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Ask Slashdot: How To Fight Copyright Violations With DMCA?
szyzyg writes "I've created some popular science videos showing how asteroid discoveries have happened over the last few decades. However I've run into a problem with a religious organization which borrowed my video and redubbed it to promote their religious message. Ultimately I filed a DMCA takedown request via YouTube's site, it's as easy as filling in a form and the video was removed. But this organization has since submitted a counterclaim claiming 'under penalty of perjury' that they do in fact have the rights to this work, and YouTube has reinstated the video. It looks like the only way I can pursue this further is to spend the money to take the organization to court and get an injunction, but even if I did so I'd have to pay court costs up front and since they're based in another country I'd have a difficult time actually collecting any money from the other party. It feels like this other group is simply gambling that I won't spend the time and resources to take further legal action, the DMCA is supposed to provide equal protection but the more lawyer you have the more 'equal' you are. So does anyone have any suggestions for how I should proceed here?"
Doesn't mean shit outside the USA. Thank God.
Release another video that shows asteroids smashing into the cultist's church and an undead dinosaur army emerging from the crater to devour their children.
1. Read and understand the law before you try to apply it.
2. Decide if you really want to pull the trigger.
3. Hire a lawyer.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
> borrowed my video and redubbed it to promote their religious message. ...
>
> submitted a counterclaim claiming 'under penalty of perjury' that they do
> in fact have the rights to this work
A religious organization lie? You're kidding me!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
If everybody reading this goes in and makes a dislike of that video and others of that so called religion then at least we made a statement.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I originally found out about this other video after Youtube's content identification system identified *my* video as infringing on *their* video and disabled revenue sharing, that took a month to sort out during which I was unable to monetize my work. (also, I suspect that this possible infringing status flagged my account and resulted in several of my other videos submitted during that period being denied monetization).
Anyway, yes, offended and it cost me a bit of revenue
The video used my name, and picture and implies that my research supports their creationist message.
a problem with a religious organization which borrowed my video and redubbed it to promote their religious message
Re-redub their version to make the group's religious message blasphemous to Islamists.
That should eventually take care of your problem, but there may be a wee bit of collateral damage to the rest of the world along the way, like World War III.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
That's part of the problem sir, they've put my picture on their video and are implying that I'm endorsing their message.
Apparently the religious group is outside the US, which adds another level of difficulty.
But anyway, in general, if you live in the US, and protecting your copyright is really important to you, you should file copyright forms with the US Copyright Office. Although current law says that you enjoy copyright protection regardless of whether you file, it doesn't give you *equal* protection if you don't file. If you file, you can sue for both actual damages and statutory damages. If you didn't file, then you can only sue for actual damages, which are presumably zero in your case. When statutory damages are in play, a lawyer will often be willing to take such a case on a contingent fee basis.
The DMCA sucks, but it doesn't follow that enforcing copyright automatically sucks, or even that enforcing it using the DMCA automatically sucks. Laws are like beer and shotguns; they can be used for both good and bad purposes. I'm willing to contemplate living in a society without copyright, but in such a society the GPL and BSD software licenses, for example, would be unenforceable. Likewise, I'm willing to contemplate living in a society without private property -- but if I tried to implement such a society unilaterally, I'd run into all kinds of problems.
Find free books.
The video used my name, and picture and implies that my research supports their creationist message.
Then you likely have a defamation or publicity claim to add to your copyright infringement claim. Make sure to bring these up at the initial consultation with your lawyer.
It's always been this way. Law is expensive. Lawyer costs, court costs, transport, time off work. Even when the case is open-and-shut, it'll cost a small fortune to fight. This isn't new: It goes back as far as law does. Call it the cynic's golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.
