Viacom Yields to YouTuber Who DMCA Counterclaimed

Jason the Weatherman writes "Two weeks ago Viacom charged Christopher Knight with copyright infringement for posting on YouTube a clip from Web Junk 2.0 on VH1 that featured Knight's zany school board commercial. Two days ago YouTube reported to Knight that his clip was back up and that his account wouldn't be punished. What happened? Knight filed a DMCA counter-notification claim with YouTube: something that happens 'all too rarely' according to Fred von Lohmann at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. From the article: 'Almost no one ever files a counter notice. That's the biggest problem we've encountered [with DMCA claims on sites like YouTube]. Most people have no idea that right exists.'"

Comments

No Idea at All

[cromar]

Most people have no idea that right exists.

I certainly didn't. Here's a DIY.

Re:No Idea at All

[Danse]

Most people have no idea that right exists. I certainly didn't. Here's a DIY. Whenever YouTube takes someone's content down, they should let them know that they can file a counter-claim if they believe they are not infringing. They should give them a link like you did. Problem solved.

Re:No Idea at All

[OECD]

I don't think it's so much that nobody knows counter notices exist, it's that most people infringing are truly infringing.

Well, *I* think that most people are just reluctant to open themselves up to the possibility of having to defend that assertion in court. Easier to just let it be taken down (and email it to the people you really want to see it.)

There's also the amorphous nature of fair use and youtube's defacto 'place to post vids' status. If I'm writing a blog entry on a cinematic technique, say the use of a rack focus, I can absolutely put up a clip that shows that technique. But someone trolling youtube might not realize that's why it's there. And indeed, absent that educational component it might indeed be infringing. So how sure am I that the clip will be found non-infringing? Which context will be judged?

That said, it'd be amusing if joeuser@aol.com submits a counter notice about his upload (some awesome video he "found") and then gets sued to high hell since it's "under penalty of perjury" that he asserts there's been a mistake.

That said, I'd love to see someone actually sued over issuing a take-down notice on what is clearly fair use.

A class act

[daveschroeder]

I'd highly recommend everyone actually read TFA (yeah, a possibly futile request), because his reasoned and sensible outlook would do many folks I know a lot of good.

VH1's theft

[dada21]

As many know, I am anti-copyright to begin with, but I wonder why Knight isn't setting up to sue VH1 for "stealing" "his" content and rebroadcasting it.

Not only did they take his content, but they also attempted to defend his content via the (fraudulent) DMCA and call it their own.

Might as well go David vs. Goliath in this case, and settle the score with VH1 for the fully penalty of the law.

Re:VH1's theft

[Why2K]

Perhaps you should have read the article, which answers this very question.

It doesn't look like this is going to wind up in any kind of litigation, and for that I am thankful. If I can die someday without having sued or been sued, then I will die happy. This ends just as I had hoped it would: with the clip back up and, I like to think, with Viacom and me getting to shake hands and move on and wishing each other well. I'll certainly harbor no hard feelings toward Viacom for the past two weeks.

Re:VH1's theft

[AvitarX]

He sounds undisclosed settlement happy.

Though I actually think he is ust over-nice.

Actually

[prxp]

Most people have no idea that right exists.

Actually, most people don't have copyrights over the material that gets pulled off.

Unfortunately, Fair Use Works Both Ways

[eldavojohn]

As many know, I am anti-copyright to begin with, but I wonder why Knight isn't setting up to sue VH1 for "stealing" "his" content and rebroadcasting it. Probably because his assertion that they stole his content is just as laughable as their assertion that he stole their content. Unless they showed the whole thing, there is this concept of 'fair use' and, I'm sorry to inform you, it applies to companies as well as individuals.

If you make your own little film & a company releases snippets of it on their station with commentary (exactly what happened here), they should be protected just as you would be if you took 30 seconds worth of film from a Tom Cruise movie and over dubbed it with hilarious Scientology remarks at opportune times.

Not only did they take his content, but they also attempted to defend his content via the (fraudulent) DMCA and call it their own. I think you should really read up on this. He can counter sue for the damages incurred from them demanding he take it down, maybe even cover his time and any legal fees he had but nothing more than that. And it would be awful hard for him to define a missing video on his YouTube site in terms of dollars.

A disservice to the rest of the world

[Rhys]

Has Viacom (as a corporation) actually learned anything from this exchange? Probably not. They'll go on sending out questionable DMCA violations because most people will roll over and let Viacom have their way with no fight.

I'd much rather have seen him drag Viacom into court and cost them a lot of money -- because that's all that corporations seem to understand these days. Said loss of money would cause them to at least devote 5 seconds of some human's brain time to the question of "is sending out this DMCA takedown going to land us in court and cause us to lose a ton of money" before sending out future DMCA takedowns.

And that, in my opinion, would have been very good thing.

Re:A disservice to the rest of the world

[igjeff]

>Has Viacom (as a corporation) actually learned anything from this exchange?

There's no guarantee that Viacom has actually given in as the title of the article indicates.

Yes, the article seems to indicate that Viacom has backed down, but, unless I missed something, there was no communications from Viacom indicating that they backed down. The communication in question was from YouTube indicating that the content had been reposted as a result of the counter-notice.

Keep in mind that, under the DMCA rules, the service provider has to take the content down when given a notice, but it is equally responsible to post the content again if counter-notice is filed. At that point, it is up to the party filing the original notice to file an actual lawsuit to continue to pursue the take-down of the content. Just because they didn't file a lawsuit and get a temporary injunction to maintain the take-down in the 10 days before the counter-notice takes affect, doesn't mean that they don't intend to continue to pursue this issue.

Perhaps there's more communications that are not yet public from Viacom indicating that they don't intend to push forward with this, but just because the content gets re-posted doesn't mean that they have necessarily given in.

As is so often the case, IANAL.

Jeff

Re:Think of the goodwill

[homesnatch]

Did you RTFA? "YouTube should be commended for notifying their users when they get take-down notices," von Lohmann continued. "They tell you that a notice has been received, and they tell you that you have the right to counter-notice. Not everyone does that."