I do admire just how perverse YouTube's solution for copyright law is. If they were accepting DMCA notices, they'd have the obligation to take note of counter-notices. If they were giving control of claimed videos to the claimants, then if someone filed a false claim against you, taking control of your video, you could then file a DMCA notice against the claimaint. But YouTube does neither of these things. Instead, they leave the video in your ostensible control, and just decide to give advertising revenue to someone who isn't you – which, as far as I can tell, doesn't mean that either YouTube or the claimant is technically infringing your copyright. It's brilliant bastardy.
It's not, and never was, a solution for copyright law. Remember that the whole content id / revenue redirection scheme was only created so that the major media companies (mainly 'Hollywood') didn't obliterate YouTube with lawsuits. Everything about the system is designed to keep them happy. The majority of other (i.e. small) publishers on YouTube accept it because they can't afford a real legal fight for copyright violations, which at least part of would likely include going after YouTube to even get the information about the other party since YouTube is effectively shielding the identity of the other party. And YouTube remains safe from damages because... safe harbor.
But YouTube does accept DMCA claims, of course, as it's required by law. Their Content ID system provides an automated way to detect potential infringement by large copyright holders and redirect ad revenue to them, but if uploaders dispute the claim and appeal decision to uphold the claim, then the copyright holder is required to send a full DMCA claim to take down the video, and the uploader can respond with a counter notice to put the video back up. Of course, the copyright holder can choose to jump ahead to filing a DMCA notice at any point, bypassing some or all of the Content ID process. I'm guessing that most wouldn't do that, though, because the DMCA process is not automated, has strict timelines built in, and only allows for takedown (whereas Content ID allows for videos to stay up but make ad revenue for them). Without Content ID system, I'm guessing we'd be back in the days where the big copyright holders would just spam DMCA notices and end up with a lot more videos taken down.
(Disclaimer: I used to work in the media business so I'm familiar with the process).
Thanks for actually explaining this. The defenders of Youtube - I'm convinced a few on r/youtube are shills at this point - will say this is all necessary due to copyright law, Viacom lawsuit, etc etc. One day it will emerge the Google leadership is as crooked as it comes.
If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.
He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever. When dealing with these kinds of issues you have to realize that it's not personal. It is like getting mad at a voice chat app for misunderstanding you. There is nothing personal about it.
There are a few things that could help to improve this process: force people making claims to verify their identity positively (he does bring this up in his video), improve the technology at the Copyright office to provide both platform owners and copyright owners some method to generate keys that verify that claims are accurate and authorized, and for more people who are victims of false claims to sue the people who are making them.
I think ideally copyright owners would have to go to Copyright.gov, enter the registration number(s) that they own that they want to enforce using the account that made the registration, generate a time-limited key using the system, and then enter that key into their copyright complaint on the platform that they want to police their IP on. When GooFaceZon processes the complaint, they would check with the copyright.gov server to verify that an authorized copyright owner made that complaint within the timeframe provided by the system. That way even if there is some kind of account compromise at some point the damage can be limited.
I don't actually know if that'd be the best system, but something like that would be a great improvement over the current system of being able to make any kind of fake claim with no verification.
If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.
He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever.
There are a few things that can help to police this process:
YouTube's approach to takedowns is, simply put, appalling. I'm not just referring to the automated Content ID system, which has a vast catalog of false identification, but am talking about the manual, human confirmation of takedowns.
My 'favourite' (in the sense of most egregious) example of what I am talking about is the case where YouTube's Content ID flagged the sound of birds in someone's garden as being copyright infringing [1]. So far, par the course for a mistaken automatic identification. But the outrage comes after that: the copyright claimant (the notorious Rumblefish) reviewed the claim and confirmed that it was valid! In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted. Actions like this are indefensible and highlight the outrageous monstrosity of YouTube's takedown system - -beyond Kafkaesque in its total disenfranchisement of users.
> In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted.
i think it is likely that this human is just someone employed from mechanical turk who gets paid on the basis of how many videos they process in an hour and not actually an employee of rumblefish
I filed a likeness claim where Youtube created a profile with a picture of me somehow and there was no way to delete it. The takedown request was rejected because they said the video was invalid, despite it not being a video and it being explained that it was a profile and Youtube itself had taken property that wasn't theirs. Eventually I found some email address I could file a complaint against with a picture of my DL and they took it down.
It seems like companies have their 99% cases that their systems are optimized for, but within the remaining 1% where they themselves are causing the problem or have a bug etc. the humans they hire can't understand simple things if they deviate an iota from what they're used to.
