So, most people wouldn’t script a video
like this, but I’m very dumb and lose my
train of thought every two minutes unless
I’m given direction in what I’m doing
with this voice thing I have trapped inside
my neck, so here we go, let’s do this thing.
*mmhm* My name is joyce-stick, and I am an
anime… reviewer?
With a modest following, who’s been trying
to grow her channel with the power of love
for almost two years now.
Although I’m not very well known, when I
am known, I’m known for making video essays
about anime and things, punctuated by sick
AMVs set to Patricia Taxxon’s music.
As I now speak, much gianter youtube peer
hbomberguy is wrestling with YouTube’s content
ID system in his effort to upload a brand
new video about the Rooster Teeth anime series
RWBY.
In typical hbomb tradition, the video is,
about four hours or so, making this extra
hellish hell.
He’s got multiple tweet threads recording
each time that he has gone back, edited down
the claimed clip, and then reuploaded the
video, gotten another claim, and then gone
back to fix that one, to see MORE content
claims for OTHER clips, like a high concept
game of internet video whack-a-mole.
My attention was INSTANTLY grabbed by this,
because I have seen the EXACT same thing happening
to me, just LAST MONTH.
However, because I’m the b-movie hbomberguy,
hbeemergirl, and have a far smaller platform,
no one noticed, so now I’m making a video
about it.
In part because hbomb said he may make a video
about it, and, I don’t know, maybe if I
get ahead of the curve, maybe he’ll reference
my video.
Or something.
So, last month, I was trying to release a
video essay about the film Promare.
The essay was, well is, about fifty minutes
long, and I thought it’d work fine, because
there are already video essays about Promare
on this platform, although they’re only
20 minutes long at the most.
I uploaded chunks of the video, specifically
the chunks that included the longest unbroken
clips of the film, to make sure they’d not
get content ID’d, and they definitely did
not.
So I thought it was okay.
When I uploaded the full video, however, about
10 hours or so after posting the unlisted
link to my Patrons, it was BLOCKED WORLDWIDE—
by a mysterious entity known as Molebeat.
Apparently, this company is a Japan copyright
litigation outfit, that other anime focused
youtubers have dealt with before, that exists
for the sole purpose of making everyone’s
lives a living hell.
There seems to be barely any English language
information available about them apart from
other YouTubers complaining about strikes
from them, so I can’t say much there, but
I can say, SCREW THAT COMPANY, BURN THEM TO
THE GROUND, and stuff.
Now, the system said it was a content ID claim,
so I thought, okay, the robot got wise.
Well, just go back and edit the video again.
That I did.
Now, I want you to understand a few things
about me and my situation.
I am working on a used Macbook from like,
2015 or so.
To render a fifty minute video takes me four
hours, AT BEST.
Considering all of the effects and stylistic
flourishes featured in my Promare essay, that
I added at the expense of forcing my computer
to eat itself, it took more like six or eight
hours.
So every time I had to re-render this video,
I would be out like half of my entire day.
Especially considering that it would make
it incredibly difficult for me to do anything
else with my computer since rendering eats
up, like… all of the processor and things.
Making this matter worse, was that it turned
out, later, that these claims were being made
MANUALLY.
By people working for a Japanese company,
operating on a Japan workday, in a timezone
that’s a whole day ahead of me, and where
these people were most likely asleep when
I would be reuploading my video.
And I, unlike hbomb, don’t have any staff,
any producer or editors helping me out.
I’m just one stupid girl in over her head.
So I can’t try and ask anyone for help with
this, and while hbomb can re-render his four
hour video in about an hour or two, and has
the benefit of seeing the new claims come
in almost immediately, because they’re automated
in his case, I had to wait EIGHT HOURS—
for a FIFTY MINUTE VIDEO to re-render— and
then wait AT LEAST another eight to twelve
hours, for MANUAL CLAIMS, made by people on
a whole separate calendar day.
Sadly, this story does not have a happy ending.
I eventually removed a specific copyright
song from my video, reuploaded it, waited
about twelve hours, and thought, sure, fine,
okay, the end, this is it!
Maybe I should have waited longer, or taken
more drastic measures, but, pandemic, trapped,
I wanted to get this out for the sake of my
Patrons, and my Patreon income is kind of
important income right now.
It was urgent to me that I finish this video
at the end of the month, and I was running
out of days.
And it cost me dearly.
*sigh*
So, what can we learn from this?
Well, we all already knew that YouTube’s
system is awful and illogical, but maybe it’s
getting more awful and illogical?
Harry, like me, had also uploaded his video
in chunks and suffered no claims, and also
like me, wished that YouTube would not play
this whack-a-mole and just give a list of
each and every clip that tripped up the system,
so I could just FIX ALL OF IT and wait for
only ONE RENDER.
But of course that’s not going to be what
they do, ever, because YouTube has never been,
and is never going to be, friendly to creators,
even big ones with tens of hundreds of times
more subscribers than me, and it’s only
going to get harder.
Especially when it comes to producing longer
form content, it seems, if YouTube is striking
longer videos, which is maybe the case, and
maybe why our full videos got striked but
the segmented chunks were fine?
We’ll probably never know, and we’re all
trapped in this hole, beset on all sides by
this infinite quicksand of garbage.
Anyway, I’d like to NEVER AGAIN have that
hellish experience, or at least have it happen
a lot less, so I plan on adding some aesthetically
appealing copyright deterrents to all of my
videos going forward, but I have no idea if
that will work, if anything will work, or
if anything will ever matter ever again.
I’ve been joyce-stick, aka the b-movie hbomberguy,
the hbeemergirl, or something.
Consider viewing my content, subscribing,
sharing, or donating to my Patreon or Ko-fi.
Have a wonderful day.
