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More DMCA Censorship at Yahoo!
Thomas Hawk writes "Once again a Yahoo! user has found themselves on the short end of the DMCA stick. Video blogger Loren Feldman recently found that his video mocking (read parody) the Village People and blogger Shel Israel was removed from the Yahoo! service after Scorpio Music served Yahoo! with a DMCA takedown notice. The video in question contained a very brief fair use parody snippet of the Village People song YMCA as performed by a puppet. What's more, Yahoo! threatened Feldman with the termination of all of his Yahoo! services including the revocation of his Yahoo ID."
Oddly enough, my friend had a video removed from Youtube last month of four Robosapien RS Medias dancing to a Village People song.
eclecti.cc
people still use Yahoo?
'Number-memorizing Chinese people.'-Anon
With that kind of attitude on Yahoo's part, no wonder Microsoft is so eager to mate with them.
Finally, Yahoo reveals that the way to delete a Yahoo ID is to commit serial copyright violations!
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Preparing for Microsoft takeover?
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
Put it on Youtube, then Yahoo can't take it down so easily.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Since Yahoo! is in the delicate stage of being bought out by Microsoft, they're trying to avoid any lawsuits that could cause the buying price to be pulled lower. This is probably the reason that they are acting like consummate assholes. Normally the yahoos couldn't care less about pissant grandstanding through dubious legal stunts, but...this is a delicate moment in the take-over process.
Maybe Microsoft is behind this in order to use a barrage of picayune lawsuits as a justification for lowering their bid offer. Goodness knows, Microsoft's staff of eager-beaver Ivy League lawyers do live for this kind of thing.
Unless the Village People own Scorpio Music, it's their handlers getting their panties in a twist and not the performers themselves.
Young man, there's no need to feel down.
...
...
...
...
I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground.
I said, young man, 'cause you're in a new town
There's no need to be unhappy.
Young man, there's a lawyer I know.
I said, young man, who can get you some dough.
You can sit back, and I'm sure you will find
Many ways to ruin others good time.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
You can get yourself mean, you can have a good deal,
You can get folks to settle for whatever you feel...
Young man, are you listening to me?
I said, young man, what do you want to be?
I said, young man, you can make real your dreams.
But you've got to know this one thing!
No man does it all by himself.
I said, young man, put your pride on the shelf,
And just look there, to the D.M.C.A.
I'm sure our legal team can help you today.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
They have everything that you need to enjoy,
You can hang out with all the lawyer boys
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
You can get yourself mean, you can have a good deal,
You can folks to settle for whatever you feel
Young man, I was once in your shoes.
I said, I was down and out with the blues.
I felt no man cared if my band were alive.
I felt the whole world was so jive
That's when a lawyer came up to me,
And said, young man, sign this release.
There is a law called the D.M.C.A.
They can start you back on your way.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A.
They have everything that you need to enjoy,
You can hang out with all RIAA boys
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A
Young man, young man there's no need to feel down
Young man, young man pick yourself off the ground
It's fun to sue with the D-M-C-A
Young man, young man are you listening to me?
Young man, young man what do you wanna be?
you'll find it at the Y-M-C-A
no man, young man does it all by himself
young man, young man put your pride on the shelf
then just go to the Y-M-C-A
young man, young man I was once in your shoes
young man, young man I said, I was down and out with the blues.
