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Dodgey DMCA Use May Lead To 'YouTube Veto Power'
BillGatesLoveChild writes "Bob Cringely reports that an interview potentially embarrassing to Steve Jobs was taken off YouTube. The interview was from Cringely's 1990s show Triumph of the Nerds. YouTube said it responded to a DMCA complaint made by NBD Television Ltd in London. Trouble is, NBD is not the copyright holder. They have nothing at all to do with the show and don't even sell it. PBS, who made and holds the copyright said they knew nothing of the complaint. Cringely tried to contact NBD Television Ltd who wouldn't respond. Neither would Youtube, who only speaks by form letter. 'Why did NBD Television make the complaint? Why did YouTube blindly enforce it? Is Steve Jobs behind this, or is it just another media company misusing the DMCA, at that, not even with their own copyrighted material? Why should a London-based company be able to issue DMCA takedowns, yet not be liable when they abuse the law?'"
You just answered your own question. Someone got them to issue an invalid takedown notice because they can't get in trouble for doing so like any USA company that wasn't Oregon PBS could.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why did YouTube blindly enforce it?
Because they're required by law to. A DMCA takedown request is basically a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information is correct.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Yup...
I've found that DMCA removal patterns are through certain keywords. Company X puts in a few keywords and then sends DMCA takedown notices to everything that shows up in the search.
Maybe the video had different keywords than the other triumph of the nerds clips?
Why does this smell familiar?
The relevant quote is well, so very relevant:
"Ultimately it comes down to taste. It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you're doing. I mean Picasso had a saying, he said good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas and I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world."
Oh, and they CAN get into trouble. A lot of trouble. The ITN network has considerable control over the non-BBC broadcasters, and the BBC ultimately issues the broadcasting licenses themselves. There is also the Governmental broadcasting watchdog, which has the power to fine (and otherwise cripple) broadcasters who break the law. The Listener's Association is nowhere near as powerful a lobbying group as it once was, and is generally highly conservative, but even they would likely rip into a rogue broadcaster like a pack of rabid wolves on speed.
In short, if enough people in Britain actually wanted to kick up a fuss and applied sufficient pressure, anyone involved in the signing of this DMCA application could find themselves begging in Hyde Park sometime next week. Of course, that's if people complain. If they don't and those with a voice show all the verbal muscle of a wet dishcloth, then nothing will get done and nobody should be surprised. Laws are not broken by corporations because nobody finds out (they usually do). Laws are broken by corporations because even when people know, nobody does anything any different, and the corporations know and expect this. Righteous indignation on a blog site may be fair comment, but if that's where you leave it, you might as well not have bothered.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
YouTube are obliged to do this. It's unreasonable for them to track down the copyright holder.
The response is to file a DMCA counter notice, on the grounds that it doesn't infringe NBD's copyright. YouTube will put it back. NBD can then take it up withthe person who posted it.
I'm beginning to wonder if anyone, and I mean ANYONE, could fire off a DMCA request and get something taken down. I bet it'd be fairly easy, since many of these things would come by e-mail, and spoofing a domain in the From field is trivial. And i seriously doubt that most organizations bother to check the validity of such requests. They likely get them, read them in a cursory fashion, and then take the referenced content down.
And perhaps it's time to test the system, preferably on the content of the big media companies and politicians, especially the latter. Once those who support the DMCA find out how easily it can be misused in a way that harms them, then you'll see then have a miraculous awakening to its problems.
"Potentially embarrassing"? Er, how? From TFA:
Yeah, and? Where's the embarrassment?
By the way, does anyone know what time it is?
Take some of that spam-generating software, modify it to generate DMCA takedown notices with the spoofed From: lines they're famous for, and send it to ISPs and major media-sharing web sites. Not that I'm advocating anyone do this...
Right now, a DMCA takedown notice has no cost other than making it. All these fakery would go if the self-declared IP holder had to put some cash on the table. Let's say 1% of the "value" of the infringement.
