I'm not a poster of YouTube videos, so this is all new to me.  But I
have noticed recently that an increasing number of YouTube music videos
begin with advertising unrelated to the video itself.  It turns out
that these videos have been "monetized," to use YouTube's terminology.

This I learned yesterday from some YouTube documentation sent to me by
a regular YouTube poster of music from his band organ.  He has gotten
at least two warnings from YouTube notifying him that someone has
entered a "Content ID Claim" against music used on his video.  YouTube
then requires him to either acknowledge the claim or dispute the claim,
although YouTube's notice gives not details about the claim or who has
made it.

To acknowledge the claim, he must either remove the music from the
video or remove the video itself or allow the video to be monetized,
i.e. have unrelated advertising added to the video.  But in order to
get details about who is entering the claim and the basis for the
claim, the video owner must first dispute the claim.

However, this is risky, because if he does dispute the claim and the
claim turns out to be valid, he gets a "copyright strike," which
disables certain features of his account with YouTube and gives him a
permanent black mark.  This effectively scares video posters into not
disputing any claims, even though they do not have enough information
to judge their validity.  Monetizing the video then appears an
attractive option to resolve the issue.

Here is a link to YouTube's documentation on its Content ID Claim
process: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6013276 

Granted that use of YouTube is free and can be very useful to users,
the process outlined above appears to be very unfair to a video poster
and allows YouTube to avoid the whole complex copyright issue and still
make some extra income in the process.

Have any MMDers had experience in this area that will show the
likelihood of such Content ID Claims being valid and who is making such
claims?  In both cases called to my attention, the music involved was
public domain music (a Johann Strauss waltz and a Gioachino Rossini
overture).

Matthew Caulfield
Irondequoit, New York