My comment has too few characters per line and I'm really hoping that this brings up the average - though I don't know that it will be enough. Apparently not on the first try- though I did bring up the average an entire character. Let's see if this was sufficient. Wow - it did go up another word but still too few. This could take a while. And of course the entire joke is ruined now. But I've got a stubborn streak in me that just kicked into full gear. Holy cow- 26.2 characters per line is not enough. I'm gonna have a novella down here to go with my funny (or not funny - we'll see) lyrics. Or maybe I'll just go down in flames as off topic for this section. Oh the suspense. 28.4 is not enough. For crying out loud. I like Slashdot, I really do, but this is annoying. If there are going to be ads in the comments then I ought to be able to at least post song lyrics - or should I say parodies of song lyrics. And while I hate to play this card, if that's not possible for the hoi polloi, well it'd be a nice bonus for the um you know - paying customers. I mean I don't think that is asking too much. Time to check again. Oh really - 32.6 is too few? There has to be something more to it than that. I've posted lots of comments that were shorter than that. The one I'm looking at right now above mine isn't that long. There must be something else in the formula there. But I'm not giving up. I'm going to keep at it until this thing gets past. On the bright side, no fear of seeing "Slow Down Cowboy!" now is there? I'm an eternal optimist. And I really feel like I'll be making the world a better place once this goes live
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
You really think Yahoo (or any other large webhost/portal) is going to spend the money to have people sitting around all day checking the validity of every single DMCA takedown notice they receive?
Yahoo did what they were supposed to do under the law.
Now it's your turn to file a counter-notice
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
File a counter notice. You've got rights. Exercise them.
They should publish every such request at their front page for everyone to see and for the shame of those requesting the takedown. One box with latest news, one box with latest takedowns.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Again a DMCA notice... this is not the first time it happens to a user. Also non-USA citizens are subject to this crazy law, when they post material on a US based server. Or not even necessarily that it seems, do legal reverse-engineering or encryption related work in your own country, visit the USA, get arrested, it's possible, no? But leave that discussion for later.
What actually surprises me is that there are no similar portals in e.g. the EU. All major portals and sharing sites are US based - Yahoo!, MSN, Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, you name it, they are all in the USA, I can't think of anyone based fully in Europe. And as such they are subject to the US's draconian copyright laws.
This again makes me wonder why none is being set up outside of the US jurisdiction. How about a facebook.de, or a youtube.nl, fully hosted in that country, and incorporated there as well. What is holding the Internet back? It is not that Europe doesn't have the IT infrastructure, on the contrary. It may be better than what's available in the USA. Same accounts for the people. I may assume there as much business sense on both sides of the pond.
Yet all these video-sharing and other creative enterprises on the Internet seem to sprout and flourish mostly in the USA. The world is really a wonderful place.
WOW! Yahoo is acting as if Microsoft already owns them! ;)
The land of the free where you can be sued if you say anything someone dosen't like.
~Dan
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Yours is probably a rhetorical question, and you would know how to find out but..
Del Shannon originally penned (and had a hit with it) in 1961
Lawrence Welk 1962.
the Small Faces in 1967
Elvis Presley in 1970,
the Beach Boys were known to have played it live.
Charlie Kulis 1975
Bonnie Raitt 1977
Just to name a few
a very brief fair use parody snippet of the Village People song YMCA as performed by a puppet.
Isn't "fair use" for a court to decide?
Yahoo! threatened Feldman with the termination of all of his Yahoo! services including the revocation of his Yahoo ID
Isn't it great having everything integrated into one easy-to-use service? Pictures, searching, games, dating services, emai--oh fuck--they just canceled everything in my entire life.
Same goes for Google everything. If one company controls all the services you use, all it takes is one idiot at that company to make your life hell.
There's no place like
Hang on, isn't this (the first part at least) how the DMCA supposed to work? I thought hosts/ISPs had to honour the takedown request and then investigate if a counter claim or dispute was filed so that the host can claim safe harbour.
Thank goodness the UK doesn't have anything quite as bad as the DMCA (yet...)
The bit about terminating services is a bit more extreme, but seems to be some standard practice taken too far - "You've breached part of the ToS by posting breaking a law, so we'll terminate your account" but without the part where they check whether it was a copyright infringement or just another quick DMCA claim.
