YouTube Help Says It “can’t make ownership determinations”

Brett McFarland, whom the Times-Standard identifies as a Humboldt County musician, wrote of “multiple copyright claims for playing MY OWN SONG.”

By William Douglas Baker

Founding Editor

Brett McFarland, whom the Times-Standard identifies as a Humboldt County musician, wrote in a post on his YouTube channel dated Oct. 21, 2026 that he got “multiple copyright claims for playing MY OWN SONG.” YouTube publishes a help page titled “Dispute a copyright claim,” which this edition fetched Oct. 29, 2026. As of Oct. 29, 2026, none of the sources this edition read says whether the claim McFarland describes was generated by YouTube’s Content ID system.

The question is plain. When a copyright claim “generated by the Content ID system” is disputed, who reviews the dispute, according to YouTube’s help page? The help page answers in its FAQ, and the first sentence of that answer is the subject of this edition. What McFarland describes is one record. The help page is another.

The sentence on the page

The help page, “Dispute a copyright claim,” opens by describing a claim “generated by the Content ID system.” Its FAQ asks why the claimant reviews both the initial dispute and the appeal, and answers: “The initial dispute and the appeal are reviewed by the claimant because YouTube can’t make ownership determinations.” The page uses the word claimant for “the person that claimed your video.”

When a user disputes a claim, the page says, the claimant is notified and “has 30 days to respond.” The page lists what the claimant can do: release the claim, reinstate it, submit a copyright removal request, or let the claim expire. It says reinstating means the dispute was rejected. The user may then be able to appeal, and “the claimant then has 7 days to respond to the appeal.”

The page says that step “ensures a more thorough review by the claimant.” Its stated reason: a claimant who chooses to reinstate at that step must submit “a copyright removal request (a legal process)” to keep the video down. If a claimant’s copyright removal request is valid, the help page says, “your video is removed from YouTube and your channel gets a copyright strike.” A dispute needs someone to hear it. The page also names two limits: YouTube “doesn’t know what content was properly licensed” and “can’t determine what qualifies for exceptions to copyright.” On our reading, the page names its reviewer: the party that made the claim, whose own next step, a copyright removal request, carries the page’s stated safeguard.

McFarland’s account, in his words and the Times-Standard’s

In his post of Oct. 21, 2026, McFarland wrote of a release called “How We Do It in Port” by Haze PNW: “My melody. My guitar riffs. My words.” He wrote that he has had to file disputes with YouTube, Facebook and DistroKid, “just to defend my own work.” McFarland wrote in a second post, dated Oct. 22, 2026, that he “was told” his royalties were being sent to the “rightful owner.” McFarland’s post description, as fetched Oct. 29, 2026, does not say who told him. Through Oct. 29, 2026, no source this edition read records a royalty payment to any party; the sources record what McFarland says he was told, and that he is still trying to find out where the money’s going.

McFarland told the Times-Standard that he got “a notification from YouTube: hey, your video is infringing on someone else’s copyrights, and it’s not available for monetization.” The words after the colon are McFarland’s own rendering of the notice. The Times-Standard reports he said the discovery began with a YouTube notification about a live performance video of his song “Humboldt,” which he filmed at his ranch. McFarland told the paper: “Basically, it was telling me all the royalties from me posting that video were going to someone else.” The Times-Standard quotes McFarland asking: “Who is this person who’s claiming my copyright?” Through Oct. 29, 2026, no source this edition read names who made the claim against McFarland’s video. The Times-Standard reports that McFarland disputed the claim on YouTube; the article, as read Oct. 29, 2026, gives no date for the notice or the dispute, and no outcome.

The Times-Standard reports he said he found “an AI-generated artist called HAZE PNW” posting his lyrics under their own name, including a second song that used his words verbatim, with different music attached. The article, as read Oct. 29, 2026, does not say HAZE PNW made the copyright claim.

On DistroKid, the Times-Standard, in its article published Oct. 22, 2026 (updated Oct. 23, 2026), quotes McFarland: “I reported it to DistroKid… I’ve reached out to them; I haven’t heard back yet.” The Times-Standard writes that “HAZE PNW also is using DistroKid Music Distribution to distribute the music, the same company Brett McFarland uses to distribute his songs online.” Through Oct. 29, 2026, no primary this edition read states which distributor released “How We Do It in Port” on any streaming service; the Times-Standard’s DistroKid sentence does not name that release. A YouTube channel named HAZE PNW describes itself as “Local AIrtist from the Alberni Valley that takes country life seriously.”

Two dates and a list

The earliest upload of “Humboldt” this edition found is the YouTube page titled “Brett McFarland - Humboldt (Humboldt Sessions),” on McFarland’s channel. Its page metadata gives an upload date of Jan. 8, 2024, and an Internet Archive capture of the page, dated Feb. 6, 2024, shows the same date. An upload titled “HAZE PNW - How We Do It in Port MusicVideo Final,” on a channel other than HAZE PNW’s own, carries page metadata dated Oct. 18, 2025, and is the earliest upload under that title this edition found. Neither upload date says when either song was written, or who wrote it.

The help page lists three example reasons to dispute a claim. One is holding all the necessary rights to the content. Another is using it in a way that qualifies as a copyright exception such as fair use. The third is believing the video was misidentified or an error was made. In the version fetched Oct. 29, 2026, the page’s list of example reasons does not name an earlier upload or publication date. The list is introduced by “such as,” and this edition does not read it as complete. Only the page text was read, not its embedded help video.

The Agentics read

On our reading, Digital Derangement Syndrome™ (DDS™) is the Agentics term that comes closest: authority a practitioner holds that outruns what a system can confirm of it. Read in general terms, the characteristic that applies is Authority Misclassification: authority over one’s own work meets a platform whose help page says it “can’t make ownership determinations.” This reading concerns the help page, not any one claim.

Where the record stops

As of Oct. 29, 2026, none of the sources this edition read carries a statement from YouTube, DistroKid or Meta about McFarland’s claims, other than the claims and notifications he describes in his own words. We contacted none of the three. None of the sources this edition read, including the About and Videos pages of a YouTube channel named HAZE PNW, carries a statement from HAZE PNW about McFarland’s account. This edition has not contacted HAZE PNW. Sources: the Times-Standard article, his post descriptions, and web and news searches run Oct. 29, 2026. Comments, company press pages and private messages were not read.

As of Oct. 29, 2026, no claim notice, screenshot or claim text appears in the Times-Standard article’s text and three photographs. None appears in the descriptions of McFarland’s two YouTube Shorts, Facebook video and TikTok post, or the frames sampled from the Shorts. The full videos were not reviewed.

Through Oct. 29, 2026, no source this edition read describes how Meta reviews disputed claims. The mapping to DDS™ is an editorial reading, not a finding about YouTube, McFarland, HAZE PNW or any company.