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A Second Lessig Fair-Use Video Is Suppressed By WMG
Bios_Hakr points out an ironic use of the DMCA: for the second time, a video tutorial on fair use that Larry Lessig uploaded to YouTube has been muzzled. This time the sound has been pulled from the video; last time the video was taken off of YouTube. (Video and sound for the new "webside chat" can be experienced together on BlipTV.) Both times, Warner Music Group was the party holding copyright on a song that Lessig used in an unarguably fair-use manner. TechDirt is careful not to assume that an actual DMCA takedown notice was issued, on the likelihood that Google's automatic copyright-violation detectors did the deed. "The unintended consequences of asking tool providers [e.g., Google] to judge what is and what is not copyright infringement lead to tremendous problems with companies shooting first and asking questions later. They are silencing speech, on the threat that it might infringe on copyright. This is backwards. We live in a country that is supposed to cherish free speech, not stifle it in case it harms the business model of a company. We live in a country that is supposed to encourage the free expression of ideas — not lock it up and take it down because one company doesn't know how to adapt its business model. We should never be silencing videos because they might infringe on copyright."
The contents of this post have been removed because they *might* harm some company's profit margin, and we know that in the USA, corporations are WAAAAY more important than people.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Are there any Youtube alternatives that don't take content down so easily? With HTML5 and the video tag I imagine it would be a lot easier now to create something like that.
Internet decentralization is good, and we need to take advantage of it and not put everything on Google's servers (and not put everything on Microsoft's servers, and not put everything on (insert freedom-loving startup based in Sealand here)'s servers) so that internet freedom doesn't rest on a single pedestal. Single pedestals can be brought down, but a million can't.
"Freedom of speech ... .. does not give you the right to use someone's property to express it."
Yes, you are right. It is copyright law that gives the right, in the circumstance that the use qualifies as "fair use".
Thank you. Free speech isn't for allowing you to say whatever you want in a video that's being hosted by someone else. YouTube has every right to take down the video for absolutely no reason other than they don't like his face, if they so desire. Free speech means that the government is the one that simply cannot go to YouTube and tell them to take down the video without certain circumstances. Is it right that corporations have more ability to muzzle people than the government? I don't know. My opinion is that neither should be able to, barring defamation of character or other malicious speech.
However, that's currently beyond the scope of free speech as commonly enshrined in the laws of countries. It only applies to governmental abilities.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
No. Google is still allowed to take down any videos they want on YouTube, regardless of their status as fair use.
We live in a country that is supposed to cherish free speech, not stifle it in case it harms the business model of a company. We live in a country that is supposed to encourage the free expression of ideas — not lock it up and take it down because one company doesn't know how to adapt its business model. We should never be silencing videos because they might infringe on copyright."
I think it's quite obvious what's going on. The new sacred cows of America are not free speech, individual pursuit of happiness and safety from tyranny, but corporate profits and dictating morals to others.
Sad, really. Well, there's still hope that maybe the US won't make Churchill into a liar when he said that America always does the right thing - after it tried everything else. But it's not looking good.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
That doesn't mean that they can tell you its illegal and remove it.
Its like this, I own a billboard company, I can choose which advertisers can and can't advertise on there. However, it becomes a bit tricky if I say "I can't print this, this is illegal" when its not. Of course Google can do whatever they want to, the problem is, they are saying something is illegal when its not.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The problem is, they do this because of copyright law, not because they want to.
No, their automated system is saying "this might be illegal", the user does have the right to challenge it, I have and won before (in one, google claimed a nine inch nails song was copyright, and yes the version released by the record company was, I used the version from remix.nin.com, which is creative commons licensed).
...
It is when the reason for the suppression is a law. That is, they (ostensibly) don't really "want" to do it otherwise. If you can't grok that even a little bit, then shut up and let the citizens talk.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Irrelevant. Talking about freedom of speech as it relates to private companies is taking the argument in the completely wrong direction. The guy basically crippled himself by bringing up freedom of speech.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
The whole DMCA thing really needs to be revisited. The penalties for false declarations aren't cutting it. It's pretty bad when someone can cause you grief by filing a false DMCA notice on material they don't even own the copyright to to try to stifle discussion! It's the new version of a SLAPP suit - far cheaper, since it only takes an email, and lots of people cave in immediately because it's not worth the hassle, or because they don't want their hosting provider to decide that their business just isn't worth it, even though they've done nothing wrong.
The summary says, "...used in an unarguably fair-use manner," but the problem is that there are no definitions of fair use that can't be argued. There are guidelines, but the only way to determine that a use is fair is to argue it in a court and prevail. Sure there may be uses that are so clear cut that a reasonable person would agree that the use is fair, and prior case law helps guide decisions, but try asking a lawyer to confirm your use to be fair use, and you'll rarely get a clear answer.
I'm not saying this is not a case of fair use, but in having a system where the one way to be certain is to go to trial is going to lead to conservative behavior in users of content.
>.. does not give you the right to use someone's property to express it.
Yes it does. It's called the fair use doctrine. Without which there would probably be no academic papers at all. There would be no movie or book reviews. There would be no informed criticism at all. There would be no parody.
Bad troll. No cookie.
People who modded you up are tools.
