Slashdot Mirror
Fox 'Stole' a Game Clip, Used It In Family Guy and DMCA'd the Original (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader shares a TorrentFreak report: This week's episode of Family Guy included a clip from 1980s Nintendo video game Double Dribble showing a glitch to get a free 3-point goal. Perhaps surprisingly the game glitch is absolutely genuine and was documented in a video that was uploaded to YouTube by a user called 'sw1tched' back in February 2009. Interestingly the clip that was uploaded by sw1tched was the exact same clip that appeared in the Family Guy episode on Sunday. So, unless Fox managed to duplicate the gameplay precisely, Fox must've taken the clip from YouTube. Whether Fox can do that and legally show the clip in an episode is a matter for the experts to argue but what followed next was patently absurd. Shortly after the Family Guy episode aired, Fox filed a complaint with YouTube and took down the Double Dribble video game clip on copyright grounds. Perhaps YouTube should also be blamed for this.
I upload for preservation. Some Italian music group filed a DMCA against it. Turns out some duo had lifted a major section of the intro (all of one video file on the psx) for their mix.
I disputed in a rant and they rescinded the notice.
Youtube makes takedowns exceptionally easy, but the process of getting a video put back up can take months and there are no repercussions for a bad takedown.
Remember the other part of the DMCA safe harbor bits -- you need to take the video down immediately, but if the person says to put it back up, it becomes squarely that person's legal issue, not Youtube's. Youtube is not adequately capturing this workflow.
Then again, it's not clear if these takedowns are actual DMCA requests or if it's just an agreement Youtube has. I know that Youtube supports both.
See my reply to Stolpskott. It's not about caring, its about resources. There are a huge number of videos getting posted and a huge number of takedown requests.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
> [Youtube should be blamed] mainly for failing to perform any checks to see if the party filing the DMCA notice actually has the authority
That's not the way the law works. Under DMCA, Youtube isn't the judge and jury, they don't have any subjective decisions they are allowed to make. Youtube has little to no choice here. Here's the process that the DMCA law specifies:
1. Complainant notifies hoster (youtube) that they claim infringement.
2. Youtube may immediately contact respondent (uploader).
3. Youtube temporarily disables the content.
4. Respondent may send Youtube a counter-notice, saying that they dispute the original DMCA notice.
5. Upon receiving counter-notice, Youtube re-enables the content.
6. Complainant may file suit in federal court (expensive).
The process is pretty well set in stone by law. The one place where Youtube has some choice to make is that they have to disable/remove the content "quickly", but how quickly? A host can choose to contact the uploader and give them 24 hours to counter-notice before removal, or they can remove it right away and put it back when they get a counter-notice.
I wish more people understood the counter-notice part, meaning the content goes right back up if you dispute the notice. You just reply saying "this notice must have been sent by mistake" and sign it (forms are available online). If more people understood about counter-notices and an amendment to the law added statutory damages for reckless filing of improper notices, the system would probably work pretty well. As it is, reckless notices aren't penalized enough to matter, and most people seem to think that there's nothing they can do if they are on the wrong end of an erroneous notice. Just send back a counter-notice. You don't have to argue your case, just state that you think the notice is wrong and leave it at that.
If it wasn't Youtube's own Content ID system, FOX could probably be sued for issuing a false takedown notice. Maybe they still could. Hiring a hit man makes you no less guilty of murder.
In other words, the perjury charge isn't about claiming copyright when you don't own the copyright. It's about claiming you're authorized by the copyright owner to enforce the copyright on their behalf, when you're not. There is basically no penalty for filing a false DMCA claim; the only penalty (perjury) is if you know the claimant doesn't own a copyright and file a DMCA notice anyway. The copyrighted work doesn't even have to be anything like the video being taken down - as long as the copyright owner alleges the video is infringing, the person filing the DMCA notice gets a free pass.
It's a terrible law with no checks and balances.
The problem is that often these false takedown notices are made against people who are using youtube as a legitimate source of invome. Youtube will redirect all monetisation from your video with the fake takedown notice into the pockets of the person who made the fake takedown notice. There are other issue with these trikes blocking content creators from posting videos. Youtube are also impossible to contact and never respond to any inquiries about a false takedown notice. The whole system effectively just lets you steal money from other people.
Here are some content creators talking about the problem, they can explain it better than I can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvCbNDGwypk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K59XnF-hN78
Ironically, some people are being ironic, even when they didn't mean to be.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.