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Dodgey DMCA Use May Lead To 'YouTube Veto Power'

Posted by Zonk on from the stab-him-in-the-back-from-the-front dept.

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?'"

3 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Everyone can be a copyright holder! by ISurfTooMuch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Everyone can be a copyright holder! by hax0r_this · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This, is brilliant.

      I don't mean to suggest anything, but hypothetically, someone could go through and compile a list of politicians who support the DMCA, then find any content helpful to their campaigns on YouTube or whatever, and spoof takedown notices for that content. Then go to the politician's own website, find any videos they have, and send the politician himself takedown notices for those, preferably in the name of the politician's constituents. Then go the site of any organization which supports the politician and spoof more takedown notices in the politician's name. This way you create a huge mess for said politicians to clean up, and all as a result of their beloved DMCA.

      Not to suggest anything of course.

  2. Re:"Potentially embarrassing" by BillGatesLoveChild · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's not the 'Potentially embarassing' part Cringely refers to, which is Steve Job's "Good Artists Copy, but Great Artists Steal" quote. Mildly inconvenient if you're in a Patent Law suit. But there is a funny story behind the part you cite. Jobs *did* feel embarrassed about that (for different reasons), and called up Gates to apologize. It went like this:

    Jobs: "Bill I'm calling to apologize. I saw the documentary and I said that you had no taste. Well I shouldn't have said that publicly. It's true, but I shouldn't have said it publicly."
    Gates: "I'm glad you called to apologize, Steve, because I thought that was really an inappropriate thing to say."
    Jobs: (smirking uncontrollably) "You know it's true, it's true you have no taste."

    Andy Hertzfeld (Original Mac Programmer) was there when the call was made: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/001 .html