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Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

theverge.com

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Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#31

Post by fn-mote »

empressplay wrote: post #28
emilamlom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the penalty for frivolous and fake dmca takedowns is basically non-existent, it practically is.

Seems to me like it's still fraud, by definition? If you monetize your content you can prove loss, if a competitor is engaging in the fraud even better! Those people being targeted by this troll should band together and sue.

> Those people being targeted by this troll should band together and sue.

Sue the troll?? Good luck finding them. How would you even begin? A ProtonMail email address? No way.

Sue YouTube?? Again, no way.

Until either YouTube or the US Congress thinks this is a large enough problem to deal with, it's not going away.

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#32

Post by galleywest200 »

emilamlom wrote: post #26
vezycash wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DMCA works on a "takedown first, ask questions later" basis. Therefore, the solution is to flood YouTube and Google with massive, frivolous DMCA requests targeting the creators of DMCA like Microsoft, Apple, and Disney. They'll solve the problem if it affects them, maybe.

DMCA is for user generated content on platforms, so microsoft wouldn't have a lot of surface-area to target. That said, youtube gives preferential treatment to the largest creators and companies. Apple and Disney could easily call up their manager Jerry at Youtube and deal with frivolous takedowns. Small creators often have no direct contact with a human at youtube and have X as their best option for contact. Unless…

Large companies just sue people who make false DMCA claims, but small creators cannot afford to do that when large companies make false claims about them. It is a biased system.

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/03/29/bungie-youtuber-settle-l...

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#34

Post by stackskipton »

101008 wrote: post #2

The system is broken and I can't see a way to fix it. Maybe pay to send a takedown notice?

No, just enforce the DMCA. Youtube has setup this fake DMCA system where they are acting like they enforcing DMCA but not actually.

DMCA has protection for creators. You can say "Copyright holder is wrong, put my content back up and I'll see them in court." and "They did this maliciously, I'll see them in court."

However, YouTube fake DMCA system is using the provision of "We don't have to host any content we don't want to." so creators are stuck dealing with corporate bureaucracy. Personally, I think YouTube should lose DMCA protection if they want to run this side system.

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#35

Post by catapart »

fn-mote wrote: post #31
empressplay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me like it's still fraud, by definition? If you monetize your content you can prove loss, if a competitor is engaging in the fraud even better! Those people being targeted by this troll should band together and sue.

> Those people being targeted by this troll should band together and sue. Sue the troll?? Good luck finding them. How would you even begin? A ProtonMail email address? No way. Sue YouTube?? Again, no way. Until either YouTube or the US Congress thinks this is a large enough problem to deal with, it's not going away.

Maybe I'm just a malcontent, but for me this begs the question: couldn't this be used in reverse as activism?

Like, if enough people used enough fake accounts and started relentlessly submitting takedown requests on the biggest channels making the most revenue, not only would YouTube start to see the revenue issue, but the big channels would start making noise. Go after one troll sending the requests, another one takes its place. Seems like it would force YouTube to at least reconcile with this particular flaw in the system.

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#36

Post by ferbivore »

ternnoburn wrote: post #29

I worry about let's plays (especially let's plays without commentary). They pretty clearly exist in a "yes, this is copyright infringement but yes, they are generally considered positive for a game" space. The moment some game creator decides to test this will get very interesting. Not good interesting.

Why do you think a video capture of a computer program would infringe the copyrights of the program's creators?

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#37

Post by gjsman-1000 »

yyyyz wrote: post #33
skrebbel wrote: post #24

When DMCA was proposed, the internet was up in arms predicting exactly this sort of stuff. It was a ridiculous law then and it is now.

[flagged]

If you read between the lines in the article, YouTube literally just said 94% of takedowns are real.

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#38

Post by ToucanLoucan »

probably_wrong wrote: post #30

It is perfectly clear that YouTube can stop it. As the article points out, we know there are things YouTube can do because those are the very same things The Verge asked about and YouTube refused to answer. The DMCA is broken, yes, but YouTube has made it worse with their kind-of-but-not-actually-DMCA counter-claim process. If they really wanted to solve it, here's an idea: if you get a takedown notice you also get a…

They wouldn't even need to go that far. The current way YouTube's system works is so deck-stacked against the creator to a ludicrous degree. Basically any "copyright holder" just has to say "this belongs to me" and YouTube immediately funnels all revenue for the video to that holder, with basically no oversight whatsoever, and as anyone in the space will tell you, a video makes 90% of it's money in the first few days which means these holders can grab the monetization right out from under a creator and steal just, all their fucking money. It's ridiculous.

Like all you would have to do to, perhaps not fix, but heavily mitigate this, would be to have YouTube just... hold onto the revenue until the dispute is resolved. It's barely even a change. And most of the time, when creators do counter the claims, they're eventually dropped but again because of how that system works, YouTube has already funneled all their money to the claimant, irrespective of the determined validity of the claim. And it would discourage bullshit claims because even as low-rent a scam as this is, it is some amount of work, and if there's no payout, you necessarily reduce the number of scammers who will attempt it.

I don't know if that's a DMCA thing, I admittedly haven't researched it in a long time, but I don't see how that would put YouTube at any kind of liability. Any reader, do feel free to correct me.

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#39

Post by do_not_redeem »

ternnoburn wrote: post #29

I worry about let's plays (especially let's plays without commentary). They pretty clearly exist in a "yes, this is copyright infringement but yes, they are generally considered positive for a game" space. The moment some game creator decides to test this will get very interesting. Not good interesting.

It's not immediately clear to me that this is true. Video games are designed to be played interactively. Streaming a single playthrough via a non-interactive medium strikes me as transformative.

Would you say a screen capture of Microsoft Excel is also copyright infringement? If not, what would you say is the legal basis for treating that differently than a video game?

Re: Fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and its not clear YouTube can stop it

#40

Post by ndiddy »

probably_wrong wrote: post #30

It is perfectly clear that YouTube can stop it. As the article points out, we know there are things YouTube can do because those are the very same things The Verge asked about and YouTube refused to answer. The DMCA is broken, yes, but YouTube has made it worse with their kind-of-but-not-actually-DMCA counter-claim process. If they really wanted to solve it, here's an idea: if you get a takedown notice you also get a…

Youtube already has that system. I had to go through the process due to a similar situation with someone falsely content ID'ing my video. In that case it was someone uploading music they didn't own to some online music distribution service. Basically the way it works is after you dispute the content ID claim and whoever filed it still says the content is theirs, you can escalate the dispute to an actual DMCA counternotice. After this, your video gets restored and the copyright strike gets taken off your channel.

I think the reason why the person in the article didn't do this is that the DMCA counternotice process requires the person filing the counternotice to provide their full name and address so they can be served if the rightsholder decides to sue them. With problems like swatting going around, I think many people would be reluctant to provide that information to someone who they already know is trying to mess with them.

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