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."

Comments

And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[InsightIn140Bytes]

And Google is helping them to abuse little guys. "Don't be evil", huh?

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[NatasRevol]

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

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

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[cpghost]

Soon enough, Big Content will own the companies that own the intertubes, so yeah, they'll do as they please. That's our Achilles' heel: we, the public, don't own the infrastructure, i.e. the roads. Of course, we could always piggy back an encrypted p2p network on top of commercial carrier backbones, but it will always remain a matter of goodwill from the backbone operators (and their corporate overlords) whether and how long we could do that.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Pieroxy]

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.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[jeffmeden]

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".

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[tgd]

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.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[LordLimecat]

When the actions of the service owner directly contradict the very NAME of the service in question,

So they changed it from a series of tubes to a dump truck?

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Jesus.

I guess their obligation is to absorb infinite lawsuits on behalf of every kid who puts music on their videos?

How about you go start your own corporation and run it on good intentions.

Complying with DMCA would prevent that. If this is true, Google have gone much much further in allowing UMG direct access to bypass due process and practice arbitrarily censorship on Youtube users. If you think that is fully in line with boasting about having much better values than competitors, not doing evil, and that Google shouldn't be kept to that claim when making it, then I guess we disagree about that.

"Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains." (Google Founders) ..."the slogan was "also a bit of a jab at a lot of the other companies, especially our competitors, who at the time, in our opinion, were kind of exploiting the users to some extent.""

And if true, I would put money on it being part of some larger commercial faustian deal with UMG. Can't see any other reason why they should go along with something like that.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[LWATCDR]

Actually this may be a very good thing. Talk about giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with.
The Megaupload video is so not important. Them taking down the TWIT video podcast really could be a freedom of the press issue and one that overrides their agreement with YouTube.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[jeffmeden]

When the actions of the service owner directly contradict the very NAME of the service in question,

So they changed it from a series of tubes to a dump truck?

Bingo. And not just any dump truck, one of those asshole dump trucks that drives around dropping 2" pieces of rock out the back and has a sign affixed to it proclaiming "Not Responsible For Broken Windshields".

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[oldlurker]

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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_be_evil: While the official corporate philosophy of Google[4] does not contain the words "Don't be evil", they were included in the prospectus (aka "S-1") of Google's 2004 IPO (a letter from Google's founders, later called the "'Don't Be Evil' manifesto"): "Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains."[5

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[s73v3r]

they claim that they believe that you can make money without doing evil.

Apparently they've decided that it's not worth the trouble, though.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[TheRaven64]

More importantly, I'm a little surprised that this doesn't open them up to more liability. I was under the impression that the DMCA's safe harbour status only applied to site that didn't actively police their own content. If they do, then they fall under the same rules as a publisher and are liable for wilful commercial infringement.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Solandri]

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".

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.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Frankie70]

Freedom of press? What freedom is it that grants people the right to use storage paid for and served by google?

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[AtomicJake]

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

For the evil the good is evil.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[Megaweapon]

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.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[MikeMo]

Actually, there *is* a universal definition, whether we agree with it or not. We just don't know what that definition is.

Re:And you think the DMCA and SOPA are bad.

[AmiMoJo]

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?

And so it begins...

[SJHillman]

This is the start of UMG's war against cats doing funny things

Re:And so it begins...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think they are quite that stupid. Cat videos are the primary purpose of youtube (from the viewer perspective) and a loss of cat videos would have serious backlash to all parties involved.

If people are forced to torrent for cat videos, they will quickly learn how to get anything else that way.

Re:And so it begins...

[Anonymous Coward]

People would quickly realize that using a torrent for "cat" videos might pull up an entirely different kind of "cat."

Re:And so it begins...

[tgd]

This is the start of UMG's war against cats doing funny things

If they can stop mine before, say, 6am, I might change my mind on this whole thing ...

Again and again

[bonch]

Again and again, Google proves that it's beholden to the big content publishers and does everything they ask. "Don't be evil," indeed.

Re:Again and again

[Anonymous Coward]

We outsource evil is more catchy.

Re:Again and again

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

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.

Re:UMG is screwed

[InsightIn140Bytes]

How would it bite UMG in the ass? They made a deal with Google. You should blame Google for making such deals when they aren't required to.

Multiple interpretations?

[danaris]

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

Re:Multiple interpretations?

[Uhhhh oh ya!]

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.

Re:Multiple interpretations?

[ShakaUVM]

>>I have to wonder if Google would agree with this.

Why wouldn't they? If they're rational, they'll takedown every video as soon as they get a complaint from a major rightsholder, regardless of the merits. From a purely business and legal perspective.

