Like others who have commented on the issue of YouTube and other
public postings of mechanical music performances, I am not a lawyer.
But I have had some practical experience with YouTube that may be
helpful to share.

First, it is my understanding that owning a piano roll does not,
by itself, give one rights to public performance of a copyrighted
composition or artist performance.  The same restrictions apply to
copyrighted compositions and performances on other media, and one
cannot simply repost a performance or use it for background music in
another video just because you own the CD, record, or have recorded it
from a purchased or publicly aired broadcast.  And depending on how the
copyright has been maintained, performances from as early as the
mid-1920s may still be under copyright protection in the US.

Second, I understand that YouTube has asked artists and recording
companies to submit samples of their copyrighted material, and their
computers automatically screen any uploaded videos for matches against
their large database of submitted sound samples.  YouTube also screens
for "close matches" to these sound samples rather than "exact matches",
allowing for different tempo, pitch, more or less noise, etc., with
the idea of flagging copyrighted material even if someone has tried to
alter the recording by re-recording it at different speed, or from a TV
or radio speaker, etc.

The search also takes into account the title and search terms of the
uploaded video matching some of the terms used to describe the
copyrighted sample.  This properly protects, for example, against
someone improperly altering a recent Katy Perry or Bruno Mars song so
they can use it in their video.  But it means that often YouTube will
misidentify a classical or older public-domain composition as one or
more copyrighted performances by specific artists.

For example, YouTube frequently flags my amateurish hand playing of
clearly public-domain pieces by Chopin or Beethoven, recorded live
with my own sound equipment on a piano I've restored, as copyrighted
material belonging to the "Music Publishing Rights Collecting Society."
As far as I can tell that is a Google/YouTube entity created to help
enforce copyrights.  I guess it keeps them from being sued by Sony,
Universal Music Publishing, or Warner/Chappell for freely allowing
people to use tracks from their CDs or other published music, even
if they can't tell exactly which track has been used.

Even if a piano roll is in the public domain, say from before 1920, the
YouTube computers may flag it on both content and title as copyrighted,
say "Padereweski plays Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody", because some music
publisher has submitted their copyrighted CD of piano roll music,
played on their piano using their recording equipment.  YouTube can't
tell the difference between their copyrighted recording and mine made
on my own piano with my own equipment.

If YouTube has clearly misidentified your public-domain music as
copyrighted, the remedy is to dispute the claim.  Valid reasons for
doing this are that they have misidentified the recording, or that you
believe your recording is entirely in the public domain.  Non-valid
reasons include "I own the CD or piano roll", or "I am not doing this
for commercial purposes." They don't make the dispute process easy, but
eventually you should be able to assert that "this is a public domain
composition, recorded by me with my equipment from a public-domain
piano roll, and copyrighted only by me because I made the audio
recording."

If the claim is from the MPRCS the dispute should eventually result in
them releasing their claim.  YouTube will often flag music as having
several copyright owners.  If you successfully dispute one claim
(presumably the closest match), they then assert the next claim, that
may be by MPRCS, or by a specific claimant like UMPC or
Warner/Chappell.

If the claim is from a specific music publisher, they may review the
claim before it is released.  Twice I've had a specific publisher
improperly assert that they owned rights to my music, because someone
in their office quickly and sloppily matched my video title with their
published CD.  I managed to find the email address of the publishers
copyright office and ask them to review their improper claim on my
material, which they eventually released.

Some piano rolls, especially later ones, may contain copyrighted
compositions or performances.  For instance, Warner/Chappell claims
rights to many of Gershwin's compositions and actively protects their
copyright.  The original piano rolls after 1923 in some cases included
copyright claims printed on them, and they may have been maintained to
the present.  The 1970s rolls by Bill Flynt are generally copyrighted.

So while it is irksome (rather than flattering) to have my hand-playing
of Chopin mistakenly flagged as an Evgeny Kissen recording, it is
usually possible to dispute a claim made in error.  But not all
mechanical music performances are in the public domain.

Ralph Nielsen
http://www.historicpianos.com/