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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”

#281
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar story with Adwords - if you want support with that, you ain't gonna get it. It's a maze of FAQs and automated email responses with useless information. If you manage to figure out the incantation to email an actual person, they're some kind of 1st-level support whose purpose in life is to piss you off so much with useless pre-canned responses that you finally give up. Truely, incredible that they get away wit…

Google is OK with it because they do it to small spenders. They have human account managers and a very visible phone number if you spend enough. Not saying I agree with it, but it makes sense.

I give then around $250/m. Obviously not a big spend, but I would expect to get support on the very rare occasions when I need it.

On the other side, Google semes very happy to spam me around once a once with offers of human help to restructure ads and so on. I took them up on this offer once, and it was a total waste of an hour - they were obviously going by script, and suggested changes that would increase my spend for no benefit. They also couldn't help at all with the one thing I actually wanted help with (increasing quality scores for obviously relevant content).

So they do have humans for the little people... but only to encourage you to spend more :/

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

#282

Why do we have push-button screw-people-over systems at all? If the problem is that there are “too many” things for companies to review manually, too bad! If a company is perfectly fine raking in money from massive sales at a global scale, they should be willing to spend a proportional amount of money to do business at that scale. Let them hire their own people to review content in depth. Let them hire their own goon…

> Why do we have push-button screw-people-over systems at all? Because that's the way our shitty representatives in congress wrote the legislation? Google could face real legal consequences for not responding to a DMCA request. They can't face any legal consequences for complying with a false one (DMCA, or their internal contentId system). And companies with the DMCA/ContentId bots sending in these bogus notices know…

Can we fight them back? Can't we collectively submit our own DMCA requests on all their videos? Break the system so they have come to up with a new one.

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

#283
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legally, Youtube has no obligation to host these videos, and can take them down on a whim Well, maybe law has to change. For example, in my country if you offer a service to the public you cannot refuse a customer for no reason. It's intended as an anti-discrimination law, but also as a way to protect customers from abuse.

I think you don't understand what the anti-discrimination law means. That law lists reasons which you can't use to refuse service - and you're free to use any other reason to refuse service. This anti-discrimination law most probably does not force all businesses to provide services to everyone but only businesses with physical public presence.

How do you know how the law works in parent's country?

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

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would need actual lawyers with actual law degrees who've passed the bar to review each contested copyright claim. No, they wouldn't? The law clearly says that what they have to do "upon notification of claimed infringement" is "to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing". Nowhere does it say they are even allowed , let alone required, to legally review the claim.

The keyword is "contested". If JoeGamer uploads a video of him playing dark souls with music in the background, and MusicCorp claims infringement, YT has to remove the video without putting it past a lawyer. You and I are on the same page so far. Once JoeGamer contests the claim and says, "No, I got that from one of the dozen websites that offer CC licensed music, here is the link," YT either needs to have a lawyer r…

You are factually incorrect about the well-known DMCA notice and counter-notice provisions. Please read 17 USC §512, subsections (c) and (g). The comment to which you are replying quotes what I presume from context to be subsection (c) (the language is repeated across multiple subsections).

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

The law provides that service providers can avoid liability by following these procedures, which afford them no discretion or opportunity to review claimed infringement.

You claim that "DMCA claims [...] [impose] a significant legal burden on YT; they would need actual lawyers with actual law degrees who've passed the bar to review each contested copyright claim." From the statute, it appears instead that reviewing section (c) notices or section (g) counter-notices and acting based on their own purported determination of infringement or non-infringement would cause the loss of their safe harbor, a safe harbor available only when the provider follows the nondiscretionary procedure laid out in (c)(1) and (g)(2).

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

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they would need actual lawyers with actual law degrees who've passed the bar to review each contested copyright claim. No, they wouldn't? The law clearly says that what they have to do "upon notification of claimed infringement" is "to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing". Nowhere does it say they are even allowed , let alone required, to legally review the claim.