You came here hoping someone would offer you the legal magic bullet - some way that lets you bypass all the expensive bits in between where you are now and where you legally should be. But there isn't one. This isn't even a politically important case, so you can't expect any activist group to come to your aid with money and experts. Basically, you're screwed. You really only have two options:
1. Accept it. Let them have your video.
2. Get MAD. Spend your savings and go through some legal hell. You'll win, easily, but all you will win is petty revenge. The victory will hurt more than just giving up. With a bit of luck you might be able to get them to cover some of the legal costs, but don't count on that even covering all the expenses.
You nailed it. Legal questions in Ask Slashdot are requests for the community's help in performing steps 1 (understand the basics of the law) and 2 (understand the costs and benefits of suing) in order to become better prepared for step 3 (initial consultation with lawyer).
Yes, but you would have to get a prosecutor to take the case. Unlikely they will prosecute a religious organization for perjury when they are in a different country.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Yes, but that would cost money, and while I could probably get damages It would be practically impossible to collect on them.
And possibly easier said than done, given this guy's previous form:
"When Dawkins publicly lampooned the research in the Atlas of Creation (he pointed out that one of the photos of a Caddis Fly was in fact a fishing fly, complete with metal hook, stolen from the internet, pictured), and labelled Yahya a charlatan on his website, Yahya used his considerable influence and battalion of lawyers to sue for libel and have Dawkins's website banned in Turkey. This is just one of thousands of cases he has brought before the Turkish courts."
Lots more here, including lurid claims about blackmail and sex parties:
http://newhumanist.org.uk/2131
When somebody asks you for legal advice on Slashdot, you're supposed to give it. In case you hadn't noticed, simply having an account on Slashdot qualifies you as a legal expert, especially on IP issues. No legal training? No problem!
Those kind of "Slashdotters" are usually a lot more coherent than "Slashdotters haters Slashdotters" like you. ;)
That said, most slashdotters are not against copyright per se, but against the abuse of copyright by corporations, the use of public money to defend their rights while the common citizen have to bankrupt himself to have any chance of having justice made, and the erosion of fair use promoted by those same big corporations.
Your limited capacity of understanding these concepts is what brings you to perceive their opinions as something paradoxical.
Depends on the local jurisdiction whether they can issue an injunction. The good news is that Adnan Oktar aka Harun Yahya probably will not answer a complaint in a local small claims court therefore you would win a default judgment of up to $5,000 or more (amount depends on jurisdiction) which would be all that YouTube would need to take it down and you could also try to seize any advertising funds generated (if any) by YouTube on behalf of Harun Yahya. Plus it might be sufficient cause to get the YouTube user banned since they submitted an affidavit under threat of perjury that they were entitled to use video.
Downsides: 1) They could answer charge and have it dismissed in favor of moving it to a Federal court. 2) Filing fee of ~ $50 (amount depends on jurisdiction)
But then I've always like tilting at windmills.
Another idea is that maybe they have done this numerous times and it involved 5 or more people then maybe you could sue under RICO statutes which might entice a lawyer working on a percentage basis to take the case. Then again, my "limited knowledge" of the RICO statutes make me believe it is under utilized by private citizens which leads me to wonder if I know just enough to sound ignorant.
> This is a civil case. So no, the OP can't spend tax payer dollars to enforce their copyright.
This isn't strictly true. If OP is big enough to buy some congressmen he can, in fact, spend tax dollars to enforce his copyright.
See: RIAA, MPAA
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Thank you, that's interesting and, at least in theory potentially useful to me some day.
(Only had one real copyright claim, someone used one of my images on the cover of their death metal CD and was selling it. No returned phone calls for weeks. Good thing it was the cover, Eventually I DMCA'd the album cover from Amazon's web site, got a call back in *minutes*, whole matter was settled an hour or two later. If they'd counterclaimed, or just used m images inside the CD booklet, ... well, anyway. Weird how these things work.
Anyway, thanks again for the data.
One other thing: The copyright office has an RfC or the like on making a copyright small claims court. I think something like that might be sensible, but IANAL. Anyway, FYI, http://www.copyright.gov/docs/smallclaims/
I'm a nature photographer.