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Man Licenses His Video Footage To Sony, Sony Issues Copyright Claim Against Him (petapixel.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mitch Martinez creates high-resolution stock video footage, and then licenses it out to people who need footage to go along with their creative projects. He has written an article at PetaPixel explaining his bizarre interaction with Sony Music Entertainment, and the hassle they put him through to fix it. Martinez licensed one of his videos to Epic Records, and they used it as background for a music video on YouTube. Less than two months later, his original video on YouTube was hit with a copyright claim from Sony. After figuring out that Epic Records was a subsidiary to Sony, he disputed the copyright claim — which is usually the end of it. But after reviewing the videos, Sony rejected it, saying their claim was still valid. Martinez then tried to contact the person at Epic Records to whom he issued the license. None of his emails got a response. Then he had to get in touch with Epic's legal department. After a lengthy series of emails, voicemails, and phone calls, he finally got somebody to admit it was his video. It still took a few more calls to work out the details, but the company finally released the copyright claim. Martinez concludes by offering some tips on how to resolve such claims.
I did not see it in the snippets of his license agreement, but I think that people should put something in such as: "if licensee claims ownership of the work in any form (including DMCA take-down notices) and fails to remove such claim within 24 hours of being notified at , this license shall terminate immediately and licensee shall lose all rights granted by this agreement."
Sony's lawyer didn't immediately back down because Sony might have taken an exclusive license.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
He got in touch with someone who sorted out the issue.
That's not the point. He filed a copyright dispute response with Youtube, including a quote from his contract explaining why he is in the right on this issue. And after that he just got a note:
A day or so after filing my dispute, I checked the status of the claim on YouTube and found a status update explaining that "The claimaint (Sony Music) has reviewed their claim and confirmed it was valid"
So Sony was apparently not required to substantiate any of their claims (at least not to him) even after he filed a counter-claim with evidence.
So the process is not biased at all...
That's a good idea, but there's something else interesting. DMCA is under penalty of perjury, and he has documentation to prove it. This is the point at which you send them a settlement letter. Especially if that contract had the clause you mentioned, if it goes to court, then SONY is not in a happy place.
If SONY loses the license, then every view from then on is an instance of copyright infringement. That's stupid amounts of money. Courts tend to look down on such clearcut cases of perjury too.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Sony is a massively complex company, such that they have sued themselves over DMCA issues before. Literally one division has no idea what another is doing.
Samsung's rise in the 80s and 90s was fueled in part by a mission to destroy Sony. That was their driving goal, and they have in fact succeeded with that mission and then some. Part because Samsung is that good, but also because Sony literally invents ways to shoot themselves in the head.
Sig for hire.
The real question is whether he got the $150,000 for wilful copyright infringement form Sony, that Sony lobbied to have put into law.
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