Somebody emailed me to let me know this morning that a couple of my videos had been yanked from YouTube, including video 001 and the North Mississippi Front-Porch Blues Harp Lesson, both of which had garnered hundreds of thousands of hits over the past five years. This floored me--I had no notice or advisory from YT about this--and so I checked and sure enough: they've been yanked, along with the hundreds of comments they'd accumulated. They show up as a thumbnail on the backside of my channel, but with that stern warning, "!rejected (content inappropriate)."
I'm running out the door, but perhaps somebody who has these videos on their hard drive can view them and explain to me what is objectionable about them. I haven't the faintest idea. I'll have to check YouTube's terms of service. Certainly it wouldn't surprise me if videos were yanked for copyright violation--the set where I'm actually playing Herbie Hancock's TAKING OFF as I show folks how to copy "Watermelon Man." In fact, my initial assumption was that that was why these videos had been removed. But the North Mississippi lesson? It's about the mellowest, least objectionable teach-in I can imagine.
Meanwhile, "Instant Naked Raw Brutal Blues Harmonica" is still up. That's the vid where I slap the camera twice and say "Pay attention!"
I guess I'm a boundary-crossing performance artist and it's finally catching up with me. :)
I've just watched 001. (Luckily, I've got the first 112 on a disc.) There's nothing, absolutely nothing, objectionable about it. I don't play copyrighted music. I don't use bad language. At one point, admittedly, as I"m panning the camera down to talk about my digital delay, I say "This is my bedroom" and there's a sofabed. Is THAT what they're objecting to??
Is there a system set up there where other users can 'flag' videos as inappropriate? If so, you might want to think if you've pissed anyone off. I've had completely innocent and relevant posts to Craigslist 'flagged' by some asshat and removed, probably because whomever pulls the trigger at CL doesn't have time to review every flagged post, and just takes the complaint as valid. Just a thought. ---------- Todd L. Greene
"If you're seeing the "Rejected (content inappropriate)" message next to one of your uploaded videos, it means that the video in question has been found to violate our Terms of Use. Please review them to be sure that you understand what content is acceptable for upload to YouTube and to avoid having additional content removed from the site."
I'm sure there must be a way to appeal, I haven't found it yet but will ldig deeper.
I've had a long running disagreement with YT. They say the content in one my videos "Matches Third Party Content". It's my own music composition of which no sane music company would admit to owning yet Sony say they own it. It's impossible. I've lodged complaints and appeals and it takes forever to sort out, especially when you think a team of humans needs to watch the offending video in order to make a decision. There must be millions of videos in the queue.
YT has advanced software to match any audio content with any audio content which is currently known. It does that during the download and flagged immediately. So I don't think it's the audio content in question, must be something else but what????
If you search YT for "Rejected (content inappropriate)" you'll see an awful lot of YouTubers who are scratching their heads too.
@toddgreene: I thought about that. Gindick, perhaps? Or somebody who didn't win the Throw Down competition? :)
Question: Can somebody here tell me the process for appealing this sort of YT administrative decision? It's almost impossible to find a contact email, much less a phone #, on the YT site. Many thanks in advance to whomsoever is able to provide that.
Many of my videos violate copyright. 001 certainly doesn't. It doesn't violate anything. It's unobjectionable. I'm talking about my amps: one solid state, one old tube amp. A mic. A digital delay footpedal.
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 6:22 AM
If you are watching a video which you feel is inappropriate for YouTube, please click the "Flag" button to report the video. This button is located below every video on its watch page. For more information on what is appropriate, please view our Terms of Use.
After you report the video with your selected reason, our staff will review it. If the video is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use, it will be removed from the site. Users who continually violate our Terms of Use will have their accounts penalized or possibly banned from the site permanently.
Here is the info on flagging for random jackasses to flag an account.
I was going to say perhaps someone who competes for internet harmonica instruction - ala Gindick, but glad you went there first...
