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Facebook’s Piracy Problem

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Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#201

Post by Silhouette »

neotek wrote: post #145
viraptor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear more of this story and what channels of communication were used exactly. DMCA is pretty clear on how this case should be handled and even if it's a stupid procedure that takes you down for a few days, I don't believe YT can legally refuse to act on the counter-claim. If they do and you relied on the income from those videos, you could sue them. So why did it take months? How were they blocked in the…

I'd put money on it being an abuse of YouTube's Content ID. It's a common YouTube scam - find a video with a lot of views that's rising quickly, download it and reupload it to your own account and submit it to Content ID. YouTube will automatically scan its library for copies of "your" video, and gives you the option to either take the copies down, or monetise them via ads. Because of the DMCA's stupid counter notifi…

It's a common YouTube scam - find a video with a lot of views that's rising quickly, download it and reupload it to your own account and submit it to Content ID. YouTube will automatically scan its library for copies of "your" video, and gives you the option to either take the copies down, or monetise them via ads.

Because of the DMCA's stupid counter notification process, it takes YouTube two weeks before they'll release the copyright claim, by which time the video is no longer viral and the original content creator has missed out on the bulk of the video's revenue.

What I don't understand is why someone uploading videos like that isn't being sued for straightforward copyright infringement.

The measures under the DMCA (and similar measures elsewhere, such as under the EUCD in Europe) were supposed to protect YouTube, the hosting service, in cases like this. Otherwise, the host is vulnerable to fallout from illegal acts committed by others and of which it has no knowledge. It's a similar argument to the common carrier principle in other communications channels.

Now, you can certainly debate whether the protection is too generous. For example, under this sort of scheme it is possible to build a business that facilitates and encourages copyright infringement and generates huge revenues as a result of that business model, yet wash your hands of it by claiming to just be the innocent third party host. This is still about the hosting service, though.

As far as I know, none of the DMCA-style laws protect the original uploader who actively and in this sort of case knowingly shares someone else's content in breach of copyright. If they're doing that with the kind of content that picks up millions of views and consequently denying advertising revenues and marketing effects to the legitimate creator/rightsholder, why isn't that grounds for a regular copyright infringement suit and, in a jurisdiction like the US, seeking statutory damages that make it worth pursuing one?

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#202

Post by nnbvv »

kevando wrote: post #6

Didn't youtube start the same way?

There's actually still quite a bit of piracy on Youtube. Channels that do this will often crop the video, or change the pitch of the audio, to avoid flagging from Youtube's piracy detection algorithm. For example, I saw the film Citizen 4 relabelled as something generic like "Surveillance Documentary" and it had millions of views.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#203

Post by anon4 »

willlma wrote: post #14

Ironically, at the end of the tattoo video that was pirated, Destin Sandlin, the host, is seen wearing [a shirt]( http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Going-Science-T-Shirt-Scientists... ) that is a blatant rip off of an Randall Munroe's (XKCD) [shirt]( http://store-xkcd-com.myshopify.com/products/try-science ).

That's more of a remix of the idea, than a blatant rip-off.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#204

Post by anon4 »

talon88 wrote: post #63
hackuser wrote: post #52

A radical idea: Maybe our model of intellectual property is wrong, or outdated. When IP was tied to a physical object, it made some sense to restrict and explicitly license each reproducer. Now we have incredible machines that can reproduce intellectual property almost infinitely, distribute it anywhere on Earth, and find it almost anywhere on Earth. Wow! Maybe we should embrace that innovation, and find a model that…

"Perhaps financial renumeration, while fair, isn't entirely necessary" Is it that in your world, eating and paying the rent isn't necessary either? 'Many' creative people sounds like some programmers, which is somewhat small subset of all creatives. I'd be surprised if the majority of creative people — artists, writers, actors, and more — would happily go about saying that financial renumeration doesn't matter to the…

Much less art being produced is preferable to having a fucked up legal system.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#205

Post by anon4 »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #184
ggchappell wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A radical idea: Maybe our model of intellectual property is wrong, or outdated. Honestly, that's not really radical. It seems to be pretty clear to anyone who knows anything about computers. There may be flaws your other thoughts, as other commenters have suggested, but not with the first one. The big problem -- in the U.S. anyway -- is that there are huge companies with a vested interest in maintaining something l…

