Over the last couple of days, I've been uploading some dashcam videos to a YouTube account I own just for archival purposes. I've accumulated more hours of driving footage than I care to store. And now I just want to clear hard drive space and have Google store it for me at virtually no cost.

Over the last year or so, I've tried to make it a habit to record all my boring-ass drives in a car. Whether it's a rental or a family-owned car, I try to keep the dashcam running not just in case of an accident (to me or on the road in front of me) but also just as a way of continuously recording my actions in case something interesting happens (umm, maybe an accident I guess). I dunno, chalk it up to me trying to be part of the YouTube-generation or something.

Anyway, through this batch uploading process lately, I've come to realize just how broken and silly YouTube's automated copyright ID system is. If you've never encountered it, it's basically some algorithm that can detect music owned by record labels in any uploaded video. Its intended purpose is to thwart copyright infringement -- ie: unauthorized music video uploading, music use, and video theft. It works well -- maybe too well -- and that's my real problem with it.

Like most people, when I'm driving in a car, I'm usually listening to the radio or some sort of music from my iPhone. I don't think much of it since it's there for comfort and background music rather than a "soundtrack" to my dashcam video, but YouTube doesn't differentiate that. It "hears" the music, as badly recorded as it is through the dashcam's sucky mic, and tags it as copyright infringement. So stupid. So when I upload hours-long dashcam videos, all with low-quality radio playing in the background, I automatically get sent copyright ID notices in my email. A lot of emails. One for every single song that plays in my entire session of driving with the dashcam recording.

WHAT.