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Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

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Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#261

Post by ngold »

dweekly wrote: post #220
DuskStar wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like "DMCA theoretically has protections against false accusations, but instances of people being held accountable are extremely rare." Knowingly making a false DMCA claim is perjury, and IMO it should be treated as such. Instead companies send out automated claims in the thousands and then come back with "but we didn't know it was wrong, it was the bot!" and get away with it.

Hi there. Plaintiff here from OPG v Diebold, the first successful case enforcing 512f against knowingly false DMCA takedowns where the defendant was found guilty and owed several hundred thousand dollars in damages. It can and does happen and there is court precedent. Contact EFF if you're on the receiving end of an obviously bad DMCA takedown.

Bravo, now if it could become standard practice.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#262

Post by mooman219 »

Jerry2 wrote: post #37

I used to have a Youtube channel where I posted videos of me playing the piano. I played mostly Mozart, Beethoven and Rachmaninoff compositions. I had around 40 videos in total. Sometime around 2014, I started getting DMCA takedown notices from various companies claiming copyright. I was getting one or two per week and I contested them and things were ruled into my favor. But then it started getting harder and harder…

Ah that sounds like such a frustrating experience. It may be selection bias since I'm on HN a lot, but this sounds like a common situation.

If you were a developer at YouTube, what do you think could be done to fix this? Personally, I think a starter is only suspending a user from the specific service they "violated" the TOS on instead of their who freaking account. I don't know how content-id works, but preventing double jeopardy for a flag sounds like a good starting point. Obviously getting human support is a train-wreck and it goes without saying that needs to be fixed.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#263

Post by slavik81 »

monetus wrote: post #205
swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how fighting patent trolls works too IIRC, companies can countersue for false litigation, increasing the risk of DMCA trolls

To make it equitable in this situation would seem to require allowing those initiating the counter suit to do so with zero risk. And as another poster pointed out, the value of the upload is significantly diminished after it had become "old", so this would all have to be handled before the post was even made public.

The diminished value of the upload is exactly what you would be suing over. You need damages to have a case.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#264

Post by cyphar »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #221
cyphar wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because: a) Almost all artists sign deals with publishers to "get their foot in the door" which end up giving all of the rights to the publisher, and so the artist ends up being a "wage slave" because they don't profit off the rights of the work they made. b) Locking away works for entire generations means that cultural artistic development is stifled. Shakespeare's works were based on previous works and stories, and…

a) not relevant, particularly in 2018 when self-publishing is becoming increasingly common. b) I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal. If Shakespeare's work is so derivative, then I don't have a problem. 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction. You can be derivative without being a mashup. c) you're talking about publishers again, as if that's r…

Self-publishing is ridiculously uncommon, and it's just silly to argue that the small amount of large works that succeeded through self-publishing somehow diminishes the immense power and size of large publishing houses (for movies and books -- there is more self-published music these days). I can't even think of a recent example of a popular book or movie that was self-published ('The Martian' was written in public independently but the books were obviously printed by a single publisher).

> I specifically said my lifetime. An average work might be covered for two generations. Not a big deal.

The average lifetime is more like 5-6 generations (each generation being maybe 15 years). I disagree it isn't a big deal, and I also very much disagree that it's fine if Shakespeare didn't exist because his works were derivative.

> 50 Shades of Gray started as Twilight fan-fiction.

The work '50 Shades of Gray' has absolutely nothing in common with 'Twilight', despite it's history. Not to mention that the author probably got permission of some sort. Shakespeare's plays were far more significant mash-ups of previous stories and works (with changes obviously, but nowhere near as many changes as the two works you mentioned).

> At no point did I ever say or imply anything of the sort!

Yes you did. From your original comment:

> If I create original work, I want to profit off it for my life.

If you have a guaranteed profit source for the rest of your life, what reasonable person would ever find a need to make more works (there's no point in getting more money if you already have whatever you need)? The point of copyright is to incentivise the creation of new works -- which is the precise reason why it is limited in every country on Earth (and was even more limited in the Statute of Anne). Having a limit to any reasonable person is equivalent to unlimited (since once your dead, there's no profit motive any more) has the same effect of removing the incentive for more works.

If you don't believe that the purpose of copyright is to incentise new works, read the US constitution (I imagine you're in the US) or whatever copyright law is applicable in your country.

> [Congress has the Right] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#265

Post by cyphar »

hfdgiutdryg wrote: post #223
_jal wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want to profit off it for my life Of course you do. Everyone wants free money. But look at the flip side - you want everyone else to accept an obligation to not do a a number of things with that work, and other people to enforce your rights, which is a claim on other people's time and money. So even if you believe there's some moral right to prevent others from doing things with some "intellectual property", you'…

Everyone wants free money. It's not free money. It's passive income from intellectual property. So even if you believe there's some moral right to prevent others from doing things with some "intellectual property" It's a legal right. Morality has nothing to do with it, aside from your own attempt to baselessly undermine opposing arguments. Actually, you're calling a failure to coerce others into to building legal reg…

> It's a legal right.