Adam, I've had problems with the YouTube police in the past as well. If you go back searching for a post I made called "Curbside Prophet", you'll find the video I posted in it yanked into private mode by the owner.
As it turns out, for what ever asinine reason, someone decided to flag it as copyright infringement on "The Electric Slide". Now, the ridiculousness of it having anything to do with the Electric Slide aside...the song is not my own, I will admit. But it IS by Jason Mraz, who not only allows bootlegging his concerts and covering of his songs, but he also encourages it!
I really think that sometimes people decide they have nothing better to do than click the flag button on YouTube videos.
I don't know who you contact to appeal though. Sorry. I went the direct route and wrote Jason Mraz about it a couple weeks ago. Still waiting to hear back from him. ---------- Hawkeye Kane
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 6:33 AM
there are 7 billion potential suspects..although most dont have internet...more likely some vandal kid who couldnt resist pushing the button...or someone who did it by accident...or someone bipolar who is goona take over the world by harmonica domination and is busy eliminating the opposition...far more likely than a fellow teacher
It's really unconscionable behavior by YT at this point to not have a better system in place. The whole "anyone can flag and the video is gone", "no phone # or email prominently displayed for a dept. that the video poster can contact for an expeditious resolution" SOP smacks of a company that is trying in the worst way to pinch pennies. Wasn't YT acquired by google for over a $ billion a few years back? And they still can't come up with a better way than this? Unbelievable.
Hey I realize they're dealing with hundereds of millions or billions of individual videos, but a system where anybody can get anybody's video yanked is ridonkulous for a multi billion $$ company, It makes them look like a true mickey mouse operation.
Maybe if they took a few hundred or thousand people out of the Let's Change The Entire Interface Because We Can..... And Fix Things That Aren't Broken Division, and put them on this problem they could figure it out.
They could also borrow a few bodies from the "we're tying everything together with google search to offer you a more custom surfing experience (but really, were assembling a dossier on you that will make J. Edgar Hoover's FBI look like a walk in the park) initiative"
"Don't be Evil" my ass.
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 8:37 AM
I've had a number of videos flagged as inappropriate. Most of them were videos of Mark Hummel. Most, but not all, were Little Walter instrumentals. I tried to re-upload them with no success. I had to reedit them, but a few were flagged again. I didn't bother with them again.
The flagging system is certainly a joke. The number of copyright violations that go by unflagged is huge, indicating that their sophisticated software is hopelessly inadequate.
Try this: Put up a video with nothing in it, just a camera shot of your cat or something. Then log into YouTube from another account and flag it as inappropriate and see how long it takes to get it pulled. I doubt there's a human being reviewing every flagged video before it's pulled.
YouTube is the largest search engine in the world next to Google. I doubt with that much traffic that adequate attention is put into this sorta thing by real humans. Stupid. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Mods Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
re: throwing around somebody's name: Fair enough. I don't honestly think that Jon Gindick or any other blues harp guru would actually decide to flag both my very first video (actually, my second video, since my first was .000) and the video that I use on my homepage and beginner's page as a way of getting back at me. Do you?
I jokingly mentioned his name above (that's what smiley faces :) are for) because somebody asked who could possibly want to give me trouble. I seriously doubt this is Jon's work. Heck, it's much more likely to be NastyOldDog or TNFrank. Or several million other people.
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 8:17 AM
It seems that if you tube is the culprit you should be entitled to an adequate explanation...Sounds like from your description of the video that it's obviously a mistake to have been removed!
I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand it really sucks to have your videos removed for no good reason. But... on the other hand, they are a free website and have the right to choose what they want on it and what they don't. Just as this site does, it is a judgement call on what should be allowed and what shouldnt be. The best way around it is to use a different site. If enough people do that then they will either change their policy or they will live with a smaller share of internet videos.
the videos are downloaded on my desktop-they are priceless for an amateur like myself...there are things I have seen on youtube that probably are inappropriate to some but if it is nobody has a knife at your throat to watch
It doesn't sound like Nasty to me. He's a good egg for the most part. The whole thing with TN started when TN criticized Nasty's guitar player. He was just sticking up for his buddy (in an over the line way, but you could see his line of thinking.) There are a couple nuts that got banned that would seem to be better suspects.
