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Comment by tomclancy | Hacker News Reader

Ripped content - It's what made YouTube grow and what made FB Video grow. FB is taking steps to crack down on copyright theft now that the video platform is large enough (just like what YouTube did).

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There's a significant difference between hosting old-media content in a discoverable way on the internet for the first time (i.e. TV and movie clips off your DVD collection) and re-hosting internet-native content under your own account.

The former actually provides a service: I like to be able to show people and revisit funny scenes from i.e. West Wing episodes, and often that prompts me to go re-watch the episode from a legitimate source. The latter has no net gain for the user over just linking, but screws over the OP.

Not that it's any more legal or ethical, but there's a large difference in perception between stealing content from large companies (media companies) to rehost on a free platform and stealing from starving artists and claiming it as your own. It is my understanding that YouTube grew largely by the former.

FB also seems to be a bit of the former. Here (https://www.facebook.com/GoodMorningAmerica/videos/101533728...) is an anecdotal clip that ABC/GMA stole from this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU13ByIYkew) with no credit, they flipped, and re-watermarked his video. They got 22mm views on something the author only has 0.5mm views. Terrible ABC, terrible.

There needs to be CRC/SHA for video. Once that is figured out identifying these sorts of things will be trivial.

I would in fact pay someone to develop this as I think it is something humanity needs. Or I could pivot it into a startup and offer content creators a "safe harbor" to let them know whenever their stuff has been pirated.

Isn't this what YouTube calls content ID? They alert you that your content is up somewhere, then you have the option of monetizing it, or having it taken down.

Uh interesting but sadly it doesn't look like it is open for all:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311402

Not quite trivial: people can crop, skew, vignette, mirror, timestretch and scale video to try to defeat it. YouTube's Content ID seems to be vulnerable to this sort of thing still.

I think that's why many of these systems focus on audio. It's harder to change in a way that beats fingerprinting but doesn't ruin the viewing experience.

I think the majority of the cases are uploaders that basically post the same content.

ContentID is limited to few companies. It requires training, is not multi platform, and doesn't stop freebooting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video_fingerprinting

YouTube already has Content ID and it's by no means perfect.

It's possible ABC licensed it from him. There is a link in the description to license the vid.

Pretty standard modus operandi for technology start-ups, 'disrupt' the scene (AKA enable illegal/unlawful/unethical things). Then years later, officially notice you've been turning a blind eye and provide tools to discourage it.

Is it time for another video hosting platform to use this strategy and become big? Sounds like a winning tactic

fb did nothing about content ripped from YT and posted on FB. There are a few high profile FB users who only rip video from YT and post on FB. FB did nothing and YT didnt care at all.

so this is definitely a step in the right direction.

YouTube has content manager. Unless conflict is resolved, YT video revenue will be blocked.

So... Hypocrisy?

yes, but in this context it's called "capitalism"

Nobody said capitalism is without faults. It's just the only realistic option.

> So... Hypocrisy?

on who's part? Did I miss an outraged lawsuit coming out of Youtube over freebooted videos?

Well planned stages, I'd say.

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