general Youtube; Where's the Fair Use?

[Floris 287]

Hey, look.

 

Chibi got a strike for talking about snow in his frontyard.

 

[DeadRightNowBoi 161]

Geez, as a YouTuber myself I have to agree on this. Youtube's Fair Use and Copyright system is a major issue here. I fear for my projects as they are most likely going to get the system's attention, big time! Just saying. Whatever you're on, Youtube, it's gotta stop. :\ 

[Roughshod 719]

Wherever the fair use is at, it's apparently in short supply. I consider myself a supporter of Doug Walker in this complaint that needs to be addressed. YouTube has always had problems with its copyright claims and strike system but things have only gotten worse. I don't have much more to add to his discussion really; most of viewpoints have already been put forth in this thread at length.

[Riganthor 484]

I agree with that this has to change and the head lady of youtube has come out and said she heard the noice. She announced a team that's going to minimize the false claims. At least this is what they announced, now how they are going to do this is not told. I don't even know how many people they have hired, so for all I know this could be a team of 10 to keep us quiet.

[PinkiePie97 913]

There's something we can do that could really help fair use and we only have a little over 24 hours to do it. This video will tell you everything you need to know.

[Castle Bleck 19,361]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSx4gVI_NkI

 

Ladies and gentlemen, we've officially just seen copyright-ception.

Edited April 1, 2016 by A.V.

[argonianfreak 43]

So, apparently, they're finally doing something about dodgy copyright: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoIL5qUI1p8

[Lagrangian 64]

Unpopular opinion time...

-snip-

That's all true, but it only applies to valid DMCA notices.

 

Much of the problems with YouTube as it exists are the blatantly incorrect DMCA notices that are being leveled against channels. YouTube doesn't need to take on DMCA for us, but they should strive to make a system that deals with DMCA notices in a way that isn't so prone to abuse.

Right now there is no motivation for people or companies to stop making DMCA take down notices willy-nilly since they can make them as they please and take revenue off of other people's videos without any repercussions and the creator's ability to respond to them is extremely limited. None of that has anything to do with the DMCA law, it's just how YouTube decided to implement the system.

It's particularly frustrating for a content creator when the entire process has been automated and so there's no way to contact a real person about their problems unless they're a a partner channel.

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

Much of the problems with YouTube as it exists are the blatantly incorrect DMCA notices that are being leveled against channels.

As I explained, the problem is that trying to differentiate between valid and not valid DCMA notices is an insanely risky business. Look at the volume of content on YouTube, even assuming for a second that it was cost-beneficial for YouTube to bring on a giant team of lawyers or other qualified individuals to have non-automated review of DMCA requests, humans make mistakes and any single slip up could cost YouTube millions of dollars. It's not about them wanting to keep you from talking to a human, it's the fact that humans lie and humans make mistakes, so having any sort of human-intervention in the DMCA process adds such a tremendous amount of risk to the equation that it'd destroy YouTube as a business. 

 

Here's the thing you're forgetting, they aren't experts on the content so it's very hard for them to judge it. Great example: there have been a few incidents of Hasbro mis-flagging fan animations as their own content and submitting completely invalid DMCA take downs for fan animations. The content creator knows of course that's not Hasbro's work. And Hasbro probably even knows it when they actually go back and look at the video they flagged for more then 8 seconds. But why would YouTube have any reason to know whether someone like Jan Animations stuff belongs to him? It's not like they're going to go do some investigation and go through every episode with a fine tooth comb to try and see if his video shows up. The thing is when there's a dispute over ownership of content, YouTube has no practical way of knowing who is right. They aren't going to play courtroom and put down a couple million bucks backing a horse in this fight, instead they simply take down the video, back away slowly, and let the people who have a vested interest in the content handle it.

 

Every aspect of YouTube's system is set up in the way it is because they want absolutely no risk of ending up being the one responsible for a copyright violation, and I can't fault them for it. Because of the volume of content they deal in, if there's even a fraction of a percent of possibility they could make a mistake and not honor a valid DCMA notice, then with their volume of content, the time is going to come that they'll slip up and have that happen, and that's just not a risk worth taking for YouTube. Yes, they provide a service for the world, but they aren't a charity or government organization, they're a business. I'm not going to fault a business for not risking multi-million dollar lawsuits to keep a pony video up.

 

As I said, I do agree the system sucks, but where I disagree is the notion that YouTube should become some sort of white knight, shooting down DMCA notices left and right. From a business perspective, having anything but the system YouTube currently uses would be absolutely insane.

 

The real problem lies in the fact that the DCMA law itself has no feasible way for content-creators to seek compensation outside of YouTube for false DMCA notices. It's the laws themselves and over-zealous companies filing excessive and invalid DMCA notices that are to blame, not the middle-man just trying to host videos.

[Lagrangian 64]

As I said, I do agree the system sucks, but where I disagree is the notion that YouTube should become some sort of white knight, shooting down DMCA notices left and right. From a business perspective, having anything but the system YouTube currently uses would be absolutely insane.

