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Vox Lawyers Briefly Censored YouTubers Who Mocked the Verge's Bad PC Build Video (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In case you missed the latest drama to take place in the YouTube tech community, Ars Technica reports how Vox Media attempted to copyright strike two reaction videos that mocked The Verge's terrible PC build guide video that could have ruined a $2,000 system for a beginner PC builder. That effort failed when the tech community sounded the alarms; YouTube removed the copyright strikes and Vox Media had to retract their takedown notice.
From the report: "Last week, The Verge got a reminder about the power of the Streisand effect after its lawyers issued copyright takedown requests for two YouTube videos that criticized -- and heavily excerpted -- a video by The Verge. Each takedown came with a copyright 'strike.' It was a big deal for the creators of the videos, because three 'strikes' in a 90-day period are enough to get a YouTuber permanently banned from the platform. T.C. Sottek, the Verge's managing editor, blamed lawyers at the Verge's parent company, Vox Media, for the decision. 'The Verge's editorial structure was involved zero percent in the decision to issue a strike,' Sottek said in a direct message. 'Vox Media's legal team did this independently and informed us of it after the fact.' The move sparked an online backlash. Verge editor Nilay Patel (who, full disclosure, was briefly a colleague of mine at The Verge's sister publication Vox.com), says that when he learned about the decision, he asked that the strike be rescinded, leading to the videos being reinstated. Still, Patel defended the lawyers' legal reasoning, arguing that the videos 'crossed the line' into copyright infringement. It's hard to be sure if this is true since there are very few precedents in this area of the law. But the one legal precedent I was able to find suggests the opposite: that this kind of video is solidly within the bounds of copyright's fair use doctrine."
From the report: "Last week, The Verge got a reminder about the power of the Streisand effect after its lawyers issued copyright takedown requests for two YouTube videos that criticized -- and heavily excerpted -- a video by The Verge. Each takedown came with a copyright 'strike.' It was a big deal for the creators of the videos, because three 'strikes' in a 90-day period are enough to get a YouTuber permanently banned from the platform. T.C. Sottek, the Verge's managing editor, blamed lawyers at the Verge's parent company, Vox Media, for the decision. 'The Verge's editorial structure was involved zero percent in the decision to issue a strike,' Sottek said in a direct message. 'Vox Media's legal team did this independently and informed us of it after the fact.' The move sparked an online backlash. Verge editor Nilay Patel (who, full disclosure, was briefly a colleague of mine at The Verge's sister publication Vox.com), says that when he learned about the decision, he asked that the strike be rescinded, leading to the videos being reinstated. Still, Patel defended the lawyers' legal reasoning, arguing that the videos 'crossed the line' into copyright infringement. It's hard to be sure if this is true since there are very few precedents in this area of the law. But the one legal precedent I was able to find suggests the opposite: that this kind of video is solidly within the bounds of copyright's fair use doctrine."
Basically nothing. The idiots that wrote the law never stopped to consider how badly it would be abused. In this case the people involved were lucky to be famous enough that they could get anyone to care. Unless you're already a big name on YouTube, good luck ever reaching a human being at Google regardless of problem.
At least The Verge will be rightly pilloried over this. I don't know if it will affect their readership though. I quit going to their site shortly after it launched because it was a bloated pile of shit that was utter hell on my slightly old hardware at the time. When will tech press realize that they just need a decent simple layout that doesn't distract from their actual content?
I remember Patel from Engadget back in the day. He has a law degree and should know better than to make such an asinine comment about this being anywhere close to copyright infringement.
So Yourtube, when will there be a strike system for false flagging? Youtube can't ignore the false claims or they'd lose safe harbor, but they can surely strike the flaggers Youtube account. i.e. flag and suspend VOX on Youtube for the fraudulent flags.
When will Youtube flag & suspend the Youtube accounts of companies making false DMCA claims? In this case, why wasn't the VOX Youtube account suspended as well?!?!?
It was a horrible how-to video. Nicely produced, but really bad, bad information. The (sic) technician installed the powersupply upside down which is downright stupid and dangerous due to overheating. He mistook the vibration insulators on the powersupply as electrical insulators explaining the the power supply should never touch the metal of the case, not realizing the screw he just attached to the mount the power supply upside down touched both the case and the powersupply.
It was bad and deserved the mocking that it received. We won't even get into how much thermal paste he used on the CPU.