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Copyright Professor's Lecture Removed From YouTube Over Sony Content-ID Claim (torrentfreak.com)
ShaunC writes: William Fisher, a professor of intellectual property law at Harvard, posted to YouTube a lecture titled "The Subject Matter of Copyright: Music." In discussing the complexities of music licensing and cover songs, Fisher played several short clips of music by Hendrix, Santana, and others. Sony responded by having the lecture removed from YouTube, ignoring any fair use protection in excerpting works for educational purposes. While the video was restored after public backlash, most YouTube users don't have Harvard Law School backing them up. Once again, a company has issued overreaching copyright claims with no penalty or consequence for harming an innocent party.
and yes PEOPLE, not corporations, but the people making these false claims the system will remain the same.
hail corporate!
While DMCA is not likely mentioned, it likely is involved. And the reason there is no penalty is because Sony only needs to prove that it is a copyright holder, not that the video that was taken down is actually in violation of copyright.
So the solution is simple. The professor should post some cat video on YouTube, claim copyright, and then file to have every video from Sony removed via a DMCA request.
Hopefully with the whole Harvard Law Faculty behind him he can get away with it and show how broken the system is.
Need to pay the legal bills + any back ad revenue for any false claim.
Harvard needs to send the bill to google.
Google did exactly what the law requires them to do. Sony made the false claim, they should be the ones that pay the penalty. And also the people in government who created something as broken as the DMCA.
If someone legitimately infringes content they eventually cut off your ability to upload content. Why can't they do the same from the other direction? If someone issues too many bogus claims they lose the ability to issue more claims.
It is that simple, if an account has the right credentials a far more stringent process should be used to scrutinise their content if there is a complaint, and that process should be designed to ensure the rights of all parties are fully protected.
Save the automated kill scripts for Mr. Fakename and his 2 week old account.
Right now, Youtube takes the video down as soon as a DMCA claim is made against the video. One of the biggest issues is that youtubers depend on the ad revenue which is lost when these bogus DMCA claims take the video down (or worse, they redirect the ad revenue to the company that made the false claim).
The solution is to give the author of the video some time to counter-claim that the video is not infringing, without automatically taking the video down. That or punishing the company that made the false claim. Either works, the later probably would work better, but it would be hard to enact in practice.
If you claim a) you own copyright or represent the owner of the copyright on a particular Jimi Hendrix song, b) the defendant copied the song (in part or in entirety), c) the part of the song is not valid fair use, and d) the defendant did not secure permission before copying, the only claim subject to perjury charges is a). As long as a) is true, issuing a take-down notice even when knowing one or more of b)-d) are false has no consequence.
The movie and music industries got vastly more than their money's worth with our copyright laws, including the DMCA.
If you want to fix it, you will have to vote out the entire House of Representatives and get the law changed. Otherwise move on to something else.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The solution is to give the author of the video some time to counter-claim that the video is not infringing, without automatically taking the video down. That or punishing the company that made the false claim. Either works, the later probably would work better, but it would be hard to enact in practice.
The solution is to sue the offending party.
The professor has damages from lost revenue, so should have standing to sue. Google was only doing what the law requires, so the professor should sue Sony in civil court.
Or perhaps start a class-action suit against Sony.
In engineering, there are lots of interesting technical problems and lots of engineers with spare time.
In law, there are lots of legal problems, and also lots of self-proclaimed "under employed" lawyers.
In engineering, we have a world of open source software, operating systems, electronic designs, cheap laptops and inexpensive microcontroller boards whose specs rival a desktop PC of ten years ago.
In law, we've got... an endless parade of rights violations, injustice, and unfair abuse.
The victim is a law professor at Harvard, for god's sake! Why doesn't he file suit and get some of his students to help with the case hands-on?
Maybe I expect too much of lawyers. They're probably wired differently than engineers.
The DMCA doesn't help, but standard libel laws should apply.
Sony published a false statement (incorrect DMCA claim) that claimed a professor of copyright law violated copyright law.
