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Pop Artists Support Megaupload; Universal Censors
New submitter TheSHAD0W writes "Several well-known artists, including P. Diddy, Will.I.Am, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West produced a song in support of the site Megaupload, recently targeted by law enforcement as a 'rogue site.' The music video was gaining popularity — until YouTube received a takedown notice from Universal Media Group, claiming it violated their copyrights."
There's a brief article about him on Wikipedia. He's an old hacker who made money by inside trading and later set up the Mega* sites brand with Megaupload, Megavideo and Megaporn along others. On Google Video there's 6 years old video when he goes to Monaco grand prix and spends $10 million over the weekend for all kinds of parties.
:-)
He's been awfully silent lately, but lately he bought NZ$30 million mansion from New Zealand and got residency there. After that he sponsored $500,000 fireworks for capital of NZ in celebration of residency.
Looks like they contracted the producing of that song to Printz Board. Wonder how much he paid for that. And you say sites like The Pirate Bay and Megaupload "barely get income to pay for hosting"
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Don't these people understand that all music belongs to the mega music corporations? This of course includes music videos as well. They have a lawful right to profit from all music anyone anywhere makes.
What does it have anything to do with UMG blatantly missusing take-down notice system?
They are not the copyright holders. They get raped by the copyright holders.
Don't blame the devil for doing bad things with your sole after you sold it to him.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
people do all sorts of desperate things when they are weak or stupid or poor
it is those who do things out of evil that still deserve and always did deserve your blame
shifting blame from the devil, in fact, is exactly how the devil works, and you fall for it
you blame the girl for being raped because of the dress she wore, not the rapist
you blame the poor for not having health insurance, rather than the rules about healthcare put in place by the rich corporations
you blame the musician for signing away things he didn't understand when he was a young dumb kid with a catchy tune and stars in his eyes
no: you should always blame the devil, you shouldn't blame the victim. or you fail at simple morality, and you fail at logical coherence. and the devil depends upon people like you to do that. meanness and cruelty defines a society when it is dominated by people would rather overlook the actions of evil, and point their hate at the weak
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It looks like besides Universal needing to be taken out back and educated a bit, YouTube needs to make some process adjustments as well:
Considering the already ripe-for-abuse design of the automated takedown notice-response system, there should be a catch in their system to track notices and disputes on a single video, and at the very least the automated takedown system should be suspended on a video while it is being disputed... or if that can't be done, at the very least it shouldn't be able to be re-taken-down by another notice from the exact same party that is currently being disputed. That's just common sense.
The next obvious thing for youtube to do is track parties filing complaints and the number of undisputed and disputed claims they have, as well as the outcome of disputes. For example, if a party has filed at least 10 claims, has had at least four of them disputed, and has not successfully defended at least 75% of their claims, their infringement requests must then be manually reviewed by youtube staff before a takedown occurs. These numbers would be on a rising tier, where the burden of sincerity rises with claims filed. (at least 500 claims, requires at least 95% successfully defended to avoid manual review) This would allow small groups a little more leniency in the process, while making sure the heavy hitters didn't get away with any significant abuse. It's american legal tradition to place the burden of proof on the accuser, and what we have right now here is more of a guilty-until-proven-innocent, repeatedly, and that's just doubly-wrong.
I'd like to see some statistics though - this may be a rare incident - if UMG files 1000 takedowns a day (a large number to be sure, but not really that unreasonable considering their and youtube's size) and of that less than 2% of those get disputed, and less than 10% of the disputes are found to have merit, then maybe UMG really isn't being that much of an ogre here.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I'm not arguing that he isn't. I'm arguing that UMG still shouldn't be allowed to use illegal means to harass him, something that you're trying very hard to ignore.
Is it illegal? I think the only person saying that so far is Kim, and you seem outraged by abuse of power where as I see it as business as usual.
If he paid for the artists to perform, the music and lyrics are completely new and not copied from some previous song, then yes, it is illegal as UMG doesn't own the copyrights to them. You may see illegal DMCA-takedown requests as "business as usual", but that doesn't make it right.
If this abuse bothers you so much what are you doing about it?
I'm not a multibillionaire so there's nothing I can do about it.
I noticed thatguywiththeglasses.com is running a campaign against it too, on the grounds that under SOPA a studio could have their site shut down for an insulting review. It wouldn't be the first time they have run into copyright issues - the review of The Room has already been pulled after the studio threatened to sue.
but is it truly illegal?
Issuing a DMCA-takedown notice for content you don't own copyright to is illegal, yes.
Then why worry about it?
Ignorance is bliss, eh?
Yes, it is.
Fraudulently issuing a DMCA takedown request is illegal, and they've done it twice now over this video. If this video contains nothing that UMG can claim a copyright on, then they have absolutely right to issue a takedown.
Just because you don't like the rappers and Kim has a criminal past doesn't make what is happening to them any less illegal or wrong.