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Comment by xster | Hacker News Reader

Adam Neely (YouTube music educator) had an absolutely farcical run-in with this situation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM6X2MEl7R8) where he made a video defending Warner Music and Katy Perry's Dark Horse against Flame's Joyful Noise plagiarism suit. He lost the claim from Warner Music even though:

1- he was defending Warner Music

2- he didn't play any recordings, he just played 3 notes on a synthesizer (which is his whole premise that it's un-copyrightable)

3- Warner Music lost the actual suit (which implies they don't have copyright on those 3 notes?)

4- someone at Warner Music manually tagged the "infringing" part of the video, except the person tagged not the Dark Horse part of the play through but the Joyful Noise part of the play through (*^∀^)ノ彡┻━┻

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It's pretty simple, Alphabet/Google make it far too easy for mistaken, false or frivolous claims. It's obvious why, usually the claimant has the heavy bags of money to use as a bludgeon, but it's not right.

It's not just that it's easy, but that the theft is legal and profitable. You don't even need to be rich to do this, you just need stuff you can claim; see How to Break YouTube (Copyright Claim your own video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo

IANAL but it seems to me Alphabet/Google can get in serious legal trouble for it if they continue the system. There are a number of companies who massively submit false copyright claims and YouTube let's them do their business, even though it's easy to check in particular cases that the claims are false. These bogus companies get at least part of the monetization from videos they falsely claim.

Doesn't that mean that Youtube is knowingly facilitating fraud and in some cases - when legitimate content is taken over - even commercial copyright infringement? It seems to me that the only reason why Youtube has gotten away with it so far is that nobody has systematically collected the evidence and sued Youtube in a country like Germany, for instance.

Edit: On a second thought, fraud seems irrelevant. It's about commercial copyright infringement.

There really needs to be a class action suit about this. Google allows Big Content to claim other people's content. Instead of fighting copyright violations, they assist in copyright violations on a massive scale, and deprive artists of income from their content.

The interesting thing is that one idea behind the copyright change in the EU is to alleviate this point. I don't think it'll work, but that's what the politicians touted it as.

It was the copyright lobbyist that pushed for it, so of course it isn't (to alleviate this point)

somehow that explain some other issues on yt, like not only demonetizing the corona virus tagged videos but also other videos on the channel involved

It's also because US law requires companies to excessively defend their trademarks in order to enforce them as a rightholder otherwise they lose it. So really US law has just been interpreted in a way that is absurdly annoying for everyone. Companies have no choice but to defend and actively seek out even minor things because it can all be used against them in court eventually one day. As long as they actively suppress that stuff, it proves to a judge they are protecting their IP. It's really a precedent set by the US government to force companies to waste this time and annoy us.

US law requires companies to excessively defend their trademarks in order to enforce them as a rightholder otherwise they lose it

Copyright and trademarks are different intellectual property concerns with different maintenance, declaration, and enforcement rules.

They are different sorts of protection and rights for different sorts of intellectual property.

All/Most countries that have trademark IPR require the holder to defend that right or lose it. It's not US specific. That's because you get the right to that mark because you're using it and watching for other people not to try to misuse or pass off their product/service as yours.

You are not required to immediately defend copyright, because its a right you hold whether you publish your work or not. You have copyright on something basically as soon as it is fixed in a physical form (written/recorded etc).

Finally, with patents, you're not required to have it in physical form, but you are required to describe it to the patent office in a way someone "skilled in the art" could reproduce. If they do that without getting permission then they have violated your patent.

So your premise in your message is incorrect.

I've seen the point you make about trademarks often repeated but it is infact not true. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/trademark-law-does-not...

I donate to EFF regularly, and I support the article’s premise.

However, I am not sure an argument by EFF, no matter how much I support it, can be considered a factual counterpoint.

Also, I’m bummed to see the parent post downvoted. I thought on HN, downvotes were supposed to be used on off topic/hostile/unproductive points, not just ones with which we disagree.

It is down voted due to being off topic. Copyright and trademark are two unrelated topics.

It is misinformation written in an authoritative tone with no source.

It's considered bad form to lump them together.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html

The article has citations to some rulings that affirm the point it is making. "Wallpaper Mfrs., Ltd. v. Crown Wallcovering Corp., 680 F.2d 755, 766 (C.C.P.A. 1982) (“an owner is not required to act immediately against every possibly infringing use to avoid a holding of abandonment”);"

Downvoting for disagreement has been a long-accepted practice, as noted by 'pg and 'dang.

My bad. I reread the guidelines and FAQ. I must have been thinking of some other forum.

The parent conflates copyrights with trademarks.

If a belief is comfy enough, people won't abandon it :)

However, trademark is not copyright.

It's not a copyright system. Sure, YouTube are required to take down copyright-infringing material as defined by law, but AFAIK they are not required to apply considerations for fair use etc. I'm not sure there's any requirement for them to consider the truthfulness of copyright claims at all.

IOW, YouTube's system may be a response to copyright legislation, but it does not apply that legislation. Appeals to the fair use doctrine are missing the point. The doctrine does not apply since YouTube's actions are not constrained by copyright law.

IANAL, as you can probably tell. I may be wrong about what YT are required to consider, but in that case, I don't see how they can operate as they do.

It's not simply that they don't have any requirement to consider fair use but that there's no incentive for them to do it. If they defend users content that may infringe or may be fair use (the distinction is up to a court, mind you) they open themselves up to secondary liability. If you're a service provider you're probably going to err on the side of claimants and never reject a single one.

Yeah that's the whole point of DMCA, you remove liability by not taking side.

If youtube's automated system detects a copyrighter (eg.) song, the user should be given an option to say "no, it's not copyrighter, or it's fair use, etc", after that, the claim should be forwarded to the copyright owner.

The copyright owner would then verify if it is indeed a copyright infringement, and if they believe it is, and the user still believe it isn't, the case should be brought to some quivalent of "small claims court", where both sides would present their sides, and the loser has to pay some fine (not too large, but still high enough to deter pointless cases.. eg $1000 (to cover the court cost), and damages up to eg. $1000 due to lost views, or damages due to unlicenced distribution).

Basically, make it worth fighting for, if you're sure you're right in what you're doing, and not too expensive, when eg. Sonys lawyers build a multi-year case, destroying you financially, even if you're doing the right thing.

Well, that sounds like something to take up with the legislator, not YouTube.

From another non-lawyer perspective, might it be different since there is money involved? I view it as potentially infringing on some people’s livelihoods.

Again, just spitballing. I have no idea what the reality of the situation is.

part of the issue is that fair use is something that needs to be proven in court

There should be a strike system against claimants falsely claiming videos, just like the users have a strike system. Three incorrect claims and every claim you make will be reviewed by an independent third party (billed to the claimant, of course).

That is so, so hilarious. Any one of those things individually is funny. Together; glorious.

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