2016/05/03

Bogus copyright claim against Moonscape / Contestazione fasulla di copyright su Moonscape

ITALIANO: Ho ricevuto da Youtube una contestazione di presunta violazione del diritto d’autore in una parte di Moonscape, che sarebbe di proprietà del brano musicale Moon Landing di The Orchard Music. Mi sono opposto rispondendo che il materiale NASA non è sotto copyright, come specificato qui: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html. Dopo qualche giorno la contestazione è stata annullata. Non è la prima di questo genere. Mi sono stufato di perdere tempo.


ENGLISH: On April 30, 2016 I received this notification from Youtube, stating that “The Orchard Music” was claiming copyright over part of Moonscape. Youtube said that some material in Part 3 of Moonscape (the One Small Step chapter version 1.1, which I posted on Youtube here) was from the copyrighted song Moon Landing.


On May 3, 2016 I examined the allegedly infringing material, which is said to be at 0:50-1:47 in the video: it’s Buzz and Neil talking on the Moon. The claim is therefore totally bogus.

I replied to the dispute as follows, stating that the material is in the public domain or unsuitable for copyright protection.


In the claim dispute form I added this note:

The disputed material is a NASA recording of the Apollo 11 Moon landing and as such is NOT copyrighted, as stated in NASA's copyright rules at http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html. The Orchard Music appears to be claiming copyright on US government property.

Actually, I was so angry at having to waste time on this patently frivolous copyright claim that I forgot the word material, but never mind.


That NASA Media Usage Guidelines page makes it quite clear that the voices of Neil and Buzz during Apollo 11 are not copyrighted:

NASA content - images, audio, video, and computer files used in the rendition of 3-dimensional models, such as texture maps and polygon data in any format - generally are not copyrighted. You may use this material for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits, computer graphical simulations and Internet Web pages. This general permission extends to personal Web pages.


Youtube now says that my dispute is being examined by “the copyright owner” (wrong: The Orchard Music is not the owner, it’s a claimant for the time being) and adds that I will receive a reply within 30 days. In the meantime, the video is still available for viewing.


I’ll add here any updates to the dispute.


2016/05/24: The copyright claim has been released. Anyway, I’m tired of wasting time chasing these bogus copyright claims (other parts of Moonscape have also received the same claim from the same company), so I'm going to just delete any Youtube copies against which I receive a claim notification.