Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Is Guilty Of Criminal Racketeering, Grammy Winner Says (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader cites a TorrentFreak report (edited and condensed): YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering. That's the headline-grabbing claim of Grammy award winning musician Maria Schneider, who claims that the Google-owned site is abusing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to siphon money away from musicians into its own pockets. Over the years, Google has transformed into the new bad guy and the pressure is mounting in a way never witnessed before. The U.S. Copyright Office's request for comments into the efficacy of the DMCA's safe harbor provisions has resulted in a wave of condemnation for both Google search and the company's YouTube platform, with everyone from the major record labels to the MPAA and back again attacking the technology giant. Grammy award-winning musician Maria Schneider really ups the ante by stating that YouTube is guilty of the same criminal acts that Megaupload is currently accused of. "YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering," Schneider wrote in an open letter to the platform. "YouTube has thoroughly twisted, contorted, and abused the original meaning of the outdated DMCA 'safe harbor' to create a massive income redistribution scheme, where income is continually transferred from the pockets of musicians and creators of all types, and siphoned directly into their own pockets."Digital Music News has more information.
after all her music should speak for itself and being listed on search results and YT should not matter.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
One could say that Megaupload is doing far less that could be considered illegal. I would definitely trust them more.
Why do things that matter have to affect you directly? That's another question to ask yourself. There are many things that are bad that don't affect you directly. The wildfire in Ft. McMurray for example, it doesn't affect you, yet it is vitally important to many people who's home are being destroyed and who's livelyhoods are being threatened. She feels it is important to her, and her industry. which actually includes many people besides just the artists, but the producers, the commercial jingle writers, anyone who has ever held a copyright.
Why is this important to anyone? Well, I actually don't think the letter has much merit, and that is important to me. YouTube has proven that they comply with takedown orders, they cannot control everything that is put up there, with ~300 Hours of content uploaded every minute, (2014 stats) that would require, let's do the math, 300 hrs x 60 x 24 = 432000 hrs uploaded per day, that would require 54000 8 hour shifts to go through all the content. 54000+ employees to monitor every video uploaded for copyright infringing content. Yeah, I don't think that's feasible. The use of digital fingerprinting leaves it open to false positives, and fair use violations, (It would cause an official release of Ice Ice baby to go down because it might match just enough to Queen's Under Pressure). How they're taking money from artists, is questionable, I suppose having to have a lawyer send the takedown notice. But usually the label does that, which they might charge back to the artist but that's not youtube's fault or responsibility, if anything that's racketeering on behalf of the labels not Youtube.
"...everyone from the major record labels to the MPAA and back again"
That's not everyone. That's hardly anyone. In fact, that's pretty much only one, single interest group.
"In closing, Schneider has several key demands. Front and center is a call for “takedown and staydown“, the mechanism championed by every Google critic thus far in this DMCA consultation."
If we're going to be hard on that side of the issue, then it is only fair to be just as hard on the other side. What penalty should be applied to an organization that files an obviously false takedown request? After all, they have knowingly falsified a legal document. Criminal prosecution? Or just a massive civil fine, payable to the owner of the copyright that they impugned? Funny, she didn't mention anything at all about this problem...
Did Youtube demand money from her in exchange for fire, theft, and kneecap insurance?
Yes, that's one of the main points of her open letter. Youtube has a system in place, Content ID, to stop piracy and it works quite well. The crux is that they only allow it's use to musicians who have agreed to license their content to them or at least that's assumed, as they don't publish any rules. Everybody else gets left in the dust and isn't allowed into Content ID and thus their content can be shared on Youtube without permission. Which according to her argument violates the requirements for "Safe Harbor" protection and makes Youtube guilty of mass copyright infringement, as that "Safe Harbor" law requires technical measures to be made available to everybody.
How does this affect me? Why is this important to anyone except Maria Schneider? I'll get modded down to -1 for asking this because Slashdot users don't like answering important questions. But this needs to be asked, and I challenge any of you to give me a real answer rather than insulting me. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone here is up to the challenge.
1) How does this affect me?
We cannot know the answer to that because we have no idea of who you are. Are you a musician? A Google/youtube employee? A lawyer? Those people would care a lot, but we have no idea who you are so we cannot answer your question. Only you would know what your interests are, and not everything that happens affects everybody.
Don't ask this question again.
2) Why is this important to anyone except Maria Schneider?
She is a member of a community (published musicians) that has the share a common experience (or belief) that their works are being unfairly posted and uncompensated. This also affects employees of google/youtube and attorneys who may be interested in copyright law.
Entertainment is a multi-billion dollar industry and an important part of the economy, as is google/youtube.
This is explained in the articles linked to, and tells us that you are posting to an article that you have not read.
You are asking us to read the article for you and explain it. How can you not know how annoying that is?
3) I'll get modded down to -1 for asking this because Slashdot users don't like answering important questions.
We do like answering important questions. We don't enjoy discussions with people who have NOT read the articles.