We agree that the current laws are like this, but laws change all the time and laws are supposed to reflect society's ethics (in the US this is a joke nowadays -- they reflect the (lack of) ethics of large corporations).

If the current laws are unfair, then having a discussion of how the laws should be (to inform a decision on whether such a reform should be lobbied for and put to into an actual law) is entirely fair. Dismissing such discussions with "that's the way it is" is just silly -- would you have made similar comments to the civil rights movements or other such movements?

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#266

Post by MereInterest »

ConceptJunkie wrote: post #216
MereInterest wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, from my understand of current US copyright law (not a lawyer), this would be considered either a performance or a derivative work, depending on whether it is exactly reproduced. Neither of those are under fair use.

I thought there was nothing stopping you from creating derivatives of copyrighted works as long as you don't try to exploit them commercially. Of course, there are plenty of companies that take down stuff that is not being done for profit. Good examples include Nintendo taking down the tools used to create Pokemon games, or Paramount killing the Star Trek fan shows (because they were better and more popular than anyt…

> I thought there was nothing stopping you from creating derivatives of copyrighted works as long as you don't try to exploit them commercially.

Nope, creating derivative works is something that is explicitly part of copyright, whether or not it is for commercial gain. Fanfiction or fan recreations are only legal with the consent of the author. Typically, authors will turn a blind eye to it, since it increases the longevity of the original works. It is only a civil matter, and so only the copyright holder could bring a suit against fanfiction authors.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#267

Post by monetus »

slavik81 wrote: post #263
monetus wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it equitable in this situation would seem to require allowing those initiating the counter suit to do so with zero risk. And as another poster pointed out, the value of the upload is significantly diminished after it had become "old", so this would all have to be handled before the post was even made public.

The diminished value of the upload is exactly what you would be suing over. You need damages to have a case.

Yes, I guess countersuit is the wrong word. I was wondering how the burden of proof could be equitable with contentID as broken as it is. Wouldn't all claims have to be settled before videos are publicized (creating a whole new set of problems).

Either that or allow the perjury clause of the DMCA enforceable against bots?

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#268

Post by canhascodez »

chrismorgan wrote: post #29
giancarlostoro wrote: post #4

Given how quickly music becomes "old" I don't understand why copyright needs to chain up music any longer than two decades (I'm being kinda generous, some songs are old after a few months / one to five years). I hate the state of copyrighted works. Movies can stay copyrighted for a good 40 to 50 years, anything else is crazy. Books maybe 50 years too, but again, it's just crazy and clear that the extended years of co…

I like the solution we came up with earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163984 Ten years of free protection, then costing $10 × 1.5 ⁿ ⁻ ¹ for each subsequent year. Year 10 costs $0, year 20 about $380, year 30 about $22,000, year 40 about $1,300,000, year 50 almost $75,000,000—and few fifty-year-old things will be worth $75,000,000 per year and growing to retain copyright to.

I don't think that it makes sense to allow people to monopolize content indefinitely, nor do I think that it is appropriate to charge individuals for a copyright. The accounting involved in this scheme is also not going to make anyone happy; a flat n-year copyright term is much easier than an algorithm.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#269

Post by btilly »

tremon wrote: post #133
YokoZar wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you going to tell them they have no right to their own work anymore 20 years after they had one of their most successful releases? Are you claiming they wouldn't have made the music otherwise? It's hard to imagine such megastars deciding that the marginal effort of another hit album just wasn't worth making unless they could collect hypothetical revenue for more than 2 decades. Copyright law is to incentivize c…

Copyright law is to incentivize creating these works so that more stuff can get into the public domain. You've drank too much kool-aid. Copyright law is to incentivize investments in creative works, not the creation itself. Most people that profit off of creative works have not created anything of value themselves.

According to US legal theory, the point of incentivizing investments is to increase how much money can be made by the creator, incentivizing creation.

To quote the Constitution, the purpose of copyright is "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." ie To increase how much creation there is.

Re: Can Beethoven send takedown requests?

#270

Post by michaelmrose »

dalore wrote: post #199
ekianjo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems? More like its mainly used in this way nowadays. There is no risk in sending DMCA notices so of course its abused.

Wonder if we can return the favour? If someone sends us an obvious unfair takedown (like in the article) we can name and shame them. And also do the same tactics, go to their content and report it as violation of your content. Even if it doesn't they still have to respond and go through the same hoops. If a group of us formed and we did this to all of them and gunged up the system, google would be forced to improve i…

Alternatively they would get better at filtering out your requests.
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