-If the "infringer" doesnt reply to cancel the takedown notice, the IP holder gets his money back.
-The "infringer" can accept the IP holder declaration of ownership, pay the "value" of the infringement and keep the video up. The ISP keeps the escrow.
-The "infringer" can demand proof of ownership. If his demand cannot be met, he gets the escrow but the self-declared IP holder can sue him for 10 times the "value" of the infringement.
If you put the value too low, you end up licensing your IP. If you put it too high, you lose that amount. Crappy 1st draft, but it is 4 am here and I should be asleep.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
People and coorporations would simply comply to the complaint, on the grounds that doing so would be less of a burden on profits, than not complying to each and every complaint some London based company, for example will present them with.
Here in Canada, someone either supporting, or associated with the opposition Liberal Party is apparently using copyright claims to remove pro-Conservative Party videos:
e ral-party-activists-censoring-youtube-videos-criti cal-of-stephane-dion/
http://www.thepolitic.com/archives/2007/03/30/lib
Although I'm a Tory myself, it wouldn't suprise me at all to see a Conservative or Dipper engage in the same behaviour.
You know what... perhaps we should get a DMCA takedown spamming campaign against YouTube - send out lots of legitimate looking DMCA takedown notices for video that's obviously someone's home movie, and do it over a period of months so the rate's high enough to notice, but not so high that they can obviously spot the erroneous notices without actually viewing the video being complained about. The resulting embarrassment to YouTube when they take down thousands of obviously legitimate videos might make them actually examine the validity of the takedown notices.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
You raise an interesting point. If someone outside of the U.S. web spidered YouTube and generated automated DMCA takedown notice for every single video they see, YouTube would be compelled to honor the Takedown notice.
Result: No more YouTube.
Ok, which brave and just /.er is going to post a link to another copy of the video? Screwtube be damed!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just do what the rest of us did, and download the torrent of 'Triumph of the Nerds', for chrissakes!
Man, what a parasite.
I disagree. This is why the DMCA rocks! This is the only part of the DMCA that I'm actually ok with. It allows copyright holders some means of protecting their content, it allows false claims to be disputed, and it protects content carriers. What exactly is wrong with it?
Lack of obligation for the content holders to check. The fact that there's no compensation for the victim of a takedown if they aren't infringing. The fact that there's a viable weaponif you want something taken down for a short time.
True, there's a lot of legitblargh your mother sucks cocks in hellimate content on YouTube, but then again 90% of it is utter shit anyways. Also consider that YouTube is a US based company, and the US apparently thinks they own everything.
In one case they claimed a photo was copied. We sent them a higher resolution version as proof that we had the original, they send THAT photo to our ISP as proof we had copied (yes he sent them our photo and said it was his and that it was a higher resolution than the one on our web as proof we had copied it!).
We sent our ISP an even higher resolution one (we expected tricks since it was a false claim and so had scaled down the image we sent to the guy claiming infringement) and a DMCA counter notice to give them DMCA protection.
But if we didn't know what we were doing the little shit would have taken down our site. He started this it at Christmas too, the day after the information on our site said we'd be closed for Christmas. Lucky for us we continued to check our email, or he would have gotten our ISP to take down our site unchallenged, all on a false claim.
Lack of obligation for the content holders to check.
... look at the collateral damage being done just from Viacom's efforts alone. Lots of stuff that isn't even owned by Viacom is being taken down because Viacom is incapable/unwilling to verify their takedown requests. They cheerfully admit that a significant percentage of their notices are in error, and when it turns out that somebody else gets hurt, so sad too bad. Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs? I don't think that's right, but that is what is happening.
... and Congress knew what it was doing when it did it. The only purpose being served by this section of the DMCA (well, of the DMCA in its entirety, really) is to line the pockets of IP attorneys. The rest of us aren't getting much from it.
