Author: Chris

Teacher. Blogger. Podcaster. Asks way too many questions.
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Lessons in Creative Commons

A few weeks ago Linda and I got home from a short holiday in Bali. We had a great time, and managed to collect a few snippets of video along the way using a GoPro camera. A few days after I got home I managed to stitch a few clips together into a little video summary of the holiday using my own footage and some Creative Commons music that I sourced from Jamendo, one of of my favourite sources for CC-licensed music. I used a happy little track called “8_Happiness AC2” by an artist called “Music for your Media“. The track was licensed under a CC BY-ND-NC licence – meaning that if I attribute the artist (I did), don’t modify the music (I didn’t), and not make money from its use (I’m not), I was welcome to use it. That’s the nice thing about Creative Commons licensing; the terms and conditions of use are clear, explicit and fairly unambiguous.

Or so I thought.

After I edited the video – all 2 minutes and 52 seconds of it – it was published to YouTube. The next day I received a notification from YouTube saying that the sound track used on the video was a copyright violation, and that it contained “Disputed Third Party Matched Content”. In other words, someone was claiming that I’d used the music without the correct permissions from the copyright owner.

I don’t believe that it is “Disputed third party matched content”. I sourced the music track as a Creative Commons media asset, which was clearly indicated in the download link on the Jamendo site, as shown here…

download_happiness

“Free and legal for personal use” seems pretty unambiguous to me.

The Jamendo website also has a nice simple explanation of Creative Commons files on its FAQ page…

“Jamendo can be free and legal thanks to Creative Commons licenses. They grant the right to download and share music for free and legally. Artists choose to use these licenses, and to use Jamendo as a means to share and promote their music.”

“Creative Commons are licenses that enable musicians to give away their music for free while protecting their rights. They are easy to use and compatible with internet standards, and allow rights holders to authorize (or not) certain uses of their music, such as commercial uses and derived works.”

There was a link in my YouTube Video Manager dashboard to dispute the claim, so of course I disputed it. I provided the links to the site that I got the file from, pointed out it was a CC track, and assumed that would be the end of it.

Then today I got another notification from YouTube that my dispute had been rejected and that the original claim of using Disputed third party matched content would be upheld.

dispute_rejected

As a longstanding supporter of Creative Commons, I was pretty pissed off that the “copyright holder”, a label called Audiam, was jerking me around like this.  The track I used was clearly a Creative Commons track and my use of it was clearly within the requirements of the BY-NC-ND license. I have my own suspicions about why they are making this claim, but I’ll save the theories for now.  I don’t know what deal Music for your Media may have done with Audiam, but I do know that the file I sourced was issued under a clearly defined, non-revocable CC license.

Feeling very annoyed, I decided to appeal the ruling because in this instance I’m convinced I am right. Although it would be trivially simple to just substitute another piece of copyright free music from the YouTube media library and be done with it, it’s the principle that matters here.

preface

So I clicked the link to appeal the dispute and provided the following information to YouTube…

Thanks for looking into this alleged infringement and making a ruling but NO, I cannot agree with this ruling. I know it would be far simpler to just remove the video from YouTube or to replace the soundtrack with a different piece of music, but there is a principle at stake here. I believe that your ruling is incorrect and I’d like to dispute it further. Despite the risk I take in having you find against my use of the music again, I know that I am in the right and I want to defend my use of Creative Commons licensed material.

The piece of music in question, “Music for your Media – Happiness is Here” was sourced under a Creative Commons license from Jamendo, one of the Internet’s major sources of Creative Commons music.

The link at which I retrieved the MP3 file was this page… https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/1147331/8-happiness-ac2

When clicking the Download button on that page the license terms of the music are displayed as Creative Commons BY-NC-ND

Use of the track is clearly summarised on the download dialog as follows…

Some Rights Reserved – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND
You can copy, distribute, advertise and play this track as long as you:
Give credit to the artist
Don’t alter, transform or build upon this album
Don’t use this album for commercial purposes

I have not violated any of those terms. The music is credited in the closing credits of the video, I have not altered or remixed the track. I have not used it for commercial purposes, it’s simply a personal video about a holiday I took in Bali. (non commercial even includes the fact that YouTube ads are turned off for this video)

I am a longtime user and contributor of Creative Commons material. I am well aware of how CC licensing works and it seems very clear to me that this work was released under a Creative Commons license, and that my use of it was well within the requirements of that license.

I should also point out that CC licenses are not revocable. As stated on the Creative Commons wiki FAQ, “CC licenses are not revocable. Once something has been published under a CC license, licensees may continue using it according to the license terms for the duration of applicable copyright and similar rights. As a licensor, you may stop distributing under the CC license at any time, but anyone who has access to a copy of the material may continue to redistribute it under the CC license terms.”