 

The real problem lies in the fact that the DCMA law itself has no feasible way for content-creators to seek compensation outside of YouTube for false DMCA notices. It's the laws themselves and over-zealous companies filing excessive and invalid DMCA notices that are to blame, not the middle-man just trying to host videos.

I'm not asking YouTube to be a white knight of justice. I'm asking them to be the kind of knight that creates a better system by which to handle complaints. The issues with YouTube are not inherently tied to the nature of DMCA claims.

The entire take down process could be made inestimably better by simply not allowing others to steal revenue from videos until the claim has been settled and by allowing YouTube creators to handle more than 2 claims at a time so they don't have to worry about getting their channel banned for silly reasons. After those changes the claims would be an annoyance, but not necessarily destructive to channels.

None of that has a thing to do with the DMCA law, it's all YouTube's processes as they laid down at their discretion. Right now the only reasons that these wouldn't be happening would be because YouTube doesn't want to overhaul the system due to the investment of time and money on their end. In my understanding it doesn't threaten them directly on a legal level to change either of those two things.

 

ETA: Changing the DMCA itself should also happen in order to prevent so many of these issues from occurring, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Edited April 2, 2016 by Lagrangian

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

The entire take down process could be made inestimably better by simply not allowing others to steal revenue from videos until the claim has been settled and by allowing YouTube creators to handle more than 2 claims at a time so they don't have to worry about getting their channel banned for silly reasons. After those changes the claims would be an annoyance, but not necessarily destructive to channels.

 

DMCA law doesn't permit any sort of holding periods. DMCA was never intended to make the middle man act as an arbitrator, when they got the DMCA notice they were supposed to immediately take down the offending content. The fact that YouTube has any sort of an appeals process is because they want to keep videos up. Delaying the initial action in response to the DMCA request would be in violation of the current expectations for sites under the law though. And delaying it specifically for claims requesting monetization instead of takedowns would mean copyright holders would almost always opt for the takedown instead, which nobody wants.

 

The only thing you've mentioned YouTube does have control over is their limitation on how many appeals a content creator can file at once. I do agree it would be nice for channels to be able to appeal more than 2 videos at once, but I also definitely understand the logic. They're trying to encourage people to only appeal invalid DMCA takedowns, not appeal every DMCA takedown and see if they get lucky, so putting a limitation, though admittedly artificial, helps to prevent situations where a person posts a channel full of copyright infringing video, gets 800 dmca takedowns, and then appeals every one of them just to see what sticks. I'd say this is one of those instances of the good members of YouTube being inconvenienced as a result of the bad members of YouTube abusing the tools they've created for people.

 

 

 

None of that has a thing to do with the DMCA law, it's all YouTube's processes as they laid down at their discretion.

That's just not the case. All of their processes are designed based on what would put them in jeopardy of violating DMCA laws. If DMCA were more flexible, then YouTube would be able to be more flexible in their handling of these claims. The simple fact is DMCA is a badly written and outdated law, and YouTube is doing the absolute best it can to handle a shitty situation while keeping their head above water.

[Limeblossom 482]

DMCA is a pain in the plot for those who support democratized content. It's broken, rigged and could even used as a form of censoring, like what happened during the Shining Force III fiasco.

[Lagrangian 64]

DMCA law doesn't permit any sort of holding periods. DMCA was never intended to make the middle man act as an arbitrator, when they got the DMCA notice they were supposed to immediately take down the offending content. The fact that YouTube has any sort of an appeals process is because they want to keep videos up. Delaying the initial action in response to the DMCA request would be in violation of the current expectations for sites under the law though. And delaying it specifically for claims requesting monetization instead of takedowns would mean copyright holders would almost always opt for the takedown instead, which nobody wants.

 

DMCA doesn't even talk about what's to be done with revenue AFAIK so I'm not sure how you are reaching the conclusion that holding periods wouldn't be permissible. Clearly there's some leeway in what's done with videos since YouTube doesn't just strike them from the site the moment they receive an infringement. Transferring content or revenue aren't even topics that come up in the DMCA to the best of my knowledge.

 

ETA: I guess to my view, YouTube's processes don't seem necessarily driven by the tenets of DMCA. The process itself of course. But I'm more inclined to see its limitations as purely a result of YouTube's design, not because they sat down and determined that the current system is the absolute best possible solution given the law. Like you said, they don't want to deal with DMCA claims, so they designed a system that would suffice to protect them and left it at that without taking extra steps that they could have to protect their content creators.

Edited April 3, 2016 by Lagrangian

[Simon 4,557]

 

 

DMCA doesn't even talk about what's to be done with revenue AFAIK so I'm not sure how you are reaching the conclusion that holding periods wouldn't be permissible.

 

You're right that the ad claim way of handling stuff isn't directly discussed in DMCA. Even assuming that those requests aren't covered by DMCA though, the issue is once YouTube starts handling those claims differently, they just disincentivized everybody from making their claims as ad share instead of takedowns, and YouTube's goal is to get people to leave videos up rather than just rampantly taking down videos.

