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"Pixels" DMCA Takedown Even Worse Than We Thought

ForgedArtificer writes: So we all know about the Pixels takedown on Vimeo, and that it was pretty bad in a lot of ways. But did you know that they took down the short film that inspired the movie? Turns out, the 2010 Pixels, which was taken off Vimeo due to copyright notice, was responsible for inspiring the entire Adam Sandler flick. Unlike Sandler's film, it's critically-acclaimed and has won awards. Talk about kicking someone when they're already down. First Patrick Jean gets to watch them violate his work and now they're claiming that his work violates theirs.

13 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. Counter DMCA notice by Todd+Knarr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The situation seems ripe for him to file a DMCA notice against all of Columbia's official film sites and materials. He can prove his film existed before Columbia's was even started, and he has Columbia's admission (in their DMCA notice against his work) that their work is similar enough to his for infringement to occur.

  2. the original intent by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    of intellectual property was to protect the little guy with the good idea from being abused by the big guy with the deep pockets

    the intent has been completely subverted and destroyed and now intellectual property simple serves as another club the big guy with deep pockets can use to rob the little guy with the idea

    the concept of intellectual property, the very notion of it, is completely logically and morally bankrupt, and must die

    now i'm no air head optimist, i may never see it happen in my lifetime. it's a slow change. but remember the printing press led to some radical changes in society. when education became cheap, a middle class grew from the previously illiterate serfs, and this class demanded power, giving rise to modern concept of democracy. it took centuries

    likewise, the internet is going to radically change society. and it will also take centuries for all the implications of a new disruptive technology to work it's way out. just like the printing press

    aristocrats then whined "not fair" like some do today as the changes begin. but on the contrary: the radical changes are all about making it more fair, for more people

    give it time

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    1. Re:the original intent by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Interesting

      the recent shrink of the middle class is awful. it mostly has to do with morons who think socialism is pure evil and the man with lots of money can do no wrong. this will change as more and more feel the negative economic effects of what kind of society this blindness results in

      the nordic countries and canada show you can guarantee people basic standards of living and still be capitalist. capitalism is not automatically full social darwinism. because you won't let people lose their house because they get cancer, or that we educate people born in the ghetto well, does not mean capitalism has been destroyed and evil socialism wins

      it's a retarded false choice believed by people who never think about this issue and act with an almost religious conviction about economic concepts they don't even understand the fucking basics of. the best societies are a *mix*. capitalist, with social safety nets, or socialist, with a capitalist engine. these societies are richest and happiest. the loser miserable societies are the ones that are ideologically "pure"

      anyway, this all off-topic. this topic is not part of the conversation about intellectual property

      we defeated the plutocrats before, in the gilded age, and got workplace safety, work week caps, end to child labor, etc. next we will get government child care, generous parental leave, good wage minimums, etc.

      we will get that, we really will. the morons are dying off or waking up about the mindlessness of cold war era propaganda about "evil socialism." universal healthcare, cheaper (much much cheaper) and better quality care, as realized in canada, japan, germany, australia, france, etc.: all of our fucking capitalist democratic peers, is not the same fucking thing as the USSR with gulags, even though so many brain dead fucking retards in the usa believe this for some low iq reason

      my point is simply: don't be so spooked and grow a fucking backbone. plutocrats are just rich morons, look at donald trump for example. there's nothing to be scared of, we beat the losers before, we'll beat them again. just beat the fucks and stop being such a defeatist weak piece of shit scared of his own shadow

      --
      intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
    2. Re:the original intent by el_chicano · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Socialist: noun. A person who believes that a businessman with lots of money and power will inevitably become evil, while a politician with lots of money and power is incorruptible.

      Not sure if you are trying to be serious or funny but Albert Einstein disagrees with you:

      The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured? [1]

      Nope, to a socialist a "politician with lots of money and power" is a corrupt symbol of free market capitalism, as seeking money and power are the primary goals of self-interested capitalists. Einstein again:

      This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.

