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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

#91

Post by Aunche »

sleepybrett wrote: post #76
Aunche wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Part of the reason why it's hard to start a business is having to deal with unfair bullshit. Youtube streamlines enough of the process to get people started relatively easily, but they get a lot of shit from these same creators for not doing everything for them.

they get a lot of shit because most youtubers would be forced to hand over their pii (name and address) to the reporter. Some reporters are doing this solely to get that information (stalkers, doxxers, etc). It's unclear, to me, if youtubers could proxy this through an attorney.

> It's unclear, to me, if youtubers could proxy this through an attorney.

Yes. An authorized representative is allowed to submit a counter notification on your behalf, so they would put their name and address instead.

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

#92

Post by hysan »

infinitesoup wrote: post #78
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> hold onto the revenue until the dispute is resolved They do that: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7000961?hl=en

Caveat is if you file the counter within 5 days. From listening to a few creators describe the counter filing process, you need to gather a lot of evidence to prove that you are not infringing. It apparently takes a lot of time and what happens is that targeted harassment very easily turns into a DOS-like attack. So 5 days is an unreasonably short time window that puts an extreme burden on the content creator.

Edit to quote the full section because the cherry picked quote is misleading:

> If you dispute a claim within 5 days, any revenue from the video will be held, starting with the first day the claim was placed. If you dispute a Content ID claim after 5 days from the original claim date, we'll start holding revenue the date the dispute is made.

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

#93

Post by JKCalhoun »

Aunche wrote: post #45
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…

> I am sure my content does not infringe copyright and I'm willing to go to court for it This is exactly what the YouTube copyright counter notification is. The problem is that YouTubers aren't lawyers, so they don't want to risk going to court. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en

Hilariously, now I ignore every single text/email requesting that I pay something, do something, etc.

I owe money for a toll road? Hmmm, I must have accidentally blocked that user, deleted the message thread and reported it as spam. Sorry.

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

#94

Post by quakeguy »

JohnMakin wrote: post #53

The DMCA has absolutely ruined a decade+ long hobby of mine, which was streaming/content creation. I used to have really fun streams not that long ago that featured a variety of relaxing/cool music set to the backdrop of me messing around on the computer, or in some game. Everyone was fine with this arrangement for a long time. Then, things suddenly changed a few years ago. First your VODs would get yanked and you'd…

There are games which, via menu settings, allow you to disable dmca‘ed music for the purpose of streaming and uploading your plays. Control is a game that has this iirc.

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

#95

Post by scrose »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #65
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God I wish there was a decent competitor to YouTube. They get away with so much horseshit because there's just nobody else that can match their service scale and network effects.

Why is that? Video streaming isn't the behemoth it was last decade.

Google owns the platform and the ad network / marketplace. A lot of videos ‘lose’ money and just take up space. Any viable competitor to YouTube would need a solution that allows signups, watches and video uploads, without requiring a fee. Which typically means displaying ads. For Google the ad network is already there. For anyone else, they need to either create their own marketplace, or have Google (or some other network) take a large cut of their ad revenue.

This is likely why the only other ‘competitors’ you see are peering based or based on a subscription model. Neither of which can really compete with YouTube which really doesn’t need to *directly* make any money

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

#96

Post by malfist »

hysan wrote: post #92
infinitesoup wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hold onto the revenue until the dispute is resolved They do that: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7000961?hl=en

Caveat is if you file the counter within 5 days. From listening to a few creators describe the counter filing process, you need to gather a lot of evidence to prove that you are not infringing. It apparently takes a lot of time and what happens is that targeted harassment very easily turns into a DOS-like attack. So 5 days is an unreasonably short time window that puts an extreme burden on the content creator. Edit t…

There's a guy on YouTube that does discussions about star wars, and has an into music that he got the rights to use from the author.

Someone who didn't have the rights resampled the original song and submitted it to a label (not sure that's the right term), and the label proceeded to DMCA every single video the guy had posted.

Over a thousand videos, having to gather all that info for all of them, go through the appeals process on all of them. For him it was a manual action one at a time. From the label they have an API to bulk initiate claims

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

#97

Post by KevinGlass »

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]

Don't feed the troll. If you look at this account's comments it's just inflammatory statements.

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

#99

Post by Vampiero »

mulmen wrote: post #85
Vampiero wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider the following: I make a form of parody that is known as a Youtube Poop. It was all the rage last decade, but now it's a dying art. In part because of these stupid DMCA rules preventing people like me from expressing their creativity. I can appeal the strikes, but every time I do so I risk losing my channel forever. I don't monetize, and I only make parodies of stuff that came out over 10 years ago. So I've a…

Nobody has a right to an audience. > Also, I'm from Europe. Which court should I go to when I infringe on an american dub copyright for a japanese cartoon, exactly? Well the copyright and the site are American so probably America.

> Nobody has a right to an audience.

That's literally what copyright is

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

#100

Post by mysteria »

do_not_redeem wrote: post #39
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?

> Would you say a screen capture of Microsoft Excel is also copyright infringement?

Yeah it is. However most uses of an Excel screenshot would probably be considered fair use, and Microsoft probably doesn't care for 99% of use cases.

If you look at Wikipedia's Excel article they have more details on the legal rationale behind their use of a screenshot [1]. It looks like Microsoft allows the use of product screenshots in certain cases as well.

I also took a quick look at an Excel textbook I had on my shelf and it specifically stated in the copyright notice that they had permission from Microsoft to publish the screenshots used within.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Microsoft_Excel.png

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