 

But, while DMCA doesn't address the issue of ad sharing directly, what it does deal with is response time to a DMCA notice, so there's still concerns over whether any delay in providing the ad revenue would constitute a violation of DMCA. Under DMCA, the site must take down the content "expeditiously", a word which to this day has not actually been given any meaningful clarification as to what constitutes expeditious takedowns, but it's accepted that it essentially means as soon as possible based on the site. So a very small site that handles these requests manually might have a week or two to look into it, where a larger site like YouTube that has automated procedures in place is expected to honor the requests nearly instantaneously (depending of course on the medium of the request).

 

Point being, you might be absolutely right when you say that YouTube's ad share plan isn't covered under DMCA, but since DMCA is so unclear on so many issues, it might or might not covered, so it goes back to the fact that YouTube has to do such a massive amount of covering its own ass because the laws simply aren't clear, that they take an understandably safe stance on issues like these.

 

 

 

I guess to my view, YouTube's processes don't seem necessarily driven by the tenets of DMCA.

 

The sad part is that the DMCA laws itself are pretty blatantly against the counter-claimant. Great example, to file a DMCA notice all you have to have is a good-faith belief it's content in violation of the law with no potential criminal repercussions for abuse. That means that literally anybody can file a DMCA notice on anything and it has to be honored by YouTube or the other host, and the only possible way they will face any repercussions for their claim is if they are sued by the person who posted the content, and that person is able to show that they had no reason to believe they had any claim to the content, and it was purely done maliciously in some fashion, which is goign to be nearly impossible to show. Here's the actual language:

 

"(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."

 

However, in order for you to file a counter-claim under DMCA law, here's the requirement:

 

"© A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled."

 

That means that if you file a false counter-claim, you can be held criminally liable for the counter-claim as it's required that you make the claim under penalty of perjury. This is a massive disproportionate requirement that places an immense amount of risk on anybody that files a counter-notice under DMCA, while providing next to no risk for the initial claimant.

 

And the simple fact is that the law is chalked full of these types of issues. DMCA was never intended to protect the person posting a video, only the middle-man hosting the content. Ultimately, people's aggression on this issue is misplaced like it or not. It's simply a case of the law being bad, not the execution by YouTube being poor.

 

The minor aspects they might be able to clean up to help a fraction of a percent of people are peanuts compared to the problems caused by the law itself, and more importantly the ambiguities in the law that have existed for more than a decade.

[Lagrangian 64]

 

The sad part is that the DMCA laws itself are pretty blatantly against the counter-claimant. Great example, to file a DMCA notice all you have to have is a good-faith belief it's content in violation of the law with no potential criminal repercussions for abuse. That means that literally anybody can file a DMCA notice on anything and it has to be honored by YouTube or the other host, and the only possible way they will face any repercussions for their claim is if they are sued by the person who posted the content, and that person is able to show that they had no reason to believe they had any claim to the content, and it was purely done maliciously in some fashion, which is goign to be nearly impossible to show. Here's the actual language:

 

"(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law."

 

However, in order for you to file a counter-claim under DMCA law, here's the requirement:

 

"© A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled."

 

That means that if you file a false counter-claim, you can be held criminally liable for the counter-claim as it's required that you make the claim under penalty of perjury. This is a massive disproportionate requirement that places an immense amount of risk on anybody that files a counter-notice under DMCA, while providing next to no risk for the initial claimant.

 

And the simple fact is that the law is chalked full of these types of issues. DMCA was never intended to protect the person posting a video, only the middle-man hosting the content. Ultimately, people's aggression on this issue is misplaced like it or not. It's simply a case of the law being bad, not the execution by YouTube being poor.

 

The minor aspects they might be able to clean up to help a fraction of a percent of people are peanuts compared to the problems caused by the law itself, and more importantly the ambiguities in the law that have existed for more than a decade.

 

Thank you for the explanation.

 

I certainly agree that fixing the law would solve all of the issues surrounding this much more effectively. Although I have severe doubts about us being able to do so. In my knowledge the US courts have pretty much always agreed to the further empowerment of copyright laws, I don't know that they've ever decided in a way that doesn't increase the length or powers of copyright holders.

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

I know, YouTube still has this problem with the copyright system.

[EpicEnergy 23,218]

YouTube doing something? I doubt it, they just like to make problems worse.

[Splashee 28,564]

Fair use, it seems they got rid of that a while ago. It didn't work out so well for poor Google and their business plans.

 

Copyright is even more dodgy if you ask me. There is nothing other than a string of text protecting your work, and I have had text hacked away from my work before

[Splashee 28,564]

On 2/17/2016 at 12:56 AM, Floris said:

Doug Walker

He looks so sad in that video. But he is bathing in cash now

 

It is al about those clickbaits!

[Splashee 28,564]

@Floris

This thread will live on in Media Discussion section of the forum. It has been moved there.

[Cash In 22,313]

Yeah Youtube has never really given much of a shit. I think they've gotten slightly better over the years, but it doesn't count for much when the same thing keeps happening.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,297]

On 2020-05-10 at 2:10 PM, EpicEnergy said:

YouTube doing something? I doubt it, they just like to make problems worse.

They grew their own jungle, got lost in it and can't put signs on which jungle tree belongs to who  Copyright got lost within.