Wrongly Accused

So today marks the second time in a few months that I got an email from YouTube accusing me of DMCA copyright infringement. Both were for our show, The Daily Vlog. This is a daily 5-minute vlog of uncut conversation from our office. We talk about our day, try to be funny, whatever. We do it 5 times a week, and have about 100, 150 episodes. Most are on YouTube, which I guess is a big enough number that we have two mistakenly tripped some sort of automatic copyright-finding bot that scours YouTube.

The first time it was the episode from August 1, entitled “Favorite Cancelled TV Shows” and the accuser was Comedy Central. I think we actually might mention a show from Comedy Central in our conversation, but I don’t see how mentioning a show is copyright infringement. Today is was an episode from November 11, entitled “Manic Monday” and it was Universal Music Group that got upset. I guess their bot tripped over the name of the episode, and they didn’t even bother to check it before accusing us of a crime. It is just us talking about our day, no mention of the song “Manic Monday” and certainly no playing of the song.
YouTube, of course, acts by taking the video down immediately. They don’t check either. They give confusing instructions about how to respond (mail or email?, what constitutes an “electronic signature”?). In the case of the August 1 episode, I never heard back from my email.

We’ve got so many episodes up there, and these are so old, that I don’t really feel like making a federal case out of this (though they already have, I guess). But it still bothers me to be accused of such a crime. And to be guilty until I prove myself innocent.