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YouTube Defending Select Videos Against DMCA Abuse

Posted by timothy on from the where-bread-is-buttered dept.

Galaga88 writes: It's not a complete solution, but YouTube is going to begin stepping up to defend select videos in court on fair use terms, including covering court costs. Will this help stem the tide of bad DMCA takedown requests, or just help the select few YouTube doesn't want to lose? From the blog post linked: We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns. With approval of the video creators, we’ll keep the videos live on YouTube in the U.S., feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them. ... In addition to protecting the individual creator, this program could, over time, create a “demo reel” that will help the YouTube community and copyright owners alike better understand what fair use looks like online and develop best practices as a community.

8 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Defense will be based on advertising dollars by nitehawk214 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Google and Youtube really does not care about fair use or the legal rights of their users. All they care about is advertising money. Now that there are some alternatives to Youtube, big channels are threatening to leave if the flood of false DCMA notifications does not stop.

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    1. Re:Defense will be based on advertising dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Google and Youtube really does not care about fair use or the legal rights of their users. All they care about is advertising money. Now that there are some alternatives to Youtube, big channels are threatening to leave if the flood of false DCMA notifications does not stop.

      Google and Youtube are doing the right thing. Does it matter if they are doing it for the right or wrong reason?

    2. Re:Defense will be based on advertising dollars by grimmjeeper · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The point is that there will be quite a number of fair use cases that end up not being defended in large part because the video (or the channel it's in) doesn't make any money for YouTube. Not only that, they'll probably throw some money at less-than-fully-legitimate fair use videos only because the video (or the channel it's in) does make money for YouTube. For better or worse, It's all about the money.

    3. Re:Defense will be based on advertising dollars by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He doesn't have to sway people's opinions as it pretty much matches the situation. There are more and more alternatives to youtube popping up that don't let people rip off content creators by sending false DMCAs or false claims against videos to block advertising revenue the content creator should have received (Due to the whole fair use issue - so many instances of people getting claims on their videos because they even -mention- a game.)

      If Google cared about fair use, they wouldn't have the system they have that assumes large businesses are the only ones that can be trusted simply on their word, while the little guys have to jump through hoops to prove their innocence. (Which generally means jumping through hoops to get the big company to admit they were wrong.)

      Now that people are starting to abandon youtube over this bullshit, they actually have to act like they care. And that's what they're doing.

      tl;dr: If google cared, they would have done this YEARS ago when they were effectively the only game in town.

  2. rights should not depend on a Corporation charity by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That's what this is - a large corporation deciding to charitably pay huge amounts of money to defend it's customer's rights.

    While I understand their desire to do this, we need a legal system that does it automatically.

    Most privacy violations are clear. No one puts someone else's songs up there 'accidentally'.

    If all DMCA cases, we should have loser pays rule. Right now, the poster can be required to pay huge damages, so why shouldn't the claimant be required to pay double the court costs.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  3. This won't help by dottrap · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This isn't going to affect anything. DMCA abusers still have financial incentives to continue abusing (by automatically diverting ad money to themselves on claimed videos) and have no financial disincentives to stop doing this. If it gets to the rare point where Google does step in, they can just release the video in question while simultaneously continue abusing a thousand other videos.

  4. Fair use? Best practice? by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why the heck do you think we bought that law? That's about us being able to dictate what can and cannot be shown and at what terms, get lost with your "fair use" bull! The DMCA was helluva expensive, you can't take that away like that, who do you think you are?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. Re:Between a rock and a hard place... by GuB-42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Google had no choice.
    Originally, YouTube was fueled by piracy, but content owners didn't really care : low quality videos and YouTube didn't have enough money to make a lawsuit profitable.
    It changed the instant Google bought it. The content owners, now realizing that behind YouTube was sitting billions in cash quickly turned to Google and basically asked for their share. Google had no choice if they wanted to keep the service and not run it at a loss.