I watched pretty much the entirety of the SOPA hearings live yesterday, and the people opposed to it (Lofgren D-San Jose and Issa R-Vista, mainly) pointed out the weakness in the takedown regime. Basically, if an entity responds to a takedown notice by taking it down, that ends any threat of legal action from people with real legal budgets. Regardless of the merits of the notice.

This creates a scenario where big rights holders can basically put a bullet into an website they don't like - Lofgren referenced a website taken down for a year (with no compensation or even charges filed) for copyright infringement for showing a video that they had permission for. The RIAA asserted copyright - when they did not, in fact - but nothing happened to them.

When they made a proposal to the SOPA amendment to adopt a loser-pays system if the claim is found without merit, it was shot down by that fucking idiot with the fucking idiotic name Goodlatte because he didn't want to disincentivize people from filing takedown notices. When Issa (and some other gentleman from California whose name I can't remember - Chaffetz, maybe) pointed out that there would be a veritable flood of copyright notices, Goodlatte and Lamar Smith said, yes, that's what we want to see have happen.

The real kicker was the debate over SOPA granting immunity to intermediate agencies for taking down websites. In other words, if Visa and your ISP cut off your website due to the unproven allegation of infringement, they are immune to any damages resulting from it. But if they don't comply, they will have to risk legal action. Issa and others rightly pointed out that there needs to be some sort of counterweight to this, otherwise unproven allegations by the RIAA will give them the power to turn of every web site in the world (from the American standpoint).

Here's the fucked up bit: Mel Watt (D-North Carolina) rose in opposition to this amendment, saying that the current bill only granted immunity to ISPs if they were issued a court order, and that was the correct way to do it. Issa countered by saying that, no, that's actually what my amendment does, but thanks for agreeing with me that that's the right way to do it. Mel Watt: Uh, I'm still opposed to the amendment, as it's not necessary. It was the most outrageous example of bullshit I've ever seen, and I spend a fair bit of my life following these sorts of things. Fuck Mel Watt - he needs an honesty implant.

Everybody needs to get on board with this and write to their representatives to kill SOPA once it passes committee (as it looks like it will).

This is preposterous

[Laxori666]

Youtube alternatives?

[sageres]

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.?

Tortious interference

[ZombieBraintrust]

If they don't have a copyright claim wouldn't this be Tortious interference? From Wikipedia

"Tortious interference with business relationships occurs where the tortfeasor acts to prevent the plaintiff from successfully establishing or maintaining business relationships. This tort may occur when a first party's conduct intentionally causes a second party not to enter into a business relationship with a third party that otherwise would probably have occurred. Such conduct is termed tortious interference with prospective business relations, expectations, or advantage or with prospective economic advantage."

Re:That would be surprising

[ironjaw33]

I would be amazed if Google truly signed an agreement with UMG that allowed UMG to basically shut down YouTube whenever they wanted. If there are no limits on UMG's ability to take down videos, why don't they just take down all the videos and eliminate youtube permanently?

UMG probably didn't want the public to know. If they took down everything, people would find out, protests would ensue, and ultimately Google would remove this "feature". However, my making it appear that the takedowns were a result of DMCA claims, nobody would be the wiser. Of course, they would have to selectively remove content, but they were probably removing a lot more than they could get away with using only the DMCA.

It's like the codebreaking that went on during World War II. The Allies had gobs of actionable intelligence but they couldn't act on everything because the Axis would know the codes were broken and switch to something more secure. The Allies resorted to stuff like planting a guy floating in the water with a suitcase full of secrets as a cover for how they learned what the Axis doing.

Yes?

[Rydia]

I'm astounded that people are, uh, astounded by this possibility. Do you seriously think posting things on YouTube is a right? The site is a service provided by a corporation and is almost certainly awash with "secret" agreements, just because of the subject matter of the site and how popular it is. I use sarcasm quotes for secret because Google has no obligation to disclose its contractual relationships with third parties because you, the user, aren't party to them.

Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty skeezy agreement, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that YouTube is different from any other business asset. Its operation is governed by a load of inter-party contracts, it is controlled with no external oversight, and it exists to make money. The only difference is that we are now both the resource and the consumer, and I don't think people have quite internalized the logical conclusion of that relationship. Google doesn't owe you anything or exist to safeguard some specious rights. Everything between you and them is business, nothing more and nothing less.

Re:Which is more powerful?

[Lunix Nutcase]

What law is being violated if this isn't using the DMCA? Since when does Google have any legal obligation to host your videos? They can remove any video they want for any reason they want.

