I keep hearing crazy stories about copyright claims on KZfaq, but this might be the craziest. Wow.

This is crazy. I'm sorry to hear that.

Very sorry you've had to suffer this kind of treatment, Phil. It must be very dispiriting. I wish you every success in getting these companies to see what an inexplicable and damaging mistake they are making

Phil, I hope you don't let this get you down. You are a true artist and very gifted, and much appreciated by your audience. The corporatocracy that many of us live in must be pushed back against or they will stifle everything creative and beautiful with their quest for power and profit.

Play only your own music.Your improvisation are just unbelivable. You are a great sources of inspiration. Thank you !

The reason you are getting copyright strikes for playing public domain works is that, even though there is no longer any copyright on the music score, any modern performance of same can be copyrighted. That is referred to as a mechanical copyright. The algorithms used by YT are not sophisticated enough to distinguish one performance of the work from any other. Your only option is to challenge the strike and be explicit that the performance is yours alone and not that of a contemporary artist playing the same piece and hope that your explanation is accepted (good luck with that). I ran into a similar problem some years ago when I posted audio restorations of 78 rpm records (on which the mechanical copyright had expired). I was challenged on those. Apparently, some company had their own commercial restorations of the same original recordings and the algorithm notified them of my posting. I was able to have the posting accepted but the hassle was so great that I stopped posting audio only performances on YT and just went to SoundCloud. I haven't had any such problems on that platform but I realize that doesn't help you. Have you considered writing a letter to the CEO of the offending company and explaining how abusive their actions are?

So sorry you've had this trouble. We love your videos, as you probably realise, and are very disappointed that you have been treated this way.

I, for one, truly appreciate your presence on YoutTube. Your music is truly beautiful and your well-grounded approach is refreshing. If KZfaq doesn't work out for you, I will gladly watch your videos elsewhere. Thank you for what you do.

Sorry to hear that. This happened a lot to many recently. As I already commented elsewhere, this has EVERYTHING to do with YT's crappy way of dealing with copyright. They do not require evidence from the claimant of holding any rights, and they even grant them the power of deciding over our disputes. This has been going on for too many years. If that's not madness, I don't know what is. I could have claimed that video, for that matter. Either we all unite and speak out, and do something, or this goes on forever.

Okay so let me elaborate more on some hints that I gave in previous comments. First, some context: people can post on YT copyrighted work because Alphabet (then called Google) made agreements with the recording labels. To allow that, *in exchange* Google is paying the labels *lots* of money, which they get from advertising. As you have seen from your revenue, the money you get from advertising is pennies (if you are lucky), so Google can make this arrangement only because YT is *huge*. Only when you multiply those almost-but-not-exactly zero amounts by huge numbers of visitors and viewers you get a decent revenue. The context above is essential to understand the key point: the revenue is so small, that there is NOBODY EVER watching videos, making copyright claims, accepting the challenge or making the strikedown requests. Not even for viral videos! It is all automatic, programmed and in the way to allow the copyright "holders" to literally make "money for nothing". Google does not give a s*** about your work, let alone about fairness of the process, they care only about the platform as a whole. Individual revenue per video is so small that even at minimum wage, having somebody watching your video or talking to the copyright holder is a huge loss of money, even if only for 0.01% of the copyright claims. As such, they NEVER do it. It's all software (algorithms as they say, but as somebody who has studied algorithms in computer science I can't use that word for that meaning, because it's too sloppy). Sometimes the software accepts your challenges, sometimes it doesn't. With those copyright stuff, you are literally "playing poker online" with Alphabet's computers. This has happened to me several times, always with out-of-copyright work that I was playing live, and very sloppily. You know how bad I used to play, there is no chance that any human being would make a copyright claim of that crap, literally (find me on vimeo if you don't believe me). A computer, doesn't care, just sees some vague similarity with the registered copyright work.... and then the "playing poker online" starts. Unlike you, for me most of the time they did *not* accept my challenges, until I grew tired and left the platform, deleting what I had uploaded but one tiny thing (don't even remember why I left it there). I hope you will leave too, so I can completely quit this utterly broken place and follow you wherever other place you decide to go. All the best!

This is very wrong indeed. Very sorry you have to deal with this. I value your playing and insights greatly. Realistically most music KZfaqrs get this kind of ludicrous strikes. But it's wrong, it's an outrage. But do keep at it! It's your and our passion!

Really sorry to hear you’ve also become a victim of this automated bullying. It seems that pretty much everybody who does enough streaming has to deal with it :-/

Keep posting and don't quit

Since fraudulent copyright claims seem to be proliferating and KZfaq doesn't want to know or care enough to protect their content creators maybe it's time for a KZfaq creators Union to bring lawsuits against the organisations making bogus claims. Unity is strength and if you guys don't fight for your rights you will lose them.

Sorry to hear that your videos/performances doesn't deserve this I'm also wondering why they did this to you since your performances are very original by the way the only way is to speak up and to defend that you haven't done any of illegal copyright claim issues I hope this issue will end and keep up the good work sir

I feel with you, it's ridiculous that somebody claims to own musical heritage... it's almost like claiming to own the rights on the english language. I watched the video and liked it, found it a sweet idea. Keep on but yea probably not with classical pieces your music is worth it aswell :)

How do we align ourselves? With the side who's agenda is totalitarian, global, corporate government - or the side who supports individual freedoms and sovereign nations? This sounds silly when talking about music, but it's coming at us from ALL angles. This is a small taste of what is to come if the WEF and WHO get their way. When wrong think, wrong speak, and "wrong music" become a part of our daily lives. Let's all think about that next time we vote and/or protest.

Unfortunately, this isn't new, and is apparently growing...

Awesome !

Give us a call to action... let us know how we can add to the complaint. Your brother down in SE5, Rob

This is very disappointing. Your take on music is wonderful and I love your videos. It's a shame that you have to stand up to the google giant, it's just an unwelcome distraction from what we all know you want to do.

Hi Phil. The KZfaq algorithm brought me here, but I'm reserving my seat by choice. That's a really fucked up thing. I saw on Instagram fairly recently that pianist Maya Purdue had the same issue (can't recall if she received the claim on YT or Meta, but it really doesn't matter). Have you ever tried disputing the copyright claim? And if you have, what has happened?

That's criminal!! When you dispute is there a human being talking to you? Is it bad AI comparing performances?

As if you would go through the trouble of finger syncing someone else's performance when you can do a much better one! Honest it's just hilarious when you think about it!

I am a music hobbist and have my own instrument which I improvised over backing tracks. I got one strike. UTB sent the link to me which their algorithms found. The music was written by a artist who sold his song to APPLE who trademarked it to one of their Video Editing Apps. Unknown to me. So, I am writing my own music, now. I feel like a real winner🎉❤❤ The corporation do just as the name implies.-Incorporate- Grab all the music, Put it all in their envelope ✉️ and claim it . With the intro of synth, I worried then what would happen to musicians. So, it has all boiled down to this.😢...... Has anyone been duked by the BandLab, n-tracks, Spotify, etc. Are they grabbing song artists' music scores, too. You know they have producers partners.

Believe music is a copyright troll company. They have been sued for copyright violations of their own.