You get modded down because your questions are about you and not about the posted article.
4) But this needs to be asked,
No, you are mistaken. Your questions do not need to be asked. How the article affects you, who we do not know anything about, does not need to be asked.
5) and I challenge any of you to give me a real answer rather than insulting me.
The purpose of Slashdot is to offer a variety of topics for discussion.
Look at the top of the Slashdot web page. There is a line that looks like this:
Topics: Devices Build Entertainment Technnology Open Source Science YRO
This article is about YRO and Entertainment.
People who are interested in YRO and Entertainment would be interested in this topic. others would skip over it.
Apparently there are people who don't understand economics, and just how wealthy some people are.
Several individuals on Google's board can buy a controlling interest in the entire US music industry -- lock, stock, and barrel, with personal money.
If only one of the board members wanted to go full asshole, they could buy out a controlling interest in the companies suing them, fire the morons who started the lawsuit, and ensure the artists involved never publish with a major label again.
And what could the music industry do? File a lawsuit because somebody bought (a lot of) stock in their company? Hostile takeovers are not new.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Seems like a good bussiness model since youtube is the one guilty of making available copyrighted works if it comes to a legal battle.
Seems you missed the whole point of the article and the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA. Youtube is safe from litigation as long as they comply with DMCA takedown requests. If the copyright owner can't keep up with the hundreds of hours of video being uploaded per minute to Youtube, that's on them. That's the way the law was written.
Let's look at the actual text of the safe harbor:
Is ContentID offered by multiple service providers? Is ContentID described in any standards document?
Are the costs associated with operating ContentID insubstantial is terms of not only money, but CPU time and storage?
If you cannot answer those questions with a yes, then the fact that ContentID is not being offered to "everybody" -- meaning everybody who wishes to agree to "reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms," not merely terms of their own choosing -- is not relevant.
I've read the open letter, and it's self-serving mush. For example, in her analysis of whether YouTube is a racketeer:
A. ContentID is not a "standard technical measure" as defined in the DMCA.
B. Stephen Carlisle should be sued for malpractice. You send a certified letter containing the items listed in 512(c)(3) to the designated agent specified here according to 512(c)(2). Done.
C. Doesn't like 512(h) Subpoena To Identify Infringer, which clearly exists and assumes that subscriber identities are confidential, but wants to conceal the identity of the copyright owner, a right that does not and almost cannot exist.
D. WTF? Seems to be the love child of a complaint concerning broken-link error message one gets after content has been taken down and a variation of the complaint in item C. Copyright owner authorizes the takedown of content allegedly owned by the copyright owner is pretty darn difficult to hide since we can pretty much infer that yes, the complaint was essentially made by the copyright owner.
E, part 1. But those questions are in the DMCA. 512(c)(3) requires them, so yes, you get to answer questions when making a notification. 512(f) also has some laughably weak language concerning misrepresentations, so yes, you should probably be aware of that. 512(g)(3) requires lots of similar questions for counternotifications and a statement made under penalty of perjury. Seems fair enough.
E, part 2. It's called a counternotification, not a pre-certification. Requiring pre-certification would be a fairly substantial violation of the first amendment. You're welcome to practice what you preach and pre-certify everything you post, including your own open letter, as a means of educating yourself as to why.
F. The possibility that YouTube might support a user in a wrongful takedown situation is unfair. It's just little old me (get back behind the curtain, RIAA, MPAA, ASCAP, BMI, RightsHaven, Guardlex, and the rest of you guys, they're buying it!).
G. Enforce my copyrights for me for free. Now.
H.
No.
What she wants is for Google to, at THEIR cost, provide protection for HER content.
Remember, this is content that, due to copyright extension, will almost certainly NEVER enter the public domain which was originally part of
the social contract that was copyright. The government agreed to provide legal protections for works, in return for those works
entering the public domain after a reasonable time - a balanced agreement. That agreement has been continuously twisted by the copyright
owners, who see it as the job of everyone else to protect their works, and they should keep the money and the works for ever (in effect).
So no, she is just pushing the cart another inch forward, bending the social contract even further, and trying to claim that it is Googles job
to enforce HER copyrights - which it clearly is not.
If she wants her works protected on youtube its easy, employ someone to find content that is in violation, employ lawyers to write up the
required legal papers, and go for it. There is exactly nothing stopping her from doing this.
If she wants Google to do the work for her, then agree to Googles terms to provider her with this service.
What she is trying to do is the same as wanting a radio manufacturer to be legally responsible for checking that the local barbershop
isnt 'performing her works without a commercial license' because they turn that radio on, at the radio makers cost. ie: laughable.
This is just another attempt at copyright extension people, and the public, who are being shafted already (thank you Disney, etal), should be
rather angry at that. NO other industry has had such generous governmental and legal support for so long.
Or perhaps she would rather keep her works for herself, and we just revoke copyright, as she does not want to keep up her side of the contract?
I thought not..