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Comment by jessaustin | Hacker News Reader

...even the remotest chance that a content creator might sue YouTube for enabling copyright infringement.

Does this happen often? Ever? How does one sue a firm that never has humans available for interaction with the public? One suspects this is the motivation they'd like us to credit, because they have other, less defensible, motivations.

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Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube, Inc. is basically what caused Content ID to come into existence, despite being ruled in Youtube's favor. It was going to go to appeal but a non-monetary settlement was agreed upon, which is why it's believed that Content ID came from that.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viacom_International_Inc._v._Y....

Are you asking if a Record Company would sue someone on the Internet for copyright infringement? They are rather famous for doing so, and more than that, for asking for extremely large settlements. Sometimes calculating the "damages" in completely ridiculous ways like multiplying every view by $50,000.

Don't forget what happened to cdrom.com. Literally sued out of existence because they allowed people to upload their own music to the cloud. They couldn't even share it, it was just uploaded to the cloud. Business completely destroyed.

The way cdrom.com worked is you would upload a fingerprint of your music. Then if they already had a track that matched the fingerprint, they would link that to your account and not require you to upload the whole track. So this was technically not within the scope of what is allowed by copyright law, which is why they got in trouble.

Which is kind of strange how when something is "technically" a violation, even if it is within the spirit of the law (or equiv. to what is allowed), the copyright hammer comes down. Whereas when something is "technically" NOT a copyright violation, the hammer still comes down (such as that company that used a bunch of tiny TV antennas to stream broadcast TV over the internet to other markets -- each customer was "renting" one of the dedicated TV antennas and using the internet as a "long cable". Or the company that would dedicate a DVD player to each customer and stream movies across the internet, again claiming the internet was just a "very long cable". They both got shut down hard even though they weren't "technically" in violation).

The whole "they're not physically your bits" argument never made a lick of sense. They never would be after you uploaded them over the Internet.

The whole case depended on the Doctrine of First Sale not applying to CDs, so that's what the courts agreed to. The record companies could have gone after second hand record stores, at least the ones that sold CDs, if they wanted to at that point but it was kind of unnecessary because they were already dying.

The reason why cdrom.com was sued out of existence was that it became trivial to simply publish directories of fingerprints and upload massive numbers of fingerprints into your account and get access to music you never bought.

So if they had an algorithm that would ask for a unique fingerprint (say by sampling random parts of the track), then they would have been in the clear? Or, more accurately, would the record labels have been more likely to strike a deal if that was the case?

The record companies wanted them dead. There was no negotiating. Remember this was back before iTunes. They saw streaming as only a threat.

In USA civil courts the wealthier party typically wins. Alphabet is going to be the wealthier party in most cases. Certainly more than "cdrom.com". This was one of the advantages cited back when Google purchased YouTube.

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/poor-people-dont-stand-a-c...

So why does Google bother with the false-positive heavy with draconian penalties ContentID stuff then?

Oh, because Record Companies are still bigger than people who create content for YouTube.

Yes, "why" is a great question to ask, because ISTM Alphabet benefits from being able to blame an essentially unappealable process while it curates content uploaded to its platform by creators. I'm a rancher, and like Alphabet I prefer not to get in extended arguments with my livestock.

If blame for the excesses of curation couldn't be offloaded to third parties, creators could form a class for enterprising attorneys.

Sure, it's also good to have a ready defense against litigious record companies, but large firms don't have to have just one reason for doing things in particular ways. It is easy to imagine an alternative to the "ContentID" system that would be less capricious and would still make record companies happy.

I think it mostly boils down to business loss that they would otherwise incur if they set themselves against those companies and thought them tooth and nail (the actual lawsuit cost would be insignificant). Meaning, no Google/Youtube Music deals with Viacom and potentially other RIAA members.

I think you're thinking of mp3.com. Cdrom.com is the Walnut Creek FTP site.

Fwiw, you sue in public courts where Google loses by default if they don't appear. Google does not yet run its own parallel court system and star chamber.

EDIT: On second thought, if their services require binding arbitration, they do. Arbitration in contracts of adhesion should be flatly illegal.

Would a copyright owner who doesn't use YouTube be subject to such binding arbitration? Presumably such an owner could hire a third party to discover hypothetically infringing content?

All parties involved would have to have agreed in writing to binding arbitration, so yes any non-party can do whatever they want.

EDIT: IANAL and this is not financial advice. ;)

I don’t think people realize how companies/people use binding arbitration to their advantage?

These companies pay the arbitrators. It’s usually done by mail, and their usually is no investigation into your case.

The little guy wins only in egregious situations, and I have never met anyone who won especially going up against a big company?

I get arbitration agreements for small companies, but not for huge monopolies, and scummy high interest rate card it cards.

I had a run in with Columbia Credit Services, and still have a judgement following me over a credit card. Someone decided to look into the arbitration process of this company, and something like 99.9 percent of the time the customer lost. Even hired process servers whom would lie about serving the papers. All over a credit card sent in the mail.

(Judgements last 10 years, and can be renewed. They tick away at 10% per year, if the creditor can’t immediately your life miserable, and take your stuff with a warrant.)

I think it can be okay with companies large or small if the contract is something that is negotiated with real opportunity for making changes like removing such agreements. Arbitration when done with the real consent of both parties and with the choice of a neutral party that isn't expecting more business from one of them can save time and money. However, it's tyrannical for both large and small companies to just force these things on people regardless of how vulnerable their business model is.

I'd note that it has never occurred to me that arbitration would ever have been in my own interest.

> How does one sue a firm that never has humans available for interaction with the public?

You don't sue a company by contacting customer service. I'm pretty sure they need to have some official representative on file somewhere, and you could probably serve them the lawsuit by sending a certified letter to their official address.

The bigger barrier is Google/Youtube almost certainly have an arbitration clause in their terms of service.

The copyright owners are terrified by a new medium they don't understand for the most part so they extract their rents the way you know how.

I made a dumb mashup containing spoken words and a song, I'm not sure whether that is fair use or not, but it got copyright striked for infringing upon something like "test song #3" by some record label. I couldn't even find out what that was.

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