Obligation? Come on, with the rapid-fire way these suits have to be managed for sites like Youtube, you want them to be obligated to verify the complaint? No chance in Hell. Smaller companies would never have the resources to do this. Youtube would have failed long before the Google purchase.
I think you misunderstood him. "Content holder" probably refers to the person claiming to own the copyright (in this case, the London-based firm), not the company disseminating the information (YouTube.) And he's right
This is a case of the law giving way too much Power to the People
The fact that there's a viable weapon if you want something taken down for a short time.
That's fair, but managing copyright is a difficult problem. I'd say this portion of the DMCA got a lot of things right, overall.
Yes, copyright is a thorny problem indeed. The problem comes in when you set up a law that is just sooooo easy to abuse, that can wreak havoc when it invariably is, and when there is zero penalty for abuse. Whenever you remove accountability from any system operated by human beings abuse will occur, with as much certainty as the Sun rising tomorrow. It's human nature and nothing will ever change that, so good law should be written to accommodate that fact. For that reason alone, the DMCA is not a good law.
Put it this way, what is the big complaint the copyright holders (some of them) have with information sharing, either peer-to-peer or a more centralized operation like YouTube? Well, I'll tell you: it's the fact that their legal rights are being infringed with no accountability for those who are doing it. So yes, the DMCA has given rightsholders a weapon, but like the Internet itself it is indiscriminate. Worse, because of the carelessness and irresponsibility of those wielding that weapon, it is having negative effects far beyond its stated purpose.
Congress was far too trusting.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The Cthurch of Scientology routinely sent out mass DMCA claims against web sites which included material that belonged to someone else or were in the public domain. (They seem to be running out of steam on those; worn down by the Internet and rotation of their people through their "ethics" re-education camps. Now they robotically notify Google to remove posts to ARS with Hubbard's OT-III story.) They got an Avagram!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Michael Crook sends bogus DMCA takedown notice to BoingBoing (and others). Chilling Effects DMCA FAQ
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Why did YouTube blindly enforce it?
Because a) they pretty much have to, and b) the law is written such that the burden of proof of copyright is on the claimant, not the provider. Forcing every YouTube-like provider of 3rd-party submitted material to maintain a copyright research office/division is unduly burdensome. The fact that the perjury clause of the DMCA is not being enforced is immaterial to the respective areas of responsibility.
So Gates has no taste and Jobs has no class. Maybe that was news in 1980, but it's old hat now.
You forget that according to the DMCA, someone who issues a bogus complaint (aka takedown notice) is subject to civil liability on behalf of the affected party. In this case and, IIRC, Cringely (or PBS, whoever owns the copyright) could sue the issuer of the takedown notice for $25,000.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
That bit in the subject line - ????
Where in Cringely's article - the only source linked for this story - is there any mention of a "YouTube veto"? Or is the poster simply speculating wildly?
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I haven't seen anything in the DMCA that prevents the victim from filing a suit.
No one should have to 'file suit'. DMCA takedowns are signed under threat of perjury. That's an actual crime, not a civil offense. The Federal government should have, as soon as they became aware of this, required YouTube to turn over the DMCA notice they got, and looked into setting up a grand jury or filing charges or whatever the proper process is.
Of course, heaven forbid the government actually investigate the improper issuing of DMCA takedown notices. They put that in as a pretend check on the DMCA, they never had any intent of actually investigating the open-and-shut cases of perjury that they get handed on a silver platter. A signed document, stating a lie, under threat of perjury. Gee, hard case there. The only defense is mindboggling incompetence, and, despite what some people seem to think, that actually won't save their ass. Companies are presumed to have some sort of minimum level of competence when signing legal documents.
But investigating abuses would require the government going after large corporations that are either a) maliciously claiming they own content they don't, to restrict free speech, which is alright under the Administration's POV, or b) incompetantly claiming that they own content they don't by spewing out letters based on searching on filenames instead of actually checking the content, which if they treated any other legal documents that way...well, it's hard to even conceive how bad things would turn out for them. Treat another large company that way, by filing lies with the government, say with the SEC, to bring up you stock price before a merger with them, and you'll get your ass investigated off.