That's a slightly larger problem than it may seem at first. A Yahoo ID as at the same time an OpenID. People using that account as an OpenID are subject to the whims of Yahoo. I'm not yet sure of the implications this bears, but it will become a problem when people become more reliant on OpenID.
parasight.de
Ya know, it would hilarious if someone turned this around and made a parody of the DMCA by changing the lyrics and setting it to the tune of "YMCA".
As much of a copyright violation that it may seem to be, it would still be *VERY* Fair Use, since it would be a parody.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
DMCA takedown is basically a question from ISP to the content publisher on weather the material is distributed legally. The publisher can just tell Yahoo that the material is legal. In this case, the videos will be restored and subscriber's identity will be made known to the author of DMCA notice to settle the matter in court if necessary. The process is mutual and in fact the issuer of DMCA notice is liable for any damages resulting from the downtime.
Unlike DMCA counter-circumvention provision this is actually a good thing. ISP is off the hook and instead the customer and the purported copyright owner get to give up their claims or duke it out in court if they choose. Genuinely infringing material can be immediately removed from public access, ensuring that say, Photoshop source code does not make it into too many hands before the court battle is settled.
What I don't get is this: I thought the principle behind the DMCA was that Yahoo, on being served a notice, would take down the possibly illicit material, and that the poster could get it back on by identifying himself and taking legal responsibility.
It seemed to me (not an American, not a lawyer) like a good system: the host is responsible in the first instance and takes material down without judging about the illegality (which the host can't), unless the poster takes responsibility and claims it is not illegal (fair use, own work, whatever), and it can be settled in court.
Apparently, it doesn't work that way...? Or does the poster not have the guts to stand up for his right? Or does yahoo go further than required by the DMCA?
Tell me again, how did you guys end up with this DMCA and when do you think you will be rid of it?
See you in court.
Mod this post up, dammit. The performers in the Village People have *never* owned the rights to their music, their videos, or even their images. If you only have the typical /. understanding of the entertainment business, then please keep the vitriol bottled up until you do a little reading, okay? I promise to do the same thing next time there's an article that demands a cursory familiarity with C++ or PHP or Web Ruby on Rails 2.0...
From the level of whining we hear here, you'd imagine that a counter-notice would be a difficult and costly proposition. Here's what's really required:
* The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature
* Identification of the material and its location before removal
* A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification
* Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body.
Doesn't seem too onerous to me. Once you file the counter-notice the rightsholder has to file suit against you within 14 days in a Federal court. I'd bet many of these complaints would just fade away if the rightsholders were forced to file suit in response to counter-notices.
Instead we have people like the OP who decide the best route to contesting take-down notices is to complain in his blog and on Slashdot.
Now there are a couple of areas where the balance between the rightsholders and the alleged infringers might be improved. It appears that, for complainants, perjury only applies to the issue of whether the complainant is authorized to act on behalf of the rightsholder. For the counter-notice, perjury applies to the statement describing why the material does not infringe. If that's the correct interpretation, I'd like to see the perjury clause apply to the actual claim of supposed infringment as well as to the claimant's authorization. Forcing rightsholders to sign the claim of infringement under penalty of perjury might stave off nuisance take-down notices.
Also, while I understand the rightsholders wishes that the supposedly infringing material be removed as soon as possible, I do think it would have been better if the ISPs were required to notify the alleged infringer before the material is removed, not after.
I had less trouble closing my bank account than my MySpace account.
At the same time, I don't like the fact that any idiot can claim ownership of a work and get something that they don't like taken down.
There probably isn't a good solution, at this point, so we have to choose the lesser of the two evils, and I think that the current system is just that.
I guess the real test is whether or not those countries' Free Speech Zones are as big as ours here it the U.S. Seems like a simple way to figure out who's speech is 'free-er', right?
I mean, -where- you can exercise free speech is just as important as what you can say. Here in the U.S. they remove all confusion by placing specific areas (out of the way of any events, for the safety of the people trying to speak freely) around cities hosting political events for us, the Free-est of people, to speak our minds without bothering the REAL important people.