My video with 47M views was stolen on YouTube [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
Of course you're right. But it's a solution for YouTube because it means they have to do absolutely nothing, and don't get in trouble.
(Disclaimer: I used to work in the media business so I'm familiar with the process).
I have heard that the dispute process uses dark patterns to punish uploaders for actually using it -- e.g. you must select between reasons for your dispute, none of which is "the claimed material isn't actually present."
Is this true?
It seems quite bonkers that you disagree with the "disputes are discouraged by forced lying" narrative yet keep posting evidence to support it.
Ah well. It's not my fight. I should be grateful for that.
As far as I know, it's not required. Rather, if a provider doesn't do it, they can be found liable for contributory infringement when a user posts infringing content.
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.
> The process may only be pursued in instances where the upload was removed or disabled ... It should not be pursued under any other circumstances.
GP's whole point is that counterclaims don't work here, because the content hasn't been removed, just re-monetized.
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:
Wait just a second, isn't the revenue half-life of a youtube video like 2 days or something? 10 days sounds like way, way too long.
[edit: grammar]
General question: if one did care about ad revenue.. are there some up to date resources to learn what current best practices are?
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...
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.
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
> They still work at RF, feel absolutely terrible about what happened and are taking a whole new approach to claim/dispute reviews. A mistake like this in the hands of the right employee is a game changer and brings about significant improvement. In the hands of a less-competent employee...they fold and get worse and that isn't acceptable for me. I hope and trust that it's the former. I believe that although it was a terrible oversight, that it was an honest mistake by this individual.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q7via/im_the_ceo_of_r...
Note that since that particular incident, Rumblefish has had continued incidents of blatantly erroneous coypright claims - like claiming ownership of a US Navy rendition of "America the Beautiful" (which is public domain) and proceeded to monetize it! [2]
[2] https://boingboing.net/2015/07/03/july-4-rumblefish-claims-t...
Rumblefish of course describes these incidents as "honest mistakes", which completely ignores the inconvenience they cause people and the fact that they have to make noise via social media or tech news outlets for them to take action - the real concern is how often this happens that we don't hear about.
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 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?
> UPDATE: It's official! I got my video back and Ramjets channel was deleted for false copyright claim. Huge thanks to everybody who helped. Every share, like comment, everybody who spread the word about what happened. You made the difference. Now let's make sure we protect EVERY content creator from false claims. Please sign the petition, we can make a difference.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/YouTube_fix_...
There's also a story behind how the signatures were delivered. [1] However, I'm not sure that this video explains the 'psychology' behind it.
In a wow-related podcast a few months back [sorry no link], Mark said that he wanted to deliver all the signatures in physical form on paper since that's a tactic that Blizzard itself had employed when selling their game packages back in the day. In a nutshell, the weight of something makes it feel more valuable. And in the case of 260,000 signatures, it doesn't just sound big in your head, but actually has a substantial weight in physical form.
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.
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?
Also, these services are usually reasonably priced, and sometimes even free, so it would be reasonable to use even if you're making several videos a day.
The immediate issue I see here is timestamping other people’s videos who produced them in the past, or for a different service, or just plain old didn’t know they needed to timestamp their video to protect it.
At the least, it's very, very strong evidence for a trial. Along with also emailing your lawyer or notary public a copy of the timestamp as soon as you create it, these factors would be virtually unassailable in a court of law.
Then we’re literally back where we started - proving ownership by other means.
I think the real problem is that evaluating such proof would need to be done by a human, and YouTube want a completely automated system.
Just needs a nice UI, and, well, Google giving a damn about it.
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.
Better strategy is to continue supporting open web and host content or products you care about on your own.
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.
I mean if it is a guy with hardly any assets in a country that doesn't give a shit I don't think that suit will drag on that long and probably wouldn't be too expensive to litigate. It's only if the guy has assets in a country that does give a shit that will want to fight, and if that's the case they're probably screwed.
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.
With that said, nothing was stolen, a claim for the monetization reimbursement was made to YouTube, who is the sole source in deciding who the compensation goes to, decided to send that compensation to the party that made the claim.
Making a claim against an existing video is actually probably a lot safer than re-uploading and attempting to monetize.
From that perspective, what would be the grounds for a lawsuit?
Filing a simple John Doe summons in your home jurisdiction and then sending a subpoena to YouTube for the offending contact information is pretty trivial. You could probably find someone to do it for you for a thousand bucks or less.
Admittedly that’s not free but in a context like this with real money at stake it’s not a huge obstacle.
You might have trouble getting the opponent to cooperate but if your ultimate goal is to get YouTube to do something then that could work just fine.
Again, clearly legal action isn’t easy but people seem too inclined to throw up their hands instantly.
Learning how to take basic legal action is just a core part of running a business, and someone earning from YouTube at this level is indeed doing just that.
My (and the GPs) question was: let's say, following the filing of the requisite legal documents and the accompanying fees if any, you receive the contact information of the claimant from YouTube. You are in Germany. The claimant's address is in Turkmenistan. What are you meant to do next?
Why have we made it so easy for crime in this country.
It’s all about balance. What’s the point of having a takedown procedure if uploading a thousand copies is easier than taking down one?