Ever got a copyright claim for using public domain music on YouTube?
Sadly, that happened to us to!
In this short case study we’ll explain in details how we successfully resolved the copyright claim we’ve got for using a public domain melody in one of our YouTube videos.
Keep reading!
What is public domain?
Before we get into how we actually resolved the claim, let’s cover some basic concepts.
Specifically, what is public domain music and what is the difference between a public domain recording and a public domain composition.
public domain music
Simply put, public domain music refers to any music that is not protected by copyright.
Thus, public domain music is free for anyone to use, share, and repurpose without obtaining permission or paying royalties.
This can happen when copyright expires or when the authors explicitly designate their work to public domain (that is, waiving all their rights).
In many countries, the copyright protection typically lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years.
The important difference between the recording and composition
The composition is like a recipe for a song.
Just as a recipe tells you what ingredients to use and how to combine them, a musical composition consists of the arrangement of notes, rhythms, lyrics, and melodies.
The recording is a specific musician’s interpretation of that recipe.
Different artists may record the same composition, creating different versions of the same song.
What public domain song triggered the copyright claim?
For that specific video we used one of our own recordings of the popular lullaby “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”:
Who owns the copyright of that song?
Now, we need to remember the difference between the recording and the composition.
According to PD Info project, Wikipedia, and multiple other sources, the composition (that is, the melody and the lyrics of the song Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star are in public domain).
Here’s also a link to the US Library of Congress showing this song featured in a book published in 19th century.
Therefore, we think it’s safe to say, the song’s copyright has long expired by any measure.
However, we own the rights to the recording, as we created it from scratch this year.
How we resolved the copyright claim for using public domain melody
Below we’ll walk you through the entire process of resolving the claim, starting from determining the cause to submitting the dispute.
So here’s the claim:
As usual our first step was to determine, whether this is false claim, so we could estimate our chances of winning the dispute.
As you can see the great deal of publishers, including Sony music are claiming that they own the MELODY of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
As we shown above, our research indicated otherwise, so we decided to go ahead and dispute the claim.
Why claiming public domain songs is considered a false claim?
Largely because YouTube rules expressly forbids using public domain compositions (and recordings) as reference for their Content ID matching system:
Now that we have a good reason to believe that the claim is false, we can proceed with the dispute.
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Disputing the false copyright claim
Start the dispute process by choosing “Dispute” option in the Video Copyright screen menu.
Step 1: On the first screen, acknowledge that you’re not disputing for the obviously wrong reasons:
Step 2: Choose the reason for dispute.
In our case, the video contained the original a public domain melody, so “Public domain” was the best option.
Step 3: Confirm the ownership of the content.
Simply acknowledge the statement from the previous step.
Now we’re moving to the “Rationale”, which is the most important step in the dispute process.
Step 4: Provide rationale.
Pay close attention to what you write on this screen. It really matters what you say here.
Here’s the complete text:
The melody was published in the 19th century, as per the link from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/item/sm1879.02893/
We will appreciate the claim removed and the melody removed as the publishing reference from Content ID (public domain compositions are not eligible, as per YouTube’s guidelines : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2605065
Thank you in advance!
Now, check the boxes below, add your signature, and submit the dispute.
Problem solved!
It took a couple of weeks but the claim was eventually removed!
Questions?
We hope you find this example of how we solved the copyright claim issue useful.
Tell us about your experience with copyright claims for using public domain music. Post a comment
Related: How to safely use public domain music on YouTube and elsewhere
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