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Google Deal Allegedly Lets UMG Wipe YouTube Videos It Doesn't Own
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."
You just have to remember that everyone has different views on what is good and what is evil. So they are following their belief. Just because it's evil to you doesn't mean it's evil to them.
I produced corporate videos. We properly licensed a piece of classical music for online use in a video from a major orchestra who specialise in tracks for companies such as ours.
When the video was uploaded Youtube slapped adverts all over it due to a copyright claim from UMG.
Our complaints and appeals to Youtube were ignored and in the end we ended up having to change the music. We even had assurances from the orchestra itself that UMG had no claim at all
Seems to me Google was using the "give them enough rope to hang themselves" strategy.
The problem with all this bickering over copyright is that, outside of tech circles like slashdot, the general public doesn't give a damn. The media companies, by definition, always have an open mic to broadcast their side of the debate to the public. The opposition does not have this luxury, at least not without paying for it. So they have to resort to stories which are juicy enough to overcome the pro-media bias of the press, and get them to run it. "UMG has power to censor your YouTube videos!" sounds like a pretty successful result in that respect.
The alternative would be for Google to fight the media companies in the courts, to be decided by judges and juries who've been indoctrinated by decades of single-sided "piracy is stealing" brainwashing. This is no longer a legal fight - the media companies have pretty much won that and have the law on their side. This is a public policy fight. The public needs to be educated why the pendulum has swung too far in favor of copyright holders, so that they pressure their legislators to change the law.