I absolutely love the level-headedness and honesty of this person. If I were in his shoes, I can only imagine how furious I would be at YouTube.
I hope this system can be fixed... At least, we need a more balanced playing field. Making it so easy and yet having practically no consequences to abuse the system is absurd. But, what can really be done? This is the system that various industries have been pushing super hard to get. I think DMCA also doesn't do nearly enough to dissuade abuse. Can we try to fix DMCA, too? Where do we begin?
It's great that YT did the right thing by giving him ownership back on their platform. The next thing would be to give him any money earned during the time it was wrongfully taken away and in dispute. That should not be dependent on having the asshats paying it back first. YT messed up, so they need to make it right all the way.
Where did you find that YouTube has returned ownership to him? As far as I've been able to find with a quick search, the false claimant continues to receive monetization from the video.
Moderation is really the ultimate scalability problem. I have some level of sympathy for the predicament YouTube is in, but I really hope the system can be redesigned.
I've never seen (keyword: seen) a press release or article about how an individual / group of DMCA abusers of this sort was arrested. Why can't this be taken more seriously as a form of fraud, and why can't these people be gone after? Sure, you can obfuscate your real IP when making a takedown request, but they have to receive the money somewhere.
The easiest thing to do would require the claimant and defendant to produce proof of ownership. In this case, it really seems like the claimant's case would have been over as soon as the defendant produced his proof.
If there is conflicting claims of ownership that seems valid from both sides, then send to a 3rd party to decide. Whether that is arbitration or courts. Why should YouTube be responsible at all? During the term of dispute, the ability to earn money is suspended. If the defendant wins, then the claimant should be required to reimburse lost earnings. At this point, YT would have acted in a reasonable manner such that they should not have any liability in it.
How naive am I being for making it seem like a really simple thing to handle?
I would have sympathy if they weren't so damn incompetent. You can clearly see how they fail to make a simple rational check in this guy's issue and objectively realize that it's a fraudulent claim.
They only care when the issues go public and viral, and the outburst is too large to ignore.
This is a disaster for any small creator that uses YouTube. A platform that controls the majority of the internet video distribution is incapable of reacting reasonably to a copyright claim issue until its large enough to actually threaten the solidity of that distribution.
It’s unfortunate but that’s the reality of centralized content and product platforms (YouTube, Amazon, AppStore etc) - they are often used to squiz out competition using bogus claims, as much as allow for distribution channels.
Better strategy is to continue supporting open web and host content or products you care about on your own.
Just asking, but didn't the company falsely accusing him of copyright infringement slander him? The damage can be shown in the money he lost out on, but I mean I guess his reputation is also damaged with Google by the accusation. It was definitely a realistic accusation that someone might believe as Google evidently believed it.
> "Just asking, but didn't the company falsely accusing him of copyright infringement slander him?"
Probably, but who is he supposed to sue over it? It's far from clear who the 'company' is. He could sue John Doe and then get youtube to reveal what they know, but he may very likely discover that the 'company' is just some guy with hardly any assets in a country that doesn't give a shit about him or his plight.
Does YouTube have the necessary information to prosecute false claimants? They certainly are unwilling to pass such info on to content creators; I'm unsure what, if any, verification of identity is required to submit a claim.
I am pretty sure that those are not actual copyright claims in a DMCA sense. Sadly Youtube is using some internal system with these claims. I assume they were pressured into this by the music industry for ease of squeezing money out of it.
So what's stopping this guy from making a new account and claiming the video back? Should creators claim their own videos so they can't be claimed by others?
[+] [-] topynate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blihp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] infinitesoup|7 years ago|reply
(Disclaimer: I used to work in the media business so I'm familiar with the process).
[+] [-] annadane|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] j-c-hewitt|7 years ago|reply
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en
If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.
He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever. When dealing with these kinds of issues you have to realize that it's not personal. It is like getting mad at a voice chat app for misunderstanding you. There is nothing personal about it.
There are a few things that could help to improve this process: force people making claims to verify their identity positively (he does bring this up in his video), improve the technology at the Copyright office to provide both platform owners and copyright owners some method to generate keys that verify that claims are accurate and authorized, and for more people who are victims of false claims to sue the people who are making them.