I read an article recently about how broken the YouTube policy was. They aren't required to take down videos without a DMCA notice. A DMCA notice imposes legal penalties for false claims. Their flagging system does not.
that North Mississippi video had 294,080 views! I can only find one video - Blues Harmonica Secrets Revealed (Gussow.016) - that has more views (1,427,756).
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 3:40 PM
If someone has the power to get videos pulled down that easily and you were Satan to them and wanted you destroyed, wouldn't they just do it to them all if it's as simple as a mouse click?
the downside of mass productions..... I had the same problem with selling a guitar amp on craigslist. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
I've uploaded the North Mississippi lesson to Vimeo. Here it is. I challenge anybody on this forum--anybody, period--to tell me it's in violation of any of YouTube's terms of service. It's a non-issue. This is easily the mellowest and tamest video I've ever uploaded. Whoever flagged it did so out of the basest motives and a desire to harrass:
My account is in good standing; I don't have any community guidelines violations. Nor does it appear that I'm being accused of a copyright violation. So it's not clear to me how I appeal. Because I don't have a community guidelines violation, there's no pre-fab way for me to protest this action.
In other words, there's no pink "acknowledge" section where I'm being accused of, and asked to acknowledge, a violation. My videos have been taken down, but I haven't formally been accused of anything; I'm in good standing on all fronts--but the videos remain deleted for "inappropriate content."
Can somebody please explain that?
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 11:53 AM
"My book, 'Mr. Satan's Apprentice'..." "When I was playing with Mr. Satan"
Someone of a particular religious bent, who was unfamiliar with you and Sterling, could take those statements an entirely different way - especially in the light of blues mythology.
I think that could explain a possible motive beyond the ideas already mooted. Since the video doesn't break the terms of service or community guidelines though, I think you have just grounds to appeal and demand the relisting of the video along with the view count.
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2012 12:59 PM
While I have no evidence confirming it, I too think Pistolcat is on to something...at least it seems more likely than someone sniping videos out of jealousy.
If that is the case, I think it is really dumb and you should easily win an appeal, but it only takes one idiot to create a problem like this. ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Mods Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
Aww, just leave it be. It'll add to blues tradition lore. Years down the road that 'missing Youtube 001' will become as legendary as Robert Johnson's lost 30th song.
It might motivate someone to click the 'flag' link even if it did not violate the TOS. As has been mentioned above - it's unlikely that human eyes examine every video before reported ones are taken down. I reckon they adopt a robotic 'shoot first ask questions later' policy
no the word satan can do it. like what i talked about human skulls in music theory has gotten me kicked out of every stringed instrument group due to a ravenous hoarde of xtian fundys harrassing the moderator to ban me. they literally want to control free speech.
It doesn't matter whether the content/title/tags/description etc... violate the TOS.
All that has to happen is someone sees the film. Misunderstands the reference. Gets all uppity about references that they feel are at odds with their faith (trying to tread carefully here). And voila, they hit the report link.
All they have to do is hit the link - they can give any reason they like - it will still most likely be deleted by an automated system. Google just do not employ that many people to check every reported video. They'll be working on the basis that if there's a dispute, the poster will query the deletion.
Most people affected will just fume quietly. A few more will quietly re-upload the video. Only a handful will bother to file a dispute. That's how human's work and Google knows more about people than anyone else in the world. It really cuts down the workload for the Youtube staff.
hello im mary jones a member of the perfect people church of frostbite falls minnesota. after watching this video my 9 year old son started playing drums and reading books on voodoo. he started killing the neighbors pets and is now in juvenile jail until he graduates. i want this video removed or you will be hearing from my churches atourney how long must we as xtians blah blah blah.
