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Blender Foundation Video Taken Down On YouTube For Copyright Violation
An anonymous reader writes "As if the automated take downs on Youtube weren't already bad enough, today fans of the popular open source 3D software Blender were greeted by a copyright take down notice for their third open movie, Sintel, despite it being released under a Creative Commons license: 'This video contains content from Sony Pictures Movies & Shows, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.' It is believed that the takedown was a result of Sony Electronics adding Sintel to their official 4k demo pool."
https://cloud.blender.org/goos... For only 224 USD you can be in the movies credits. Others have to work their ass off to get into a movies credits, so if your name is not too offending to anybody this is a done deal ;-)
Of course there are also cheaper deals.
Nuff said.
There needs to be a law against this. Sony should have to pay restitution to Blender.
IANAL, but shouldn't this qualify as perjury? Sony needs to certify in their automated DMCA request that they, in fact, own the rights to the content in question, under the penalty of perjury. Someone really needs to take the big studios to court for this sort of abuse, otherwise it won't stop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
"... falsely claiming you own someone else's copyright"
Every "enhancement" and change they make drags it down further.
I call bullshit on this one. Since Youtube was taken over by Google, server speed has increased immensely, they've moved to HD, they've removed time limits on videos, they've allowed live streaming of shows, they've given away hundreds of millions of dollars through the partnership program they introduced (including many shows that are simply vlogs)... Et cetera.
However, the linking of Google Plus to Youtube does indeed suck.
YouTube was great until Google acquired them. Every "enhancement" and change they make drags it down further.
I don't agree with your opinion, but really this has little to do with the issue at hand.
It's the DMCA takedown laws that allow this.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
When the DMCA was being debated it was assured that there were very strong penalties for incorrect takedown notices. Then the goalposts shifted so that "it didn't really mean it" became enough of a defence to escape those penalties. People who warned that this was going to happen were told to remove their tinfoil hats.
That's not the only problem I have with how the DMCA turned out but it's a start. Takedown notice spamming is like putting a speeding ticket on every parked car you see.
There needs to be financial penalties for false takedown notices. Right now there is no cost in automated sending of takedown notices.
The proper term is "Slander of Title". Basically, Sony claimed the Protected Work was theirs wherein they're merely licensing it for their 4K demo content. Under CC Attribution 3.0, they can't claim anything as their own work, they have to attribute the content to the original rights holders, and can't place any additional restrictions on the further publication of the content (i.e. You can't tell someone to do a takedown on the content, either as a DMCA or as a reciprocal agreement as Sony has with Google on YouTube. Violates the restrictions clause and attempts to claim sole rights over the content- you can't claim sole rights over your derivative work per license which would be the only way you could legitimately do a takedown.)
This means they are no longer licensed to the content in question.
Each and every copy they distributed or intend to distribute of the protected work in question, Sintel, is now a willful copyright infringement on Sony's part. Seems to me that the Blender project needs to retain counsel and sue for the Statutory Damages for this...which amounts to $150,000, per each copy done without licensing.
There are, but conveniently enough you have to file your own suit against them rather than the government enforcing it.
Google fights authority for lots of things. In this case, they happily worked on non-trivial content-tracking and content-scanning code and subsequently handed over the keys to the YouTube kingdom to the MAFIAA.
Why? Because Big Content is now also distributed on YouTube. Google gets a piece of that action. That wouldn't have happened if Google hadn't agreed to clamp down on even the most borderline and questionable copyright claims possible.
Here's an example: my company wrote, directed, filmed, and edited a music video for a lesser known artist who is a friend. We did it pro bono because he is a friend. We posted the video to YouTube and he started using it successfully to promote himself and get more appearances. He's not making any money, but he is increasing his exposure and the hope is someday it will help him get somewhere. In the meantime, the video is garnering views on YouTube and we had it set to monetize. Our aim was to offset our investment even in the most minor way possible. The medium sized publishing company that he used to distribute his track turns out is owned by a bigger publishing company. That bigger company claimed they owned the copyright on the video. Google happily revoked our right to monetize it and gave us the option to take it down or let the bigger company monetize it. There's no one you can actually talk to at Google to dispute these things and it's all automated and played according to rules designed solely to favor the big content companies that revenue share with Google for hosting their commercial YouTube channels.
Since the publishing company didn't enter into any contract with us to produce a video, we don't stand a chance to get any money. We can take down the video and thus hurt our friend, or we can demand he pay us, which also hurts him, or we can leave it there and the publishing company, which didn't spend a SINGLE DIME to either write, record or produce the track (they just distribute it, and their reward is a cut of the sales), and which didn't spend a SINGLE DIME to write, record, or produce the video... just gets to sit back and monetize the video. It's peanuts to them. Shit, it's peanuts to us and wouldn't undo the time and money we put into the video. BUT IT'S THE FUCKING PRINCIPLE!
All thanks to Google buying YouTube and then not only not fighting the fight it should have fought, but actually working intentionally to hand it all over to the bad guys.
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
Sorry, to clarify: our friend has even spoken with the publishing company. They say they have no control over it. Google just automatically flags content that includes songs that are in the database as being owned by different publishers. Short of paying to get lawyers involved, and everyone loses except the lawyers if that happens, there is no way to alter this automated madness!
Asking people to think is like asking them to buy you a new car
"You wouldn't steal a handbag...
"You wouldn't steal a car...
"You wouldn't download a movie...
"But it's okay to claim someone else's IP as your own... if you're Sony!
The proper term is "Slander of Title". The rights for Sintel do not belong to Sony, period. They're re-using it under a Creative Commons license, but they're NOT the rights holder and they basically claimed they were with this little stunt. I'd think that the damages might fund several shorts or at least one or two feature length Blender movies.
And now Sony cannot legally use the Sintel short. They broke the Creative Commons license by claiming ownership, which severs the license. Any and all use of the Sintel short by Sony from now on is unlicensed, i.e. pirate copying.
And no, there is no provision in the CC license for sayihng "oops" to get the license reactivated. They are in breach, and need to get a new license from the copyright holders before they can continue using it.