YouTube is flooded with pirated content. The authors wring their hands

Some time ago I came across Arkady Saulski’s post on his Facebook profile. The author of about 20 books, including the Trilogy with Karol Hotaro, complained about the growing problem with pirated audiobooks that are constantly published on YouTube.

This post is made out of helplessness. Well, for several months now, a certain YouTube channel has been sharing my audiobooks completely illegally (and with impunity) – for free you can listen to Czarna Kolonia and both volumes of Wilk, i.e. my debut technothrillers, which will, yes, yes, celebrate a decade this year.

The case interested me so much that I decided to take a closer look at it. A quick research was enough to realize the scale of the problem. On YouTube you can find many pirated versions of audiobooks by famous authors, including Stephen King and Remigiusz Mróz, who is the most widely read writer in Poland.

There is also no shortage of completely new books, e.g. “Labirynt” by the already mentioned Mróz. Interestingly, pirates seem to use quite an interesting tactic to boost their materials, which have much more views than the original, legal audiobooks.

How do they do it? Their videos are full of comments. The thing is, they all look artificial. They are added from fictitious accounts that have similar names, i.e. name + surname + random numbers. There’s clearly a bot operation here, and it’s clearly working. See for yourself:

In this way, the pirated version has as many as 52,000. views, where the same material on the audioteka channel is only 1.5 thousand. views.

Meanwhile, Arkady Saulski, both in his post on Facebook and in his subsequent conversation with us, draws attention to YouTube’s passivity.

Both Drageus Publishing House, the original publisher, and Storybox, the publisher of the audio version, know about the matter. I also reported the problem myself, unfortunately with no response. Since Storybox has the main rights to the audio, it is responsible for contacting YT, I can only use the forms of an ordinary YT user. Unfortunately, the audiobooks have been hanging for months, accumulating more and more listens, but there is no reaction from YT. Maybe if I was a best-selling author? But as a literary no-name – I have no chance.

I decided to ask what the situation looks like from the perspective of larger publishers. I directed my questions, among others, to Prószyński Media (Prószyński i S-ka).

We are, of course, familiar with the issue of unauthorized sharing of audiobooks on YouTube. We periodically report violations of our copyrights to this platform and illegally shared content is removed quite quickly, and YT accounts involved in such practices are often blocked or deleted as a result of reports. Unfortunately, after some time, such audiobooks appear again on other profiles, under changed titles, etc., which makes it difficult for us to effectively combat this problem.

So we have the perspective of two publishing houses. The small one, which feels helpless in the fight against pirated materials on YouTube, and the large one, which says that the materials are removed quite efficiently, but at the same time notices that they come back quickly. This only confirms that there is a problem, and a big one at that.

I also sent questions on this matter to Google Polska to find out from the owner of YouTube what the situation is. First of all, the company drew attention to the fact that every user of the platform has access to a set of tools that allow them to manage copyrights. This way they can control their materials on the website.

This includes a DMCA online form where any user can report copyright infringement. In addition, Google allows creators and corporate partners (e.g. publishing houses) to send samples of their materials so that the system automatically searches YouTube and detects pirated materials.

It is true that Google admits that there are cases in which the system does not recognize a match. This may be the result of either attempts to bypass the Content ID mechanism or short-term use of a protected work. In such a case, the only option is to submit a claim manually.

After our questions, Arkady Saulski’s books were removed from YouTube. We don’t know whether this actually results from our interest in the matter or whether it is just a coincidence. We don’t want to take too much credit. Much of the credit for this also goes to the author’s fans, who massively reported illegal materials. The most important thing is that Google intervened, which the author himself boasted about.

I WON. Actually, we won, i.e. me and you, dear readers, because the case I wrote about a few days ago had a nice ending. My books are no longer available on the thief YT channel in question. It is true that the fight continues and I will try to knock this channel off its bike simply as such (I would like to remind you that it still robs my friends Darek Domagalski and Rafał Dębski), but you will no longer see my positions there.