I think ideally copyright owners would have to go to Copyright.gov, enter the registration number(s) that they own that they want to enforce using the account that made the registration, generate a time-limited key using the system, and then enter that key into their copyright complaint on the platform that they want to police their IP on. When GooFaceZon processes the complaint, they would check with the copyright.gov server to verify that an authorized copyright owner made that complaint within the timeframe provided by the system. That way even if there is some kind of account compromise at some point the damage can be limited.
I don't actually know if that'd be the best system, but something like that would be a great improvement over the current system of being able to make any kind of fake claim with no verification.
[+] [-] j-c-hewitt|7 years ago|reply
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en
If they don't have a registration, they can't file a lawsuit. So after 10 days, Google will reinstate.
He just went about it in the typical manner of people who act like the people who field these disputes aren't customer service representatives earning $0.50 per hour reading out automated scripts like literal NPCs with no freedom to act whatsoever.
There are a few things that can help to police this process:
[+] [-] j45|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a11595|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Andre607|7 years ago|reply
My 'favourite' (in the sense of most egregious) example of what I am talking about is the case where YouTube's Content ID flagged the sound of birds in someone's garden as being copyright infringing [1]. So far, par the course for a mistaken automatic identification. But the outrage comes after that: the copyright claimant (the notorious Rumblefish) reviewed the claim and confirmed that it was valid! In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted. Actions like this are indefensible and highlight the outrageous monstrosity of YouTube's takedown system - -beyond Kafkaesque in its total disenfranchisement of users.
[1] https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120227/00152917884/guy-g...
[+] [-] sireat|7 years ago|reply
Some music video (by Sony subsidiary) contained a small sample of waves crashing from a completely different sea.
I told him to appeal and appeal he did and yes the claim was upheld.
I told him to fight on because this first level upheld is what throws people off and what the Content ID abusers are hoping for.
On the 2nd appeal they have to have someone with legal authority to really pursue the claim.
That is no "real" human will look at the case on its merits until 2nd instance.
[+] [-] kkarakk|7 years ago|reply
i think it is likely that this human is just someone employed from mechanical turk who gets paid on the basis of how many videos they process in an hour and not actually an employee of rumblefish
[+] [-] org3432|7 years ago|reply
It seems like companies have their 99% cases that their systems are optimized for, but within the remaining 1% where they themselves are causing the problem or have a bug etc. the humans they hire can't understand simple things if they deviate an iota from what they're used to.
[+] [-] jchw|7 years ago|reply
I hope this system can be fixed... At least, we need a more balanced playing field. Making it so easy and yet having practically no consequences to abuse the system is absurd. But, what can really be done? This is the system that various industries have been pushing super hard to get. I think DMCA also doesn't do nearly enough to dissuade abuse. Can we try to fix DMCA, too? Where do we begin?
[+] [-] dylan604|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] IAmGraydon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larkeith|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaveren|7 years ago|reply
I've never seen (keyword: seen) a press release or article about how an individual / group of DMCA abusers of this sort was arrested. Why can't this be taken more seriously as a form of fraud, and why can't these people be gone after? Sure, you can obfuscate your real IP when making a takedown request, but they have to receive the money somewhere.
[+] [-] dylan604|7 years ago|reply
If there is conflicting claims of ownership that seems valid from both sides, then send to a 3rd party to decide. Whether that is arbitration or courts. Why should YouTube be responsible at all? During the term of dispute, the ability to earn money is suspended. If the defendant wins, then the claimant should be required to reimburse lost earnings. At this point, YT would have acted in a reasonable manner such that they should not have any liability in it.
How naive am I being for making it seem like a really simple thing to handle?
[+] [-] whoisjuan|7 years ago|reply
This is a disaster for any small creator that uses YouTube. A platform that controls the majority of the internet video distribution is incapable of reacting reasonably to a copyright claim issue until its large enough to actually threaten the solidity of that distribution.
[+] [-] sheeshkebab|7 years ago|reply
Better strategy is to continue supporting open web and host content or products you care about on your own.
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkpuma|7 years ago|reply
Probably, but who is he supposed to sue over it? It's far from clear who the 'company' is. He could sue John Doe and then get youtube to reveal what they know, but he may very likely discover that the 'company' is just some guy with hardly any assets in a country that doesn't give a shit about him or his plight.
[+] [-] londons_explore|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fouc|7 years ago|reply
Could be the new scam. I bet people out there are going to be doing this to make tons of money until youtube smartens up.
[+] [-] astonex|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] larkeith|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aw3c2|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] kkarakk|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brailsafe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] trumped|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duskwuff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CrowFly|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] dang|7 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html