--
BMO
Not so sure about that. It's a free service, they can certainly remove the video. It's their servers. I am not playing Devil's advocate here or anything, but a lot of these protestations about Free Speech are concerning activities that are happening on private property . I have a problem with telling YouTube that it must host content, any content, regardless if I agree with it or not.
What I do have a problem with is when the DMCA is abused. If WMG used the DMCA to attempt to force YouTube into taking down the video, that is a different matter entirely and one that falls into oppression and suppression of Free Speech. It's not just YouTube either that is harassed in this fashion. Plenty of web site owners, hosting providers, ISPs, get this bullshit all the time in an effort to suppress Free Speech, transparency in government, unpopular speech, etc.
We don't know if this was YouTube's decision (within their rights) or simply a reaction to DMCA take down requests by WMG (They decided to cave in to the demands more easily than we would like).
I fail to see how YouTube is not within it's rights to do any of this.
AFAIK, they are not doing that at all. That's what confuses me so much about this. I get notices all the time:
They never actually stated it was illegal. Only that there was a possibility it was. I was not told I had to do anything either.
I have received hundreds of these notices as well, and to date, I have not had any videos removed at all. This probably is *not* the automated fingerprinting at YouTube doing this. I would bet it is a reaction to a take down notice.
Even if they did state it was illegal, when it was not, how is that 'illegal'? I assume that is what you mean when you say, 'they can't'? Or did you mean to say, 'they shouldn't'?
People and businesses have a right to be stupid and say stupid things. Not libelous or slanderous things, but they have a right to say wrong and stupid things. We can also take our business elsewhere too.
In the end, I would not give so much grief to YouTube about this. They are just trying to survive in a corrupt in inequitable environment. What I would do is write a letter to WMG telling them that you have decided to not give them any business at all, and stick to your guns .
It's called subcontracting. Let's assume that the government does not want people to do X. But it knows it can't legally outlaw it. For example, to listen to a political commenter they dislike (say Glenn Beck or John Stewart, depending on who's president.)
So instead they subcontract out the work to corporations. So they give people the right to sue a corporation for huge amounts of money if they insult gays, liberals, etc. / conservatives, religions, etc. (depending on Beck or Stewart)
Indirect enforcement is still enforcement. And that is what this is. This is a corporation doing some that the government wants, in order to avoid fines for failing to do it.
It doesn't matter that government is doing this indirectly. The corporation are removing content out of fear of lawsuits. They are NOT doing it for their personal profit/political views/etc. etc. This makes their actions proxy for the government. Free Speech rules apply.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Wow, look at all the fascists who came out to play. You guys fucking creep me out.
It helps if you actually read the Constitution. It only keeps the government from interfering with free speech of the citizenry. You can yell, write it on paper, whatever. But as soon as you use a private media outlet to stand on your soapbox, you are at the mercy of said media outlet. If the media outlet was owned by the govnernment, that would be a different story. Although, lately it is hard to tell the government from the corporate media.
It's not irrelevant. If it wasn't for the threat of government force being used against Google, they wouldn't be taking down (hardly) any videos.
Congress is involved in this. Congress did things which caused this to happen, and Congress making some pretty common-sense changes to the DMCA's notice/counternotice procedures for handling liability issues, would make it stop happening. All they have to do is put a price/deterrent on sending fraudulent DMCA notices, and this chill on speech that they created and is manifested on private servers, would be lifted.
It's a free speech issue.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Wait, what? The corporations are formed of people. These people have the same right to freedom of speech as you do, and in their house they have the right to say "my house, my rules. Don't like it, leave". Freedom of Association I think it's called.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
And so far they've never been found guilty of it because they've been able to stretch the meaning of "in good faith".
They haven't been found guilty of perjury yet. In Lenz v. Universal, on August 20, 2008, Judge Jeremy Fogel held that sending a takedown notice under OCILLA without giving the first thought to whether the use of a work is a fair use is misrepresentation:
I got it wrong, I thought that Free Speech was a right that could not be abridged by anyone, not even a Corporation.
Yep, you got it wrong.
The Bill of Rights* says absolutely nothing about what individuals or corporations can do. It limits what the Government can do through the laws it passes. So, no, sorry to burst your bubble, but Free Speech is not a right that "could not be abridged by anyone, not even a Corporation." "Free Speech" is a guarantee that the Government shall not pass any laws that prohibit speech. It does not guarantee you a corporate-built, corporate-owned, corporate-maintained forum to say whatever you like, whether or not the corporation that runs the forum likes it or not.
Now there is a contract involved with YouTube the EULA and thats what give them the right to abridge your freedom of speech, They don't have the right, outright to do anything they want to muzzle speech. They have a prior legal agreement with the poster on You Tube.
Ummm...yeah. You just contradicted yourself there, dude. If, as you claim, Free Speech is a right that cannot be abridged by anyone, then a contract abridging your Free Speech would be null and void, since such a contract would, in that case, be prohibited by the First Amendment ("No one, not even a corporation can abridge it", remember?). However, since that is most definitely not what the First Amendment says, then such a contract is valid, and YouTube can pull any video it wants, with or without reason, and there's squat you can do about it except complain and try to raise enough groundswell of public opinion that YouTube relents.
Just be clear about your rights.
Now that I agree with.
*Disclaimer: I live in the U.S. and I have no idea where you live. Therefore, my arguments above may or may not apply in your jurisdiction. Furthermore, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. Use your own judgment.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?