Sony Filed a Copyright Claim Against the Stock Video I Licensed to Them | Hacker News Reader

Sony Filed a Copyright Claim Against the Stock Video I Licensed to Them

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98 pointsmayneack36 comments

I think Mitch Martinez(OP/content creator) did a good job of making it clear to Sony/Epic that false copyright claims are not acceptable.

IANAL but maybe for next time he should include a "false copyright claim" fee (plus attorneys fees) in the original license agreement.

On a related topic, Dreamworks were trying to get a license release for the Noisebridge logo[0], but apparently had difficulty understanding the concept of "fair use". It was pretty funny.

[0] https://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/20...

What would be great is if you could add a clause stating that any assertion of copyright (by them), including automated systems, would result in a revocation of the license. Then whenever you get a notice from youtube respond by demanding take-down or monetization of their videos.

The YouTube notification contains:

    Due to a copyright claim, you are no longer monetizing the following
    YouTube video. It is still playable on YouTube, but the copyright
    owner could choose to show ads on it.

The key phrase is "but the copyright owner could choose to show ads on it".

Google is automatically transferring the benefits of copyright to anyone who files a claim?

That seems ripe for abuse.

Theoretically, you could claim copyright of a video, show your ads on it, and profit until the dispute is settled (if it ever is). A popular video could have hundreds of thousands of views before a dispute is settled and a company the size of Sony could probably claim some form of copyright infringement on thousands of videos.

And there's no downside (other than the effort/costs of filing the complaints), a small content provider won't pursue the perjury clause in the DMCA, it'd be too hard to prove (if they know about it at all). They'll just be happy it's over and go on with their lives.

</tinfoilhat>

The tin-foil hat is unnecessary. What you describe is happening, all the time.

It's not even perjury. I was going to describe things that falsely take down videos as "perjury-bots" but then I remembered that major sites such as YouTube and Twitch have set up their own expedited process outside the legal system. They'll even find the content for you.

You just have to say "This sound/video is mine, whenever it appears", and when a sufficiently high percentage of sound and video actually are yours, organizations will believe you whether or not it's true.

So large content companies just claim everything they possibly can, regardless of whether they're allowed to or not. It's all upside (more revenue from videos!) and no downside (nobody will hold you accountable).

I agree with your conclusions, the 'tinfoilhat' was for my conspiratorial tone with no citations to back it up.

>Explain that if they do not remove their copyright claim within the time allotted that I will revoke their rights to use my footage in their video due to a terms of use violation.

The DMCA states they are filing the take down under penalty of perjury. It's very slippery though.

If Sony says "This is A, and I own A. Take down Small Time's video." Then all is good so long as Sony actually owns A. If the content is B, it's a great inconvenience to Small Time, but there's really no recourse.

However, what Sony did was say "This is B, I own B. Take down Small Time's video." The content IS B. Sony has misrepresented their ownership of B. Now they've perjured themselves.

My understanding is that perjury is punishable by up to five years in prison. It seems like someone at Sony should now be under investigation for this little 'oops.' Even if Small Time is satisfied with the outcome, it sounds like someone at Sony still violated the law.

No one ever gets charged under that, because it requires knowingly filing a false claim. Almost all of these takedowns are automated, and it's hard to say an algorithm knowingly lied.

Even with a human in the loop (for example, the "copyright holder has confirmed the claim" from the article) it's hard to prove someone lied. "Idiot intern" makes a generally acceptable defense.

> Almost all of these takedowns are automated, and it's hard to say an algorithm knowingly lied.

In the future I will write programs to break the laws that I used to break by hand, let them loose without any specific target and see what I rake in.

When it comes to criminal law, the standard is "knew or should have known". At the very least, Sony and possibly YouTube are liable for the results of a flawed algorithm causing them to break the law. It's been in (mis)use for many years now, and it's obvious it's a horribly inaccurate method of determining copyright violations. Without human intervention to investigate and ensure each and every claim is legitimate, YouTube and the copyright claimants are committing fraud and perjury on a massive scale.

YouTube and its system doesn't issue DMCA takedown requests; what law are they breaking?