      I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals... The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society. [2]

      If you are trying to be serious then you really don't know shit from shinola. Funny you definitely are not.

      [1] [2] Why Socialism?

      --
      A man who wants nothing is invincible
  3. Re:Opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sue them for Libel. There was no infringement and the Onus is that infringement deserve be treated as theft. Sue them for libelous claims that harm your existing work for the sake of their own personal gain.

  4. Not sure what's up, here by dwywit · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I just went to vimeo and searched for "pixels".

    Lots of content with "pixels in the title, including the original short.

    Perhaps someone at vimeo woke up, or perhaps someone at entura has been reading /. or other tech news sites.

    Has anyone got a screen grab of that search returning nothing, or DMCA takedown notifications?

    --
    They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  5. Re:Opportunity by Smallpond · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The 2010 film should file a claim of infringment against the Adam Sandler film and claim rights to all profits.

  6. Re:Opportunity by Nexus+Unplugged · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Let them show the movie in theaters, but display small advertisements below the video with proceeds going to the creators of the 2010 film. Fair's fair, right?

  7. Re:Opportunity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Without knowing exactly what you uploaded, we have no basis to consider if you were actually uploading infringing material or the "copyright owner" was carpet-bombing.

    Like some level of expiry needs to be added to the DMCA, where in a "copyright owner" can not remove content that predates the copyright of the content they say is being derived.

    For example, and I use this as an example that I indeed filed a counternotice for.

    There is a company that publishes covers to songs, like covers that are basically low-grade shovelware covers. They sent a take down to an item that was published in 1988 for a cover produced a band in 2008. I recorded this track off the computer, but it was originally published in 1988, so there is absolutely no way this company has the rights to this track since the company that published the software which generates the track still exists, and they send send their own DMCA's under the ESA to sites that are pirating the games themselves. When I listened to this track off amazon.com I noticed that the cover-band must have also used a MT-32 or similar Roland synth for the first 5 seconds of the track, hence the false content ID match.

  8. Re: Opportunity by DrXym · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The studio has probably figured a way of converting illegal downloads into a tax writeoff. If you want to hurt the studio, just ignore the movie entirely. It doesn't exist.

  9. Re: Opportunity by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's my approach to the new Fantastic Four movie. I've seen it offered already, but I've heard such awful things from those who watched it that I'm not going to waste my time.

  10. Re:Opportunity by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've faced action for copyright infringement on youtube three times.

    The first was pretty clear: I'd used an old cartoon, still copyrighted, to practice video restoration. At the time it was a vault-and-underground cartoon only, not legally available - the uncut version of Steamboat Willie, the version where Micky Mouse savagely tortures a series of animals in order to make music from their agonized cries. About a year later Disney republished it and DMCAed mine - possibly because my restoration was actually better than theirs.

    The second was another thing entirely: Content-ID picked up some 'infringing' music on another video. The music was actually a recording from so long ago it was expired even in the US - recorded 1914, plus the composer was dead more than 70 years at the time I uploaded it. A collecting agency had still claimed they owned it and submitted it to content-ID though, so youtube detected it as infringing. A DMCA notification can be counter-noticed, but not a content ID match: There is very little in the way of appeal for those, it's an almost entirely automated system

    The third was another DMCA notice, though my usage in that case was clearly fair use: I'd taken about thirty seconds from a TV program episode, no sound, in order to make a joke about it. I find it more interesting that the entire episode had been uploaded without permission by other users. This notice didn't come from a bot: I personally offended someone at the studio to the point that, while they didn't bother pulling entire episode uploads, they still thought my joke in sufficiently poor taste to merit removal.

  11. Re:What exclusive rights were bought? by KGIII · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My understanding, from reading a few articles now, is that they licensed ONLY the ability to make a single derivative work. They have no rights beyond their work - including none over the original short.

    --
    "So long and thanks for all the fish."