyright to exist on your piece, you can only copyright the parts that were not generated with AI. And if the whole doesn't reveal substantial human involvement, whatever that means, then you can't copyright it at all. ([Time 0:51:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b9c255ea-76a8-4b54-83a7-bb6425785717))