It's not illegal to takedown whatever videos you want from your own platform, nor to allow a partner company from choosing videos to take down.

YouTube acts upon DMCA requests from companies claiming copyright infringement, using an algorithm that YouTube employs. When said request is known or should be known to be perjurious, the parties involved should be held liable.

While you are correct that YouTube reserves the right to remove whatever they want to from their site, they do not have the right to monetize on behalf of a third party (Sony, et. al.) content you create and own the copyright to, nor claim copyright on behalf of that third party, just by waving around the DMCA. However, that is exactly what they are doing, and are doing it under color of law, and while committing perjury to boot.

Why do you say they are using the DMCA? My point is exactly that: if you own the platform, you don't need the DMCA to take down videos from it!

they do not have the right to monetize on behalf of a third party (Sony, et. al.) content you create and own the copyright to

Why not? YouTube can put ads on any video, why couldn't they distribute that income with whoever they want to?

> Why do you say they are using the DMCA?

Here's a great example of what I'm talking about:

https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-deal-with-universal-blocks-...

> YouTube can put ads on any video, why couldn't they distribute that income with whoever they want to?

It's a matter of trust. YouTube implemented a monetization policy to encourage regular folks to create viral content, and reward that effort with monetization for original works. However, YouTube is gaming their own system and stacking it in favor of Big Content. They are breaking the trust they asked their users to place in them, and breaking their own policies to support their biggest customers.

> Here's a great example of what I'm talking about:

While the email mentions a DMCA notice, I doubt there was one. Content-ID probably detected it, and UMG blocked it without needing to send any DMCA notice, just using YouTube's backend tools. If you search on the DMCA database that Google/Youtube uses, ChillingEffects, there's no match for a notice sent by UMG: https://chillingeffects.org/notices/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&te...

Essentially, my point is that the DMCA is a legal mechanism to force hosting services to comply, but it isn't needed in this case, since YouTube complies voluntarily.

> It's a matter of trust.

Oh, absolutely, I never meant to say that YouTube aren't being assholes by behaving like this, but we were talking about legal rights, and I don't see them violating those.

And playing Devil's advocate, I'm not sure YouTube is all that interested in implementing these mechanisms - their customers are the advertisers, not Big Content. I'd say it's more like paying protection money after getting the proverbial horse head in the bed - or in this case, the barrage of lawsuits they got between 2008-2012.

There is no law that says you have to treat your customers well.

These corporations want to be treated as "entities" for many legal purposes. Yet, when they fuck up, they want to be able to say that "employee a" didn't know about "x".

Well, if your are an "entity", then -- particularly in cases like this -- I don't care about your "employee" components. You, Sony, made a patently false statement having legal implications. And if you had done... "due diligence" upon your own corpus of knowledge about yourself, you would have known this.

So... prosecute them under perjury. Punish them harshly. It's the only way to get them to pay attention to their obligations, obligations for which they are a primary source of the records needed for proper representation, as required by the law.

Personally, I favor revoking the licenses of lawyers involved in this. Make such patently false representations, and it is career death for you. (I guess I am "caring about the employee", in this case, contrary to what I said. But such employees also have a separate, professional obligation to the bar. Hold them to it, and corporations will have to seek higher standards in order to make use of their services.)

P.S. Yes, I am pissed about this. An individual stands a good chance of being thoroughly run over by such mis-representation. Corporate entities use it as a business strategy.

>it sounds like someone at Sony still violated the law.

good luck with finding that person, especially when decisions weren't made by single one.

I think that Youtube has a special channel that is distinct from the DMCA for clients like Sony.

> The DMCA states they are filing the take down under penalty of perjury.

Hrrrm, I think that may be overstating it a bit.

The DMCA requires a statement from the complaining party of a good faith belief that the use of the material is not authorized, and a statement that the information is accurate; and that under penalty of perjury that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner.

When Joe's House of Copyright Notices is hired by Sony, and misidentifies content that they (in good faith) believe belongs to Sony, their notification isn't swearing to the accuracy of that information. It's stating that under penalty of perjury they act on behalf of the "owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed".

