Just think about it for a second or two. Could you go about your daily life without a smartphone by your side? Can you just give it and all your apps a time off? Not surprisingly at all, you can.

So hear me out. Almost two months ago my phone got really acquainted with the wall. Of course it got smashed, not into pieces but really damaged. I threw that fucker like I was playing baseball. At that point I had no working phone and for a few days I actually felt quite good not having to go online or answer some dumb call. This didn’t last long as I live in another city really needed to be contacted by family and friends, I couldn’t go full commando off the grid, hermit style.

I got my hands on a so called dumb phone, just a cheap dual-sim Nokia phone. It’s java based, doesn’t run your usual social media apps, which is really good. The only “app” that the phone has and is quite useful is the Microsoft weather app. Nothing more, nothing less, just your basic call and text phone.

I eventually came to the conclusion that I really didn’t need more and that was enough for me. Yeah, I gave up on social media and all the bull crap that comes with them. I stopped wasting time on things online that really didn’t matter to me, and that I went with the herd culture. I rediscovered reading and I also have more time to game on my pc, because gamers gotta game.

When I had a smartphone by my side I would always click on this and that, view that Youtube video and so forth. Yes, like any other human I was wasting hours and hours on crap. But don’t get me wrong, there are downsides to not having access to smart apps.

For example navigation, I had to keep my eyes always on signs so that I wouldn’t miss a turn or an exit and I also have a map in my car. Remember those? Ordering a taxi is more difficult and Uber or Bolt are not even an option. The same goes to ordering food, but that’s not that bad as I started cooking again and no to brag about it, but I do make delicious meals. Should start posting food pics on Instagram. Wait, NO! I do miss the option of playing online music while driving. If I really want to take photos I’d take my Sony Alpha a6000 and take some cool and professional snaps.

So it is what it is. I don’t really miss my Xiaomi that much, I can manage without it. When I had it I always had the tendency to keep on using it just because, without any reason in particular. I do waste time like any other person, but I limit my online interactions because I have a desktop pc and it’s kinda’ hard to drag it to bed to watch fail videos on Youtube before I fall asleep.

I did order parts to repair the phone, but it’s going to take a long time until they arrive from China. So basically I’ll be a hermit of sorts. Even if the parts arrive and I won’t be able to fix the phone it really won’t matter to me that much. I became free the minute I smashed it. I regret nothing. I did order an LG G6 a few weeks ago, but I returned it, I didn’t even open the box. I’m quite happy now, as I have enough time to do things I never had time for. Work, play, write and eat good.

So the question is this. Can you put away the smartphone for a while? Let’s assume you don’t have a job the requires you to check your email on the go. Can you leave all the social media non-sense? Can your precious online presence take step back?

Yeah, if you’ve ever posted something on youtube or you’re a gamer or all thing in between you might be familiar with the term “copyright claim”. Let me explain briefly what really grinds my gears.

You post something, usually original recorded content such family, nature videos, your cat doing some’ stupid shit, you’d might record your own gameplay video, so people could see your choices and movements and the list goes beyond.

Youtube has an algorithm that detects if there is copyrighted music somewhere in the background of your video. And from there all the shit starts pouring in. Remember that dancing baby with music in the background? Yeah what a scandal…

We don’t care about your song 

I spoke a while ago with somebody that made a copyright claim on my video gameplay. Yeah indeed there was music in the background, but while the copyright dispute was in progress they explained to me what had really happened. I played a game, music in the background, they owned it. Short and simple, erase the song via youtube editor and everything will be fine. They actually told me that they could prohibit user from uploading even video content regarding gameplay, but they said that this would be at their marketing disatvantage.

That gaming studio chose to keep it simple and just flag videos containing music content that they themselves licensed from other companies. I get that, simple and sweet.