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Viacom (and anyone else that decides to issue one of those things) should be required to be goddamn sure it's their content being misused: if not, then they are the ones misusing the law and there should be consequences. Should my rights under the law have to be violated so that someone else can protect theirs?
Viacom is required to make sure. They sign those notices, actually, their lawyers do, under threat of perjury. Lying in them, or even being unsure of the truth and saying it anyway, is actually illegal, but, oddly enough, no one actually seems to be filing charges. (And, just ask Bill Clinton, perjury is a much bigger deal when you're a lawyer, as it will also result in the bar sanctioning you.)
But, as we've discovered recently, Bush's Justice Department has 'other priorities'.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
There is a point about the DMCA that may be worth considering, on a personal level, one-by-one, consumer by consumer...
You don't have to buy into it.
Really, you don't.
Its your choice whether you wear the shackles. In fact, its your choice whether you PAY to wear the shackles. The DMCA movement isn't free. Ironically, it isn't being "foisted upon you", it's being SOLD to you.
And you're BUYING it.
Or not.
You see, its really your choice whether DMCA lives or dies.
The power is in YOUR hands, and in your wallet.
Just say "NO" to the DMCA and it will whither away and die like so many other grand plans before it. You don't HAVE to buy that new CD. You don't HAVE to buy that new song download. You don't HAVE to buy iPODs or use iTunes, or Windows Vista, or any of the other garbage the manufacturers are putting out these days to embed and enforce the DMCA.
You can just say "NO".
You can CHOOSE to not buy it.
You can walk away from it.
You can tell your friends not to buy it.
Eventually, if enough people stop buying into the DMCA, the manufacturers will stop pushing it. They don't give a rat's ass about the DMCA, they just care about the almighty dollar. If their products aren't selling their profits will drop. If their profits drop, they'll stop selling what they're selling and start selling something else. That's how it works. We demand, they manufacture. They deliver, we consume. That's the deal. If we don't like what they're pushing, don't buy it.
The DMCA is a VAST unspoken conspiracy between a number of high-level players, including to the degree that they're duped into it, the United States Congress. The conspiracy is to redefine the nature of "media" and "content" and the ideas of "copyright", "fair use", and "ownership", so that a handful of powerful consortiums-- for example, the RIAA and MPAA, but there are others such as Sony, Microsoft, HP, and many, many more-- will benefit wildly from the new content and usage restrictions, and be able to make you pay and pay and pay and pay over and over every time you want to hear music, or watch a movie, or anything else you want to do.
Here's a question-- in the Information age, what ISN'T content?
See?
That's the problem.
Just about anything that you can share, exchange, consider, or talk about is "content" in some form or other. And the WAY that you share it, talk about it, whatever-- is a "medium" which, except for face-to-face communication-- requires "media" to effect.
THAT'S what the conspiracy is all about. THAT'S what these big consortiums want to control. THAT'S where they plan to push you over the barrel and fuck you up the ass-- forever and without the benefit of lubricant.
But they don't have to get together in a back room to collude on this one. This idea is so big.... this method of "sticking it to the masses" is so awe-inspiringly-massive... that all they have to do is embed their individual piece of it into the hardware and software that you use to communicate and exchange ideas, do a little lobbying here and there to get Congress to go along-- and voila! Total consumer fuck. They win for a very long time and you lose.
You have little ideas.
You have tiny brain.
You have selfish interest.
You don't care what happens tomorrow.
You just want to use your DCMA toys and media RIGHT NOW and to hell with what it means in the larger view.
You will wake up one day in their world, bound to their command, and playing their tune (which you bought, downloaded, and installed faithfully on your DMCA gadget) and will be stuck paying through the nose and miserable until you die.
