Plaidophile

So, quite some time ago, I did a remix of a YouTube user's video (warning: NSFW language). Recently it was flagged as a copyright infringement. Not from the original user whose video was remixed, but from "AdRev for Rights Holder." Their claim is that it makes unlicensed use of "Mark Allan Dunn-Flashpoint Drum," which I have never heard of before.

The actual remix is composed solely of the audio track of the original YouTube video, loops I made, and stock loops from the Apple Logic Studio royalty-free collection. If Mark Allan Dunn-Flashpoint Drum is part of that, it is only because it was in the Logic Studio collection. The only drum loop actually being used is the "2-Step Flux Beat 02" loop from Logic, and I suspect that is what they are claiming to be "Flashpoint Drum." Of course, I cannot actually find any evidence online for what "Flashpoint Drum" might actually be, so I cna't verify this.

The "respond to dispute" page gave no option for "this video does not contain the disputed content." The closest match to the situation was, "I have a license for the content." So, I selected that option, and stated that the only drum loop in the project was taken from the Apple Logic Studio royalty-free loops collection. This dispute was, of course, rejected.

Does anyone have any idea what the hell "Flashpoint Drum" is, who this "Mark Allan Dunn" guy is, and why "AdRev for Rights Holder" is making predatory copyright claims against videos that don't include that actual content? I can't find any information about "Mark Allan Dunn" online, or anything about "Flashpoint Drum," and I can't help but think that this is a case of some overeager law firm claiming copyright over other peoples' work and then issuing predatory copyright claims against things that legally use that third-party work.

Anyone have any advice? For now my video is still up, but I have no idea if that will remain the case, and of course Google is treating everything like a black hole and gives me absolutely no further opportunity to dispute the claim or talk to someone who might have any idea of what's going on.

Apparently it looks like AdRev for Rights Holder means that the person who has raised the erroneous copyright claim can in fact make money off of my remix, so even though I had no plans to monetize it myself, it means that other people can, and that's just not fair. If anyone should get any money off of it, it should be skoalrebel (the guy in the video) and not someone who just happened to have a drum loop that sounded similar enough to the one I used!

Looks like this is also a pretty common problem, because of the way that YouTube does its copyright fingerprinting, apparently. There are other threads about it on Google's forums, without any responses from Google, of course.

As always the small, independent content creators are getting shafted by the big media conglomerates who have bent the world to their will.