It doesn't get much more defaming than that.
Is there anything the students at Harvard Law can do for retribution?
They could threaten to work for Sony when they graduate
Of course they don't have any consequences.
They got exactly the fucking laws they bought, ones with they can make unfounded accusations with no burden of proof, and which people are expected to jump to and enforce or face their own penalties ... make no mistake about it, this is exactly what they wanted, and exactly what they got.
And, they've managed to get the US government on the fucking payroll to ensure every other damned country has the same absurd bullshit. And companies like YouTube pretty much have to jump and say "yessir boss".
The DMCA and related laws are supposed to give them all the power, and no accountability. That's what they paid for, that's what they got.
This is what was said when it was happening, and this is what has been said ever since. But let's not pretend this is the first we're learning about just how defective these laws are.
These damned laws a broken by design, because they were written by and for the copyright cartel, and the rest of us can go get stuffed.
Blame the idiot politicians who gave this shit to them -- Sony and these guys? They paid those clowns fair and square. And they keep delivering in the form of even more fucking broken garbage, like the IP provisions in the TPP which will more or less the USA in championing the rights of multinational corporations like the puppets they are.
Hell, DHS (and by extension ICE) are now the enforcement arm of the copyright cartel. Welcome to the awesome future where corporations have more rights than you do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
As much as I hate copyright trolls, Sony in primis; people most of time really don't understand the fair use doctrine.
What is and what is not fair use can only be decided by a judge and it varies case by case. There is no law stating what is precisely fair use and what isn't. And this is what gives the copyright trolls such an advantage. They have simply to say it's not fair use and bingo you're censored. And your only legal recourse is to go to court. And even then because fair use doctrine is so vague it's possible the judge is going to go against you. The situation would be much easier if instead of the fair use doctrine we had a law stating exactly and clearly what are the boundaries of fair use.
Take down all the content on Youtube that Sony is trying to promote (previews for upcoming movies etc.) and replace it with bad parodies. :)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
They could link to this. as it's been done before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
What the hell is wrong with people? Sue them for damages based on lost ad revenues if the video was monetized. There are no consequences to a fake DMCA takedown but doing almost anything to someone that causes them to lose money means they can sue you for damages. Why does nobody do this?!
The DMCA and IP law generally were written by content holders for their own ends, and supported by the lawmakers they bought with campaign contributions.
Putting forward clever schemes for punishing wrongdoers ignores what these laws are intended to do, and that is to provide rents to the entertainment cartel for as long as they want.
However, if the punishment is so toothless as to encourage corporations to, in turn, encourage their employees to continue to break the rules
If this is true then one way to fix it might be to turn the tables on the corporations: report their content and have it removed so they can see first hand how one sided the rules are. With any luck they may go crying to their lobbyists and the law will be changed to include some penalty for abuse of the system.
people in government who created something as broken as the DMCA.
I think you mean "people in government who endorsed something as broken as the DMCA" they didn't create it the various companies with an interest did they stupidly endorsed and made it law
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
harming an innocent party.
I'll play devil's advocate here and ask what harm was done to the professor or anyone else who was affiliated with the video? He did not stand to make any money from it, as it was publicly viewable on youtube. I don't like the fact that the video was taken down so quickly but I don't really see how its temporary removal did any meaningful harm, either. I even agree with the label of innocent being applied to the professor as it certainly seems he did not aspire to do any harm to Sony or anyone else who had copyright ownership of the music; I just don't see how it harmed him to have the video temporarily taken down.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Just watched this today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Remember, Google does not give a shit about it's users. They set up the copyright claim system to help punish small users doing fair use and completely silence anyone exercising free speech.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
I had Warner try to take down a video I posted a while back. The irony was that the video was a conference held by Duke Law on copyright and the artist who was lecturing was sued by Warner/Island records for sampling(quite creatively) one of their artists. The lecture itself was on fair use. I had to do nothing more than point out to Youtube that the lecture was on fair use and they reinstated it and I never heard another word. It's at this point that I realize that in its current incarnation, copyright is indeed theft.