So even if Audiam, the label claiming ownership of the music, has changed their mind about the licensing of this track, this does not affect my use of it.

To sum up, I have sourced this track legally and through legitimate means. I have completely complied with the terms of this non-revocable CC license. A CC licence is a pre-granting of permission to use a media asset. I do not need to contact the copyright owner to seek permission because that permission has already been granted.

I fail to see how this could possibly be seen as a copyright infringement, and I hope that common sense and a more complete application of the principles of Creative Commons prevails.

I await your response.

Let’s see what happens. I’ve heard of people making these spurious copyright claims before but this is the first time it’s happened to me. The reason is generally that if they win they get the right to place their ads on my video and earn money from them. Most people don’t bother fighting it because it’s simply too much work to appeal, it runs the risk of getting a copyright strike against your YouTube account if you lose, and it’s just far easier to roll over and give in.

Not me, not this time. There is an important principle of freedom at stake here and that’s worth fighting for. I’ll let you know what happens.

Featured CC Image by Kev-shine on Flickr

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Reflecting on Coding

I was at the ACEC Conference in Adelaide recently where I bumped into the ABC Splash team and got chatting with the wonderful Annabel Astbury. We were talking about getting kids coding and the importance of digital technologies in schools. One thing led to another and I was given an opportunity to write a series of three blog posts on the importance of coding for children as part of ABC Splash’s buildup to the Hour of Code.

If you’d like to read them you can find them here…

As well as these three written posts I was also interviewed for a video series on the importance of coding, which was released as part of the Hour of Code promotions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmazfre_ztE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1UUgB3lTco

Thanks to Annabel and the team for the opportunity to contribute to what I think is a very important conversation to have. Our currently education minister has exhibited a good deal of short-sightedness in regard to the importance of technology education in Australian schools, with many people believing that the recent curriculum review has taken a backwards step in the way digital technologies is approached in the national curriculum. Let’s hope if we keep the conversation going that we can keep this agenda on the table, for the good of our kids and the future of Australia as a technologically relevant country.

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In Second Factor We Trust

You hear of so many security compromises and hacks these days. There are major security breaches happening, with millions of passwords being stolen and used to steal or damage your stuff. So what can you do about it?

With so much of our lives now being lived in online spaces, losing a password, losing an account, having someone get into your stuff online,  would be a nightmare. What would happen if someone got into your Google account? Your Facebook? Your bank account?

I lost my original Twitter account (betchaboy) last year after a password breach and have never been able to get it back. These security breaches DO happen.

The best thing you can do to protect yourself is to turn on Two Factor authentication. Sounds complicated? Its not. It basically means that there are two passwords required to get into your account instead of the usual one… there is the normal password that you usually use, plus a second one that changes every 30 seconds or so. Even if the bad guys were to get your password, without the second factor – which only you know because it’s generated on your phone, in your presence, on demand – the first password is useless.

It’s a bit like having a door with two locks on it. You’d need both keys to open the door, not just one. Either key on its own won’t open it.

But wait, what? A second password that changes every 30 seconds? That sounds like a lot of messing around! I know it sounds like a hassle, but it’s actually not. Most Two Factor systems form a trust relationship with the devices and computers you use often so most of the time you don’t need the second factor for the computers you use regularly. It’s just needed when you log into a different computer or phone that you don’t normally use. Just like the one that a hacker might be trying to use to log in as you. Even if they discover your password, unless they have YOUR device they only have half the password.

I’ve been using Two Factor authentication on my main Google account for a while now. I resisted turning it on for ages because it all sounded too hard. I eventually relented and decided to give it a go. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. And it’s something that you, if you haven’t already, should do too. Right now.

I spent some time tonight setting up Two Factor authentication on all my Google accounts (about 5 of them), plus my Facebook, Evernote, WordPress, PayPal, Dropbox, Lastpass and Apple ID.  Here’s a good article on how to do it.

For most of these, the second factor can be generated by an app on your phone called Google Authenticator, available for Android, iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Phone. It uses Google’s open source token generation algorithm, and it spits out a new code every 30 seconds, specific to each account. Just log in to these sites as usual, but have your phone handy to generate the second password. It’s very straightforward and easy to use, and well worth whatever minor inconvenience it might cause (which honestly isn’t much)

If you haven’t set up Two Factor yet, can I strongly encourage you to at least give it a try. You can always turn it off if you hate it, but really, you should be using this! There was a report of a password breach for Dropbox users yesterday and it was such a relief to think that it didn’t really bother me as even if they got my password it didn’t matter. It was useless to them anyway.

Do it. Do it now. Seriously.