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Google Deal Allegedly Lets UMG Wipe YouTube Videos It Doesn't Own

Posted by Soulskill on from the sounds-about-right dept.

Sockatume writes "Ars Technica is reporting that Google has given music conglomerate UMG the right to arbitrarily eliminate YouTube videos. When UMG had Megaupload's 'Mega Song' removed from the site, it was assumed that they had made a DMCA claim, and that YouTube was responding under its 'safe harbor' obligations. Megaupload's legal response argues that UMG has no grounds to request a DMCA takedown. However in court filings (PDF), UMG claims that its licensing agreement with Google gives it the power and authority to unilaterally wipe videos from the site, bypassing the DMCA entirely. If true, that means that your activities on YouTube are not just curtailed by the law, but by the terms of their secret agreements with media conglomerates."

12 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Big Content doesn't need a law to shut you down.

    1. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by NatasRevol · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or how about Google changes their motto to reflect their reality.

      http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    2. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Since you did put the link up, you should have read it.

      They don't claim that their motto is "don't be evil", they claim that they believe that you can make money without doing evil. It is different.

      --
      Write boring code, not shiny code!
    3. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by jeffmeden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sweet Cheeses, indeed. When the actions of the service owner directly contradict the very NAME of the service in question, yes it becomes more than "lacking good intentions".

      The DMCA has provisions to let UMG and Google settle their disputes without a single lawsuit, but Google (apparently) chose the path of least resistance, giving the content enforcement job to a media company that does not have the user's best interest in mind. Certainly not "dont-be-evil" no matter how you cut it. If the cost of compliance on Youtube is too great for Google to bear, there has to be a better solution than just giving the keys to the castle away to a media company so they have free reign to take what is billed as a free and open video sharing site and turn it into "whatever UMG thinks you should be able to watch".

    4. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by tgd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Anyone who believes a "don't be evil" tag from any public corporation is fooling themselves, especially a corporation whose entire reason for existance is advertising. *You* are not their customer. You are a product they sell to their customer -- something its always good to keep in mind with these companies.

      And, as they say, the customer is always right.

    5. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by Megaweapon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you relativize "good" and "evil", you end of having nothing.

      For the evil the good is evil.

      Good and evil *are* relative, unless you have some sort of universal definition that everyone can agree on.

      --
      I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
    6. Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad. by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You would think that with the popularity of YouTube Google could just tell UMG to fuck off and remove all their content from the site, then simply process DMCA requests as they come in. Companies want to be on YouTube because it's where the cool kids hang out, and if they don't play nice they can take their ball and ram it up their cock.

      Seriously, why are Google pandering to these crooks when they hold all the cards?

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Multiple interpretations? by danaris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have to wonder if Google would agree with this. It's entirely possible (given that we do not have access to the agreement in question) that by one interpretation, it does allow UMG to do exactly that—but that this was never Google's intention.

    It would be really fun to watch Google bring out the actual agreement and show how it doesn't, by a reasonable reading, permit this.

    (And yeah, I know it's also possible that Google did, in fact, intend this, but in general, that seems unlikely, as it would be simply stupid for Google to allow something of that nature without heavy, heavy restrictions on it.)

    Dan Aris

    --
    Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
    1. Re:Multiple interpretations? by Uhhhh+oh+ya! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have to agree, I wouldn't be surprised if we are only getting part of the story. It wouldn't really make sense for Google to give someone the power to delete any video they saw fit, and obviously that's not how its being used seeing as this is the first mention we have heard of this secret deal. It seems more likely that they gave UMG delete privileges on the grounds that they only be used on things they have copyrighted. Some mindless office drone at UMG made the mistake of deleting it and Google didn't catch it in time to restore it.

      Google has learned that creating a quality product without being sued is not an easy task and sometimes you have to shake hands and play nice with other corporations. There are groups of people who flag videos as inappropriate just because they don't like the message in it and yet no one called Google evil for giving stupid people sitting at home the ability to get videos taken down.

  3. Youtube alternatives? by sageres · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can anyone recommend any Youtube alternatives that are just as fast and free storage and at the same time will not be bullied by UMG / MPAA / etc.?

  4. Re:Again and again by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect that when your core business depends on building massive caches of copyrighted materials(for what one would hope is a non-infringing purpose; but search engine databases aren't exactly a fully litigated area...), with some side businesses in youtube, Google Books, etc, etc. Team Content is able to make some interesting threats regarding decades of potentially catastrophic legislation...

    Now, lest I be misunderstood, I think that the fact that what are commonly thought of as free venues for expression are, on the internet, sometimes governed by secret contracts between unaccountable corporations is rather sinister(it'd be like living in a city where all the sidewalks were privatized and the nearest business given the power to have their rentacops eject somebody from their patch of sidewalk for any reason); but also a more or less inevitable result of the fact that there are no 'natural commons' on the internet. Everything that is 'on' the internet is there because somebody's server is powered up, connected to the net, and responding to HTTP requests. Every last inch of 'the internet' correlates to a piece of private property crunching data somewhere. The only hope, really, is to make it easier(with things like bittorrent, or distributed caching mechanisms) for little people to easily and economically set up their own chunks of the internet...

    As for the 'don't be evil' though, do you really think that Google wants to take anything down from youtube, or give anyone a cut of the ad revenue on something they spent money serving? Why would they do that? It would be foolish to expect Google to stand up for you any more than their bottom line dictates; and that may not be very much at all; but I'm not seeing the motivation to reduce the supply of youtube ad-fodder unless their hand is being forced in some way. If they wanted to make youtube smaller, they'd just delete stuff themselves, it'd be trivial.

  5. Re:UMG is screwed by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This, by the way, very nicely shows how oppression works in a corporate-dominated words. There's no government censorship, everyone is just exercising their right to control their private property. It just so happens that all effective soap boxes are private, and building your own that would reach any significant audience is prohibitively expensive - and, in the meantime, you'll be drowned out long before you can make a point and be heard.