Notionally, that lawyer is responsible for the notice. But the law has a 'good faith' provision, that clears the lawyer if the notice was issued in good faith. As everyone is interpreting that 'the computer told me to put it on the notice, I didn't check anything' as 'good faith', the penalties in the act have no effect.
If only web sites were keeping track of videos like these as 'canaries', and automatically rejecting as invalid any notices that include them. A notice that includes a video that is so clearly not infringing could not be considered 'valid'.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I'm sure that you could say that you had a 'good faith belief' that you were representing the owner, because you were sent a computer printout that claimed it.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
WTF? It's a free service. Which makes them essentially volunteers. Yes, I know they make money off the commercials, but that is no different from someone promoting themselves (to customers, perspective employers, etc.) based on a fact that they volunteer at some organization. In both cases the volunteers derive tangible benefit form volunteering. But it's still volunteering. And you shouldn't be obligated to continue volunteering once you start (or risk a law suit). They didn't sign an SLA with the guy, so why should he expect a compensation for having his video pulled?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The record companies also shook down the producers of the 2008 film, The Wrecking Crew, a documentary about a very few, unknown, session musicians who played on innumerable hit records from the 1950s and 1960s. The release of the film was delayed for over two years -- until the companies were paid, in essence, for the use of the artists' own performances.
They'll survive perfectly well if I stop buying Sony products, or even if all of Slashdot does. The vast majority of their customers are people who don't give a shit about this stuff.
If nobody hears (even snippets) of their music, no one will buy it.
When Bill Clinton signed the DMCA into law in 1998, the initiative that resulted in the draft legislation being put before him was one run entirely by large, copyright-holding corporations. 18 years later and with countless real-world examples to go by, we really must not be surprised to learn of instances where the DMCA is being used, by the people that sponsored a law, to act against the potential opponents of those parties. In theory law is just, consistent and treats all parties equally. In practice, nothing could be further from the truth. What has happened is that large corporations have realised that favourable laws can protect and enforce their business models. Since corporations have vastly more money than private individuals, corporations can lobby to get the laws they want. In a model like this, which exists today, the private individual is *always* going to lose out to corporations. This absolutely doesn't mean that copyright law is wrong, just that it is being abused. For a similar example, look at the way that patent law is being used to stifle software innovation, look at the ways proprietary software companies are using patents to attack FOSS developers. These are both examples of corporations using the law as leverage to give them an (unfair) competitive advantage in what should be an open marketplace.
Google did exactly what the law requires them to do.
Not exactly, no. The law requires them to respond to claims and counterclaims, that part is correct. However, google allow for fast track automated claims (but not counterclaims of course) which is not required by the law.
So, while they are operating fully within the law they have gone above and beyond what is necessary in the direction of claimants (particularly large corporations).
SJW n. One who posts facts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Not just them too! :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
It only has consequences if the sender is not the copyright holder (or agent of) of the content that you claim is part of the file.
If Sony sends a DMCA notifications of the video "man taking a shit (no sound)", "because there is a Jimmy Hendrix song in it". Even though the video has no audio, Sony has not lied (according to the law) on the DMCA because they own the Jimmy Hendrix song.
Besides content-id is an automated system of youtube itself, where (big) content creators can upload fingerprints of their songs which are checked for every video uploaded. This bypasses the DMCA completely.
Getting enough people to care and stop buying PlayStation games and Xperia phones and Bravia TVs and VAIO laptops and stuff that Sony will even notice the sales drop (let alone act on it) is basically impossible.
Getting people to stop watching Sony-owned movies and TV content is even harder, especially given that its not obvious exactly which movies and TV shows Sony may have a stake in just by looking at all the production company logos.
Law doesn't really have fuck all to do with it - except in the cases of actual infringement and leaving the content up. When it comes to removing content, Google (YouTube) can take down any damned video they want to take down and there's not much to do about it if you want to use YouTube. They can, if they want, take down your video because Sony sent them a picture of a cat with a party hat and said that your mom's a nice lady. They can take down Sony's video because you wrote them a haiku. They can take down your video because they don't like your hair color and think you're ugly.