But, then comes another issue. I got flagged a few time for a gameplay video that had the slightest music in the background or just a few seconds. Imagine that, hours long gameplay video just to get flagged and not even given the possibility to erase or mute those few seconds. I had a huge number of views, as it was actually a live stream. People came , stayed till the end for my performance, not for those 15-20 seconds of almost inaudible music during the intro. That being said, YOU shoul stop using your corporate power of copyrighting towards youtubers. As I said, call it free promotion. Trust me, if a youtube gamer posts a video containing parts of a song that’s just free advertising. Nobody gives a shit about your song and record label. You ain’t shit, I’ll tell you that! I’d understand using a whole song on purpose, yeah copyright that video.

We need moooar tools

Youtube, for gods sake, we need more uploader tools. Such as a possibility to fight back false copyright claims. Any copyright claim should have a reason, a real one, not just ”copyrighted for content”. Bitch what? What content? What? I could easily make a fake company/studio and start making money by copyrighting other people content. What the fuck is this?

I’m gonna end this post right here, stay tuned for part two of me ranting on of how youtubes policies  sucks and how some people think they can make a quick buck.

Like most people on youtube that upload gameplay with audio on, and by that i mean that during gameplay the original soundtrack plays in the background. You will kinda’ always be found by youtube’s algorithm and a copyright claim will be automatically placed on your video. Usually you won’t be able to monetize the content because of those songs. I recently had some issues with these copyright claims and had a strike on my channel which prohibited the streaming feature on my account. I’ll talk about that in another article.

Regarding the topic of this post, i’d like to show how fucked up is the way Youtube handles its copyright issues within the community. I played a while ago some Grand Theft Auto IV, because i wanted to go bowling with my favorite cousin, that’s why. I recorded gameplay footage and uploaded it because it was funny. I indeed got copyright claims from major recording labels, publishers and so on for the audio within the game, which was the in-game radio playing while i was roaming through Liberty City, you know, that fictional city where the game takes place.

As a law abiding citizen, i went into my Youtube dashboard and used the editor to remove or mute in some cases the song that where present in the video. Everything was fine, i actually made a lot of progress with each video, most of the songs were gone, yes, I said most. I waited a long time for each video to finish processing so I could verify that everything was in order. Yeah, when everything seems to be in working order, the shit hits the fan, because of course it did. I was browsing my video list and the “Includes copyrighted material” message was still there. But why?

Click, click…and i ended up on the page that includes the copyright notices. One song was not remove and there it a copyright claim on it, the owner had monetized it and i may be able for revenue sharing. WHAT THE FUCK?? I clicked to see which studio made the claim, aaaaand surprise. Some douchebags like the ones listed below

• APRA_CS
• COMPASS_CS
• KODA_CS
• SOCAN
• TONO_CS

with some bogus accounts made a claim on my video. I’d believe it if that was true but it’s not. They made a claim on the theme song from Grand Theft Auto IV which is called “Soviet Connection” by Michael Hunter. While doing some more digging i found out that there are a lot of people with the same problem. Some piece of shit scum made a remix of the original song, posted it on youtube and now is making fake copyright claims. Don’t believe me? Just listen to the original song by Michael Hunter here and then listen to this piece of shit song called “HARBAN MEN L HABSS” right here. I’d appreciate if you’d report that account because of the way they are manipulating the copyright system of youtube.

I wouldn’t be mad, if that dude had the rights to do so. Bogus claim, piece of shit song remix, and youtube is doing nothing about this. I wasn’t even able to remove the song because of the type of claim they made on my video, so eat shit and die.

So, in other news, while continuing my research on the web i stumbled upon something interesting, these guys were also making face copyright claims on other songs and video games that contained them.

CONCLUSION: Somebody is making fake copyright claims for real songs, might i say original songs, with remixes, virtual dj crap and stuff.

What the hell youtube? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT???

So the copyright claim is for a song called “HARBAN MEN L HABSS” found in my video. Which is totally not Michael Hunter’s “Soviet Connection. The song starts at 1:30, i placed a starting point on my video so just click and view the embed video below and you be the judge.

I rest my case at the moment, but this isn’t the last time i’ll be writing about this. Just wait for the next article or who knows, maybe a video. If you’ve been a victim of the abuse of copyright claims on youtube please leave a comment below and we’ll talk and see what we can do about this. Any sharing of this article might help me and other people in my situation. Any insight on this matter is gladly appreciated! Cheers!