The keyword is "contested". If JoeGamer uploads a video of him playing dark souls with music in the background, and MusicCorp claims infringement, YT has to remove the video without putting it past a lawyer. You and I are on the same page so far. Once JoeGamer contests the claim and says, "No, I got that from one of the dozen websites that offer CC licensed music, here is the link," YT either needs to have a lawyer r…

> YT either needs to have a lawyer review it, or simply side with MusicCorp

No, YT must "replace the removed material and cease disabling access to it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice, unless [it] first receives notice from the person who submitted the notification (..) that such person has filed an action seeking a court order"

There's no opportunity for review by YT, from either side.

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

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you answered your own question. YouTube is running the risk of turning into a sterile, corporate mall. Soon enough an edgier, more tolerant alternative will pop up and start attracting eyeballs.

YT is running the risk of its content creators organising themselves into an industry association with legal and financial teeth, and suing its profits into oblivion.

How big a risk is that really? Exploiting the other side's inability to coordinate seems like a standard business trick these days. All they need to do is to pay attention and do some token changes to the product or ToS every now and then, disrupting any attempt of creators at organizing themselves. They can keep at it forever.

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

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except legally, Youtube has no obligation to host these videos, and can take them down on a whim. So a lawsuit has no leg to stand on. While, on the other hand, they do have an obligation to take copyright infringement complaints very seriously - in fact, ContentID came from one of those "expensive lawsuits". You need to change the law first.

Facilitating copyfraud could invalidate their DMCA protections. Since they choose to provide monetary compensation based on accusations instead of evidence with a system they created, they would also be responsible for the system that they created facilitating said copyfraud that is knowingly taking money from legitimate copyright holders and giving it to false claimants. If any other publisher were to give money owe…

> Facilitating copyfraud could invalidate their DMCA protections.

[citation needed]

> If any other publisher were to give money owed to a creator

YT doesn't actually owe money to anyone. Legally, they could host the videos, put ads and keep all the money. They distribute money because they want to incentivize content creators to upload stuff, but they do it at their discretion.

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

#288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google doesn't get to decide what counts as fair use.

Right, but the contentID system essentially _is_ them deciding what fair use is.

Content ID seems more like forced arbitrage clauses - essentially a way to preempt and prevent people from using the legal system.

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

#289
post #43
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now imagine if you don't have 3m subs, no 150k followers on Twitter, no one is posting your stuff on Reddit and even on HN. Good luck getting any help from Google

Now imagine it isn't YouTube but some other more significant privatized service near monopoly status, say a local grocery chain or car rental company, and they enforce a "policy" (say banning you) that is now difficult to separate from a law other than you have no voice and little recourse for action, especially as an individual. Privatized monopolies are in general small totalitarian government regimes that reign ov…

You also have to watch out for the degenerate cases of competition that arise when the sold products are not commodities. The less a product is substitutable by another from its category, the more meaningless the competition is. On the commodity end, you have grocery stores; for most products, you have true competition because all grocery stores sell mostly the same stuff (and from the same brands). On the "meaningless competition" end you have streaming services like Netflix and HBO. Movies, TV shows, videogames are mostly non-substitutable goods (if you want to watch Star Wars, being told to go watch Princess Bride instead isn't going to cut it). Streaming services are so full of exclusively licensed content that they don't compete - you have to subscribe to those that have content that interest you. This is kind of like a cartel, but arises organically, bottom-up, instead of from explicit collusion.

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

#290
post #73
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how that law works. The safe harbor protection in the DMCA is for Youtube, not their customers. It protects them from legal action by copyright holders as long as they honor the process spelled out in the statute. There's absolutly no law requiring Youtube to host whatever content you want them to. Nor should there be, really.

> It protects them from legal action by copyright holders as long as they honor the process spelled out in the statute. Yes, that's what I was referring to; YouTube is now saying in some of their emails[1] about taking down a video that they are not intending to forward the counter-notification to the claimant, which they are required under 17 USC 512(g)(2)(B) to do if they want to limit their liability as a service…

> They don't have to put the video back up or do anything when someone sends a counter notification, but that means they have full copyright liability for that video. They can now be sued directly for violating copyright for each copy they made when someone viewed the video prior to when it was taken down.

Sued by whom?

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