> The big problem -- in the U.S. anyway -- is that there are huge companies with a vested interest in maintaining something like the late-ish 20th century copyright regime. Agreed. For a poster-child of this one need look no further than the Disney corporation. By US copyright laws existing up until 1978[1], "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" should have entered into the public domain sometime around 1993. Now? It's l…

I'm expecting Disney to change the law to allow for authorship reassignment, so the "until death of author+70 years" effectively becomes "until dissolution of The Disney Corporation+70 years", after which we can drop the "+70 years", and expand the public domain retroactively with the works of many recently-deceased artists. That would be, on the whole, a net gain for the public domain.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#206

Post by bitL »

thegeomaster wrote: post #159
plorg wrote: post #97

I have a friend/acquaintance who had a similar experience on YouTube itself. He had created a large number of instructional videos on his YouTube channel, and from them he was deriving a significant passive income (admittedly from the overbearing amount of ads he enabled). One day he received a takedown notice suggesting that his videos were illicit copies. His investigations led him to believe that another YouTube u…

Back in the day, I uploaded a music video of my relative, with filming, production and post funded completely by her, and with her retaining all the copyright. It was a couple of years before and I was the "guy who knows this computer stuff" so I did it for her. Fast forward to 2014, and I receive a claim that a company which acts on behalf of a certain nationwide TV station here has put a copyright claim on the vide…

I had some bizarre experiences with both FB and YT content policing. First, I performed a Chopin piece on piano and it was instantly flagged by YT's content matching system. They reinstated it when it was evident from the video it was me performing. Second, I created a timelapse video and uploaded it to both FB and YT, using a classical music piece performed by US Army Orchestra (public domain) as background music. FB disabled it within an hour, after filling counterclaim they reinstated it for one hour and then suddenly completely removed without any chance to appeal. YT flagged it within one day and after appealing they put it back in a few hours and it's there since.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#207

Post by minusSeven »

plorg wrote: post #97

I have a friend/acquaintance who had a similar experience on YouTube itself. He had created a large number of instructional videos on his YouTube channel, and from them he was deriving a significant passive income (admittedly from the overbearing amount of ads he enabled). One day he received a takedown notice suggesting that his videos were illicit copies. His investigations led him to believe that another YouTube u…

can you post the links to what you are talking about ?

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#208

Post by forgottenpass »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #186

All of this outrage at Facebook doing what Youtube already did[1] is difficult to fathom. Don't get me wrong, Facebook is not a site I use, am affiliated with, condone, or recommend. But screaming bloody murder because they are doing to the site what that site did to others seems a bit of a stretch. If hating on Facebook needs to happen (probably does, BTW), how about it's done for reasons such as their laughable "Te…

All of this outrage at Facebook doing what Youtube already did[1] is difficult to fathom.

A new entrant to a business domain will look to their more-established competitors to learn lessons of what works and doesn't. They may disagree and look to differentiate themselves on some of the points, but overall it would be silly to suggest otherwise.

If this was a mistake that youtube made and facebook duplicated, people (especially stockholders) would have quite fathomable outrage at facebook. Youtube was the first huge name in the type of video delivery that they do, so their missteps have less "should have known better" attached.

So, it depends on if Facebook doing "what Youtube already did" with regard to copyrighted material is duplicating their mistake, or if Facebook is engaging in an amoral "get away with it for as long as you can" situation.

In either case the outrage makes quite a bit of sense.

Re: Facebook’s Piracy Problem

#209

Post by forgottenpass »

amelius wrote: post #199

It is actually quite simple to combat this, technically. Embed an (invisible) watermark into the video that encodes the domain for which the movie can be played, and have all browsers refuse to play content with watermarks that are of a different domain than the one shown in the url bar (throw a security exception or something).

Using the example in the article, we're already dealing with companies that are willfully violating copyright (not some dummy kid uploading tv clips to youtube with "no copyright entended" in the description).

How do they not also work around this system?

Say I go on youtube, download Destin's video, cut out his talking and advertizing portions. I'll just change the watermark while I'm there and then slap it on facebook.

Even if we go cryptographic, and replace the watermarks with public key signing, does facebook only host properly signed videos? Then how does the chain of trust work? For automated transcoding by youtube and the like work? How do I get a trusted public key for cute videos of my cats that doesn't create an infinite well of keys for freebooters?

So maybe we can't just sign, we have to add in DRM so that only authorized player widgets can even decode the video in the first place. That doesn't stop piracy of hollywood material, why would it stop a media company from freebooting?

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