So, when it comes to removing content, the law's not got much to do with it. (It does if they leave the content up.)
And yes, if they let me be boss of YouTube for a day, I'd take down all sorts of random videos with snarky comments - possibly some of them from Sony themselves. I'd give (what I felt were) amusing reasons that sounded like they came from a five year old. "Sony has cooties!" "I'm not touching you!" "Did too!" And I'd like it.
That's probably because I am just a big five year old. It's also probably why they won't let me be the boss of YouTube for a day.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
If your claims are denied more than 1% of the time, that triples to $300. More than 5% of the time, it triples again to $1,200.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Mr. William Fischer. Time for an association of independent lawyers, to establish an institution that handles these to a great extent arbitrarily and “on good faith” based legal and moral infringements of corporate bodies with specialized highly paid mercenary warrior class of aggressive greedy lawyers, who work for them. Only you folks could manage to pull it off. Don't expect it from the politicians, who like the successful class of lawyers, run after the money and often sing the songs of their donors. Corporate Infringement is the order of the day. And there is lot of money to be made here. And that money could go to build up better structures to defend the rights of the legally semi-disenfranchised modern 21st Century citizens, who can not afford the costs of shamefully expensive litigation.
There needs to be a pre-emptory "fair use" counterclaim that (a) leaves the claimed-infringing material up and (b) puts the issue of fair use in front of a magistrate within madeupnumberten days unless the claimant abandons the DMCA claim. The magistrate can decide whether or not a respondent versed in case law would have a reasonable expectation of winning. *expectation*. Loser pays a madeupnumber$500 fee for forcing the decision, plus up to some similar amount in actual costs. Anyone with amounts in arrears is denied access to this procedure. Most importantly: loser can force the issue to trial, can establish precedent in case law so in the future people _can_ reasonably expect a particular result.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
?We shouldn't be surprised by this any more. There';s one law for the rich and powerful and one for the rest of us. What we SHOULD be surprised about, however, is that not ONE of these bleeding heart liberals in the field of politics or law, that claim to be for the oppressed, has mounted any kind of protest over this repeayted violation of civil liberties or human rights. Not when it comes to being steamrolled over by these large corporations.. at least the entertainment industry, anyways.
I have hundreds of videos on youtube as "peawormsworth". I often film for a day and then put the best clips to music. I find music under the Creative Commons license with the "Attribution", but not the "Non-commercial licenses". Which should mean that I have full rights to use the music as a background in my video and still contain full rights of ownership over its display as long as the artist is mentioned. Which I do. But Youtube does not care. I will receive a notice from some unknown entity (CD Baby, Peach Music, etc) that claims to own the rights to my video based on the background music. Then the video immediately turns on the adverts and money goes to that unknown party. When I present the creative commons license to Youtube, they told me that they do not recognize it as valid proof of anything. I think Youtube is running great risk by switching the revenue of videos over to a 3rd party on an unproven claim of ownership. For example, they have generate money from my work and sent it over to this 3rd party without including me in the deal. The problem is, that I may not want to just receive a few pennies for each view that they get through adverts. I may want $100 per view. And if they don't pay me that amount, I would rather not display it for commercial purposes. I mean to say that the liability for youtube generating revenue on my work without my permission is not limited. Just because I want to put up a video that I own for free to view by the public now, does not imply that I am willing to let others make money off of it without consulting me. I think many youtube content providers like me have experienced this problem and would like to see the largest offenders of false copyright claims suffer financially for all the dollars (ie: many many pennies) they have taken from people who actually produce real things of value. I think a class action lawsuit addressing youtube's system that allows false claims of ownership to result in immediate profit would result in many participants like me. I mean I have some pretty good documented proof and links to licenses and in some cases, direct evidence of verbal and written permission from the original artists.