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“A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

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Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#131

You see the inherent asymmetry of power in these massive platforms now. YouTube hasn't the slightest, tiniest imaginable incentive whatsoever to change their practices in any way here. This creator is just another meaningless bit of chaff in their grist mill of complete dominance over the web. People will get angry, retweet, do whatever, and YouTube will keep humming along. An unassailable behemoth whose total disreg…

The real problem with Youtube is that it remains to be the biggest copyright infringer on earth. There is almost no record and song, no matter how obscure, that you cannot find on Youtube, and nothing prevents you from downloading this content. I'm not judging this, just stating the facts, so don't downvote me for it. Who doesn't enjoy direct access to a gigantic music collection without paying? Everybody likes it and uses it.

Somehow Youtube gets away with that, because they are a major US company. If you'd find the same amount of content on a small foreign company's servers, the FBI would crack down on it in no time using all international law available.

The current extreme bias in the complaint system will not change, because it is Youtube's legal insurance. They need to be able to claim they've done everything they can fighting piracy. In reality, piracy is and always has been one of the major uses of Youtube in addition to the privately produced content.

As a result of this, Youtube is double unfair. It enables massive piracy and at the same time severely punishes original content producers in favor of predatory and sometimes plain fraudulent companies filing bogus copyright complaints. It's a systemic problem that IMHO could only be solved by drastic law reforms.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#132
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here has nothing to do with the DMCA. The problem is that Google has implemented its own system that has little to do with the DMCA. If it were handled the DMCA way, here is how it would go. 1. Someone complains to the hosting service alleging that you are violating their copyright. 2. The hosting provider takes down the material and notifies you. If you do not want to dispute this, that is the end of it.…

That seems like basically what's happening. I guess the only place where YouTube might be non-conforming is that they break down the complaints by individual piece of content, rather than by claimant. Maybe youtube should by default bundle the complaints? Ideally you'd have rich tools for slicing and dicing a complaint and responding to different slices in different ways.

That's very much not what's happening. The 'content owner' made a claim and because of that gets all the ad revenue from the works in question, until YouTube decides in the uploader's favor. (but the uploader doesn't get the money back)

The content is never taken down.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#133

I really don't understand why the process has been designed to assume the copyright claimant is in the right from the get-go when it's the claimants that abuse the system. If I was Google I'd have my lawyers aggressively pursue the legal feasibility of banning companies from submitting complaints if they abuse the complaint system (if not then ban the channels of companies who have their lawyers abuse the system) and…

Heck, I'd even have my developers write an AI that automatically extracts fair-use-length clips from videos and songs belonging to some of the biggest complainers, and uploads them as "honeypot" videos. If they complain about one of those, ban 'em from complaining again. They don't understand copyright law.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's go a step further: imagine living in a new company town that Google bought/built. Three DMCA-claims and you're in violation of TOS, all your content (including what's in your apartment) is deleted and you're kicked out of town and driven to the town limits. I'm sure there will still be people here who are quite happy with that because "it's not the government doing it" and they reckon they're not next in line f…

If Google builds a town in the U.S., they're still subject to state and federal laws, which have protections for tenants and requirements for due process. (If it's really a company town, then the company would be the municipal government.)

Yeah, but it’s an analogy. Perhaps the point is that our digital tenancies should have similar protection.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#135

I know this is a negative comment, but this whole thing smacks of a weird form of entitlement. Here's this dude making money by putting videos on the internet, and when his videos go away, he's outraged. But if you look at it another way, his living is based on a platform which provides him no guarantee of service, no support, and is also free of charge. His whole job is to generate attention for a platform that mine…

It's not entitlement to complain about copyright procedure abuse when you use a platform of a multi billion dollar company for its publicly communicated, and intended purpose. If we assume the creator is using a licensed original work, then I would rather claim that if entitlement is expressed by anyone, it is expressed by the entity that sent, or are otherwise responsible for the 1000+ copyright claims. All claims t…

[deleted]

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#136

You see the inherent asymmetry of power in these massive platforms now. YouTube hasn't the slightest, tiniest imaginable incentive whatsoever to change their practices in any way here. This creator is just another meaningless bit of chaff in their grist mill of complete dominance over the web. People will get angry, retweet, do whatever, and YouTube will keep humming along. An unassailable behemoth whose total disreg…

And every second they think that way brings them a step closer to being replaced. Literally the only thing youtube has value-wise is its audience. Nothing they do can't be done with existing cloud networks and off-the-shelf open source software, or a bit of clever coding.

Furthermore by catering to advertisers wholesale, they are alienating their primary users and pissing everyone off. Eventually people will get sick of it and start a subscription-based video service where ads and sponsored content are banned.

But that isn't even necessary -- all it really takes is 3-4 of the major content creators to switch to another platform with a less draconian view on copyright and advertising policies and real change could happen.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#137
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this: your copyright claim accuracy becomes a multiplier for monetization payouts. E.g. if 100% of claims are correct, you keep all monetization. If 10% of claims are correct, you only get 10% of monetization. Also, if Google can show that the copyright claims are incorrect, then they get to keep the difference. Now copyright holders are incentivized to make accurate claims and Google is incentivized to fin…

That doesn't make sense for the unambiguous cases of copyright violation. The copyright holder never agreed for the content to be monetized by Google and under their terms. Google can't just make up some revenue sharing policy and act like that's the law. The content owner should be able to negotiate a rate with Google or choose not to, not have to be forcibly entered into it.

But Google could, say, bury their content in the search algorithm.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#138
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the alternative? YouTube footing the bill for copyright lawsuits?

How about this: your copyright claim accuracy becomes a multiplier for monetization payouts. E.g. if 100% of claims are correct, you keep all monetization. If 10% of claims are correct, you only get 10% of monetization. Also, if Google can show that the copyright claims are incorrect, then they get to keep the difference. Now copyright holders are incentivized to make accurate claims and Google is incentivized to fin…

The problem is: who decides if a copyright claim is correct? Actually investigating and deciding on these things manually is cost prohibitive.

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#139
post #98
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this: your copyright claim accuracy becomes a multiplier for monetization payouts. E.g. if 100% of claims are correct, you keep all monetization. If 10% of claims are correct, you only get 10% of monetization. Also, if Google can show that the copyright claims are incorrect, then they get to keep the difference. Now copyright holders are incentivized to make accurate claims and Google is incentivized to fin…

Could tweak this so that only 25% of revenue is at stake for this penalty if it’s too harsh but I like 100%

Or just ban the channels of the networks that abuse the system. Would be hilarious if disney got their channel banned for not understanding fair use laws. Why can't google be more like that :/

Re: “A company is copyright-claiming every video I have ever made”

#140
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about this: your copyright claim accuracy becomes a multiplier for monetization payouts. E.g. if 100% of claims are correct, you keep all monetization. If 10% of claims are correct, you only get 10% of monetization. Also, if Google can show that the copyright claims are incorrect, then they get to keep the difference. Now copyright holders are incentivized to make accurate claims and Google is incentivized to fin…

How about every time a company files a frivolous claim they lose their ability to claim anything for an ever-increasing amount of time? An hour, 12 hours, 24 hours, etc up to a year.

Haha or they automatically have one of their own videos demonetized.
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