Rumblefish and the Public Domain

Greetings all,

We haven't posted here in a few months. We got used to the internet and new gadgets and haven't had much to post about here for a while.

This is the first post about our adventures with YouTube, Rumblefish, the Psalters and the public domain.

The scene:

We made a YouTube video of Haint's art.
(Posted in Jan '09)

We used a song by the Psalters as background music.
(2004 - Us Vs US - with their permission)

Rumblefish issued a content ID violation on the audio content of the video.
(Let us be clear that this is Rumblefish.com and NOT Rumblefish the band)

The audio was created by the Psalters with public domain content.
(This audio content is mixed with their live musical performance.)

Rumblefish has a lot of public domain content in their catalog and it will be flagged as a content ID match in YouTube and Vimeo.

The Bummer:


The Public Domain is supposed to be a safe place for artists to get content without fear of copyright infringement.

This permits Rumblefish advertising rights and control over public domain and the content of independent artists.
(We are the only ones we know of - but we are sure that we are not the only ones)


This is a violation of our rights as artists.


On Monday we will call a phone number that we found on a forum.
http://forums.whyweprotest.net/186-youtube-vimeo-problems/rumblefish-dmca-content-id-claim-fix-w-o-namefaging-self-42732/
This is supposed to be a contact for Rumblefish that will remove the content ID violation, to make sure they have a chance to fix this without dispute.

The other option open to us is disputing their claim - but this is a dangerous move for a little guy without a lot of money or clout. (we will make a post about content ID disputes later) If they had issued a DCMA takedown notice instead we would have had the ability to issue a counter notice. As it is right now, we either take the risky step of disputing the content ID match, or let them use our content for advertising, or hope that the phone call works.

BUT - even if they do rescind the content ID match this is not the end of the story. Because we had the time and resources to spend 12 hours trying to protect our rights as artists. A lot of artists are not that technical or web savvy and they are the ones that will get taken advantage of by this sort of error.

See ya on Monday.

Peace and love

Haint and Littia