If I were to claim the same, I'd be perjuring myself, because I sure as hell am not authorized to act on behalf of Sony.

At least that's my reading, as someone who's worked an abuse desk and has spent a bit of time with the DMCA

If Sony doesn't actually own the exclusive right, then Joe's House of Copyright Notices being an agent of Sony is not relevant to whether Joe's House of Copyright is authorized to act on behalf of the owner (because Sony is not the owner).

But that's not the point. The only claim made under penalty of perjury is that the party filing the report is authorized to act on behalf of the rightsholder they identified in the report.

The rest (what the material is, who the rightsholder is, that the use is not authorized) is all merely a good faith belief, which is so low a standard as to basically mean "you know, whatever".

I thought good faith did have some level of standard associated with it (at least to the point where a judge could rule you were just a liar)?

It's not perjury when they just tell youtube (or rather, it gets detected by an automated system). Does google even require DMCA notices anymore?

I recorded all of my phone calls with the person from Epic’s legal department. I knew that without his acknowledgment of the recording that the call itself might not necessarily be admissible in court (depending on the state statutes), but knowing how fallible memory is, it would still provide me the ability to revisit exactly what was said on the calls and help me prepare for a legal battle if it came to that.

Besides the question of whether or not the contents of a recorded conversation is admissible in court, is it even legal to record a phone conversation without the other person’s knowledge?

Depends on the state... and in one state, it depends on whether or not you know it's illegal. I forget which state, but it came up a lot in the news during the Monica Lewinsky affair.

This guide is slightly old (Last updated May 2014) but seems fairly comprehensive: http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-co...

I believe in some states it's a criminal offense to record phone conversations without the person's knowledge. So I would be very careful about doing this.

Yes, in some states it's legal to record telephone calls with the consent of a single party.

I read his disclaimer as "I'm in a one-party consent state, but the person I'm talking to may or may not be - and I have no idea how admissible this would be as evidence but I'm pretty sure I'm not breaking the law."

What matters is the state that you are making the recording in.

So if your state is a one party consent state and you are one of the parties it doesn't matter what the rules in the other state are.

Now what could get interesting is if you are in a one party state and you are calling on a cell phone and you hit a tower in another state. So then you claim that you are in State A and if they were to put in the effort to check or cell records they saw you hit the tower in State B then I would guess you would have to offer further proof of actually making the call in State A other than your statement that was the case. (As opposed to a land line where it's clear where you are located).

http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/recording-phone-calls-and-co...

I also wonder if it's where the person who initiated the recording is, or if it's where the recording is taking place.

If it is where the recording is taking place, a VoIP provider could do all the recording on servers in a state friendly to the recording, regardless of where the participants in the call are.

What if you just route all your calls through a VoIP server in a one-party state, and record the call there?

Interesting thought. [1] Probably doesn't fill the letter of the law. Otoh that is what I would call "a leg to stand on". That is it gives some wiggle room and reasonable doubt that you weren't following the law. Would depend on the exact wording of each States law and how tight it was. Ianal but often things boil down to this type of thinking with other things as you probably know.

[1] For that matter what if you conference in a friend and the friend is the one that did the recording.

The contact information on his website gives a phone number and address in Philadelphia, which is in a two-party state.

I have no idea what happens, though, when one party is on a two-party state and the other is in a one-party state.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#One-p..., California courts seem to have decided that the most restrictive wins. The footnote reference link is broken, however.

In these types of situations it doesn't even make sense to try and surreptitiously make a recording of the call. I routinely record _all_ calls between myself and attorneys, accountants, advisors, partners, etc. and after asking permission to record not a single time has any of these people denied me permission or even questioned why I would record the call. Most people even appreciate receiving a copy of the conversation afterwards as well. In business situations like this, asking to record a call for records purposes is not an anti-pattern and you shouldn't be afraid to ask the other party for permission.

At the case closed comments, why is there no discussion of receiving payment from SME? Surely the time and effort chasing down a bad copyright claim is worth more than receiving credit.

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