Best Part of TFA

[TheSpoom]

But more importantly, Universal argues that its takedown is not governed by the DMCA in the first place. In a statement supporting Megaupload's complaint, CIO Kim Dotcom had stated "it is my understanding" that Universal had invoked the DMCA's notice-and-takedown provisions.

That is the best name for a CIO ever.

Antitrust Grounds.

[MickLinux]

Just theoretically ... not knowing what I'm talking about, I might guess that MegaUpload probably has a basis for claiming that they are competition. Such a secret agreement, if it existed, would be in violation of antitrust laws.

It wouldn't give you anything against Google, probably, but it definitely would give you something against the media overlords.

The thing to do, actually, would be to search out all *others* who had similar problems, if they existed, and file a joint lawsuit. No, not class action -- only the lawyers benefit from that. Just a joint lawsuit.

Restraint of Trade, and/or Libel

[billstewart]

Megaupload is a business, and this video is basically an ad for them. UMG is claiming that they've got an agreement that lets them shut down content they don't like, and they're using it to shut down ads for their semi-competition, similar to paying a newspaper or TV station not to carry ads for competitors. IANAL, and I don't know how strong a lawsuit that gives them, but it should at least be enough to subpoena the shutdown requests and the alleged agreement between UMG and YouTube. If the shutdown requests allege violation of copyright, then they're also on the hook for libel.

Re:UMG is screwed

[LordLimecat]

Its a private website, Google is not required to host your content, nor to be unbiased about what content they show, nor are they forbidden from shopping your videos, or taking them down, or deleting them, or killing your whole google account if they want.

You need to take a step back and remember that "free video hosting by google" is not a constitutional right.

It's not trumping the DMCA, it's parallel

[billstewart]

This alleged agreement isn't in conflict with the DMCA. The DMCA says that if you own some copyrighted material, and service provider's customer puts up content that infringes it, and you allege that it's a copyright violation, the service provider has to take down the content to avoid having you sue them, and if the content provider counters that it's not a violation, the service provider can put the content back up without risk of you suing them, until you give them more paperwork to make them take it down again. (I think "more paperwork" is defined as some kind of copyright infringement lawsuit against the alleged infringer, but I haven't looked at it in a while.)

UMG is alleging that their agreement with Google lets them demand that content to be taken down without there being a copyright violation. You can't do that, because you don't have that kind of agreement with Google and you don't have a law that lets you do it. It's not in conflict with the DMCA, though it may be in conflict with common sense or "not being evil", and UMG may be using it in ways that count as restraint of trade or are otherwise illegal or unethical, but that's not the DMCA's problem.

Re:UMG is screwed

[s73v3r]

Why wouldn't Google have the right to take down content on it's websites at will?

By doing so, they have demonstrated that they can exact editorial control over the content of videos. Meaning that they are now responsible for the content of every single video posted to YouTube.

Re:That would be surprising

[s73v3r]

Since google is required to respond to DMCA takedown notices anyways, does this even change anything?

Yes. Under the absolutely shitty terms of this agreement, the user is not allowed to respond like they are under the DMCA.

All of the big labels have this access

[Tekfactory]

It took me a while to find this story

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/09/13/1811250/Hotfile-Sues-Warner-Bros-Over-Abuse-of-Takedown-Tool

The record labels were caught abusing the anti-piracy tools that Google gave them to police their own content.

UMG

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:UMG is screwed

[shutdown -p now]

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.

Don't be evil to your customers

[Frankie70]

The full motto is 'Don't be evil to your customers.'.

UMG is their customer - Google isn't being evil to them - so where's the problem.

I like to SMASH things!

[Anonymous Coward]

one of those asshole dump trucks that drives around dropping 2" pieces of rock out the back and has a sign affixed to it proclaiming "Not Responsible For Broken Windshields".

I love those asshole dump trucks!
Every time I see one, I throw a rock through their windshield.

Re:UMG is screwed

[DeadCatX2]

Taking down content at will which does not infringe on copyright means they could lose safe harbor protections because they are no longer a mere conduit for user-generated content.

And what is really mindblowing...

[X.25]

...is the fact US government probably can not remove a video from Youtube like this (and without generating huge shitstorm).

But a corporation can.

Welcome to the bright future.

from a YouTube spokesperson

[walterbyrd]

Our partners do not have broad take-down rights to remove anything they don’t like from our service. In limited cases, if they so choose, and based on exclusive agreements with their artists, partners can take down live performances.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111216/01463417102/explanation-why-umg-may-be-right-that-it-can-pull-down-megauploads-video.shtml