Or...
You can think about this, make up your own mind, and if you want freedom, if you want exchange, if you want control over your own ability to communicate and exchange ideas and anything else-- you can wake up to what's happening. You can say NO GODDAMNIT, NO!!! You can walk away. You can change
Come on, with the rapid-fire way these suits have to be managed for sites like Youtube, you want them to be obligated to verify the complaint?
Best parody of a DMCA proponent ALL MONTH!
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
I can't believe nobody has pointed out yet that a valid takedown notice must, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 512(c)(3)(A) include, among other things: (v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. This makes it a CRIME for me to send a takedown letter to someone demanding they take down something I don't like in which I do not own the copyright. In addition it makes the takedown notice invalid on its face. Either the takedown notice in question was facially invalid, or subject to prosecution for perjury. If they are in England then they could be prosecuted by the british gov't or extradited to the US for prosecution.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
but, oddly enough, no one actually seems to be filing charges.
So, in effect, they are not required to make sure. Doesn't matter what the law says, if it's not enforced then it is meaningless.
Big media has been showing so little regard for United States law that this doesn't surprise me one bit. Bush's Justice Department is anything but.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
But it's okay to do behave in that manner when interacting with human beings, as human beings rarely have the courage to do anything about it, and the government won't care if you do so.
True, although I'd say it isn't necessarily courage that is lacking (most people get pretty riled up when dumped on by a bunch of jackasses) but a comparative lack of resources. The DMCA gave companies a really easy way to screw people over, but didn't give individuals any corresponding power to fight back, as you said. The DMCA is completely unbalanced, much like the folks that signed it into law.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is why the DMCA rocks!
Hi Sonny. Back from the dead are we?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Sign up for an account at youtube, and click UPLOAD YOUR VIDEOS. You'll get a bunch of warnings about not uploading any video content that you have not created yourself. So, the uploader was already at fault, he broke the terms of use by uploading the video in the first place, and was warned that it would possibly be removed.
I bet YouTube receives some 10,000 DMCA takedown requests a day. You can't expect anyone to investigate every single DMCA notice.
Then again, YouTube will happily leave any video up until someone asks them to remove it, or they'd lose 95% of their content, and all that would be left is the 15 year old emo kids talking shit to their webcams.
The DMCA gave companies a really easy way to screw people over, but didn't give individuals any corresponding power to fight back, as you said.
It's not supposed to be individuals fighting back. It's supposed to be the Federal government bringing these lying asshats up on perjury charges.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
get the entire video:
t he+Nerds
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Triumph+of+
Absolutely, so far as Viacom's lawyers are concerned. But like you said, I don't think that was ever meant to happen.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I, the undersigned, claim that the parent post made by Tatarize (682683) infringes on my copyright of the word "the"
I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the infringing web pages is not authorized by my registered copyright and by the law. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is inaccurate and that I am not the copyright owner of an exclusive right that is infringed.
Signed
h2g2bob
What about this?
http://wendy.seltzer.org/blog/archives/DMCA.html
You can always sue them for slander and defamation. A proper DMCA notice requires that they say that they are the legal copyright holder and that the posting is a violation of their copyright rights. If that's not true, then you can sue them for making a false statement that causes you problems.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Idiot. Mod the parent down.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Hey idiot, the berne convetion is NOT US law.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
They are not required by law to accept the word of non american liars.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Youtube is in the US.
Very good!
It's not me that's having trouble getting it.
If you don't understand that he says the DMCA is not a law which governs the UK, then yes you have.
I notice that jd hasn't said my reply wasn't relevant.
Did you also notice he hasn't said my reply was irrelevant? Perhaps doesn't return to old threads.
You might need to consider that you haven't understood either his or my posts.
You've had ample time to prove that objectively (instead of fabricating things not written)
Have the last say if you want, I'm not even going to read it.
Very mature.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating