There isn't a real alternative. Many content creators have created their own sites (like corridor crew), and there are theme specific sites like nebula or masterclass, but nothing with the broad appeal and audience of youtube
Somebody with deep pockets could have a crack at it. You could pay the top YouTubers to host content on both platforms, then add some special bonuses for exclusive content.
I really think Netflix should have a crack at it. (But clearly labeled as a different kind of thing. )
Personally, I don't think that the system being rigged is the problem, but the path to justice being obstructed. Thus, there is no correction and no remedy.
And, why are people still on YT? Well, because it's where everybody is. I.e., critical accumulation, out ruling any other considerations. It may turn out that having a viable path to justice on such a system of critical mass may be as important as having anti-trust clauses.
Not allowing the alleging party to judge the response to the claim would cut down on this sort of thing. But that's not part of the DMCA so YT won't do it. They just care about avoiding liability.
Video consumers / watchers >>>> Video / content creators. YouTube makes money monetizing eyeballs. There are a LOT of eyeballs, much more so than content creators. Every time one content creator gets smashed, another one pops up. So who does YouTube care about? The creators? No way. They want the eyeballs that they sell the advertisers. The content creators are the inconvenient intermediary. If Google / YouTube could realize their fantasy, they'd automatically create all the content themselves with ML or some super amazing generator and get rid of the content creators altogether.
All it would take is Youtube randomly banning a few of said big Youtubers to really cut morale into an organized effort like this. That's precisely what makes them so powerful, they can cut you off at any moment without a legitimate excuse.
Preventing their talent from organizing? Squashing unions and labor movements is as old as labor itself. Think about it: does Amazon really stand to lose everything if a warehouse full of minimum wage workers demand healthcare? No. Then why does Amazon fight it? For control, plain and simple.
But YouTube is actually just hurt by the copyright trolls. YouTube's best interest would be for the trolls to be excised so real creators wouldn't get burned out and driven off.
The only "real creators" Youtube cares about are big media companies that provide licensed first-party content and high-value professional accounts. Everyone else is at best inconsequential and at worst net negatives to the platform, as far as Google is concerned.
> If 1000 big youtubers put $100/month toward an association or union of some kind, they could afford a $100,000/month legal team to combat this.
Millionaire youtubers can already afford high-priced lawyers if they want to, I'm not worried about that.
Who I am worried about are regular people who create content but don't have large followers and don't make to it to the frontpage of HN, but still get hit by copyright trolls.
Stronger men can carrier bigger guns, but no one man is stronger than an army.
The rich still benefit from organization.
Also, an organization may have legal standing where an individual does not, and can then deploy their lawyer-army. Where an individual has to wait for an issue to personally affect them, the organization will almost always have at least one affected member and can therefore keep up the pressure constantly, and eventually perhaps make the internet a better place.
They're saying that individual, successful/rich/"powerful" YouTubers can defend themselves against these spurious claims already, but that by organizing they would be even more well equipped, at less personal cost, and also make it possible for smaller creators to also defend themselves (with even less cost).
None of that has anything to do with any Vietcong analogy I can think of.
I think, Fran has been quite public regarding her economic struggles. While maybe popular to some audiences, she is certainly not a millionaire. On the other hand, cases like this provide publicity to the very problem that is haunting many and provide a broader perceptible platform for these concerns.
Edit: Maybe I've misinterpreted your comment, but I stand to the importance of publicity that may be lent by such cases.
Absolutely not. You should be aware that youtube wasn't profitable for over a decade.
Content creators don't use youtube for its video hosting. There are dozens of video hosting sites, many objectively better. Content creators use youtube because that's where the eyeballs and advertisers are, which also means that's where the money is.
And, 100k won't be enough to pay for one developer, let alone a herd of reviewers/lawyers to handle all of the DMCA noticed that will flood in, regardless.
I don't see how this doesn't get solved without amendments to the DMCA, which is probably where the money should be put.
Or Youtube could front this money. They have a requirement from the DMCA safe harbor to allow people to make these copyright claims. But that doesn't mean they have to make them easy or cost effective for trolls to abuse the system. Youtube could have a legal fund for creators to get assistance with unfair claims, and not be violating anything in the DMCA safe harbor.
Unions are always going to be the answer to this sort of problem. Sadly, they get a bad press because of the (seemingly) inevitable takeover by socialists. If there was some way to inoculate a collective against dogmatic collectivism, that would be great, but I'm not sure it's possible.
tl;dw: Fran is a YouTube creator (mostly electronics and space videos) and has been having ongoing issues with illegitimate copyright claims made against her YouTube videos, including NASA public domain content and the sound of wind(!). She even has the physical copy of one Apollo 12 scene which she telecine'd to digital, uploaded, and then an unclear party made a claim against that video which is currently successful.
She also discusses "Visual Claim"[0] and how this will make things worse and how copyright trolls have nothing to lose with doubling down on illegitimate claims.
One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube. That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.
She discusses that a little, as well. YouTube often does not share the name of the copyright claimant, and even if they do, it is sometimes a 3rd party who is acting on behalf of the actual copyright "holder".
But the bottom line is that most individual creators could never justify the legal costs of fighting copyright claims.
And that's why it can work in countries with small claims, no lawyers or costs required to petition. Idea behind these courts is that people can represent themselves for a conciliatory session with a judge. The judge reach a verdict and, if a part does not accept, s/he can appeal (but now there are fees and lawyers required). Verdicts by default are possible if the part does not represent, however. This usually scales well because typical lawsuits are 1:1, and very uncommon for particular person.
However, if a few thousand people sue Google on a small amount, a simple demand to repair monetary damages (this seems to have a different name every country), or co-name Google with a John Doe because Google has the information on Doe or is the only presence on that particular country, they will need to represent or risk a default. And the process won't scale on their side only.
A legal and ethically correct DDoS on Google, but requires thousands of people motivated enough to navigate the bureaucratic depths.
And Fran's comment about lawyering up is probably valid on USA where, AFAIK, the procedure for small claims is different.
Because copyright claims are exclusively under federal jurisdiction, rather then being a state-by-state matter, they are unfortunately out of the purview of small claims courts in the US, which are designed to hear state law claims only
> Because copyright claims are exclusively under federal jurisdiction, rather then being a state-by-state matter, they are unfortunately out of the purview of small claims courts in the US, which are designed to hear state law claims only
IIUC, the idea was to sue in small claims court not on DMCA grounds, but on whatever state laws might relate to tortious interference, slander of title, defamation, etc.
These aren't copyright claims, they're monetization attribution claims using the Content ID system. State tort law applies, as presumably you have a monetization contract with Google.
I don't think you need a separate tort - filing a false DMCA claim is already actionable. I think it carries 3x damages too. However, very few youtubers understand that they have strong legal remedies against false DMCA claims, and they can file counter-notifications fairly easily too (these undo the effects of the DMCA claim).
I believe they are DMCA claims. The exist because it grants youtube imunity in the process. Youtube had no incentive to get involved except for pissing off their content creators. If you can't counter claim/sue then get loud. Let your viewers know.
Edit: reading in another thread that perhaps this is content ID. Not that, that is any better.
As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong), there's a difference between a copyright claim and a "Content ID" claim. The former has an associated legal framework, but the latter was created through some agreement between Google and the media mob (MPAA, RIAA, etc.).
>Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.[8][9][10] Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works"
>Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over 12 terabytes of data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site
>In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. The performance rights organization GEMA argued that YouTube had not done enough to prevent the uploading of German copyrighted music
Sorry but what's being described is not related to DMCA or copyright. If I make coolvideos.com I can say "if you upload NASA footage I will show ads on it and give that money to a random third party company" and that's not copyright infringement; public domain is inherently 'anyone can show it for any reason, even commercially'. These "copyright" claims are just Content ID where YouTube allows media rights holders to control what content shows up on YouTube - YT says 'you can only enroll videos that you own into Content ID', however, the enforcement there relies on Google only approving appropriate rights holders/production studios for Content ID. If a rights holder either has their account hacked, or they batch enroll tons of videos they haven't verified that they own the copyright to, then it'll start enforcing Content ID on those videos - and while this is bad for YouTube and its creators, it's definitely not illegal whatsoever since it isn't invoking the DMCA or any other legal action regarding copyright.
Note that, for actual DMCA claims, YouTube WILL go to bat for their creators, especially if it's an obvious case of videos falling under fair use, eg https://youtu.be/aY1CYF3MKec?t=27
In general, Content ID was created in response to Viacom dragging YouTube through court for not preemptively stopping people from uploading episodes of Spongebob. Viacom was planning to take it further up the appeal process until a settlement was reached which lead to the creation of Content ID, eg "viacom will upload copyrighted material to YouTube and YouTube will automatically scan every video to check if it violates viacom's rights". After this happened, of course, other copyright holders like AT&T (WarnerMedia)/NBC/etc and small international rights-holders weren't going to let themselves miss out on this revenue stream, so YT expanded the system to allow any rights management firm or copyright holder to use the system if they were big enough or powerful enough in their region.
I think, what could be called illegal is Content ID being used to actually block public domain content from being used on such terms. Restricting monitarization of said content to the point of becoming exclusive to a single party pretty much comes down to granting copyright. Especially, if this includes monetarization of unique work and effort that has gone into providing the publication of said content (e.g., digitizing from original material, editorial work, etc.)
YouTube is free to set terms for monetization contracts, including granting attribution to third parties under their system. It is not fair, but it is not illegal under any stretch of the imagination. Public domain works have zero copyright protection by definition; there is not a legal status assigned like with copyrighted works.
That said, third party Content ID claims for works not exclusively owned by the claimant are against YouTube's partner terms. The enforcement is just lacking.
> YouTube is free to set terms for monetization contracts, including granting attribution to third parties under their system.
This is obviously not the case. This is really the entire point of having Content ID in the first place: Had YT been free to monetize under their own contracts whoever uploaded an episode of Sponge Bob, Viacom wouldn't have had a case.
I think the argument was about things that are in the public domain. It's not illegal for Youtube to give the revenue from those contents to some random 3rd party.
>She even has the physical copy of one Apollo 12 scene which she telecine'd to digital,
Okay, so that's supposed to make a legitimacy claim. I've had arguments with the internet claiming that I made upres copies of digibetas when photographic evidence showing the 16mm prints on the telecine, but the internet still disagreed. So I KNOW the pain.
However, let's say that you, me, and Dupree all have a print of the Apollo 12 scene. We all pay to have the things done to have it available as a digital file, and eventually we all post our independent videos to YT. If we did some sort of perceptual hashing to each video, would it not be logical to assume we'd all be flagged? At that point, what's an algo to do?
> If we did some sort of perceptual hashing to each video, would it not be logical to assume we'd all be flagged?
Flagged for what, exactly? The perceptual hash would show that all three of you uploaded the same video, but not that any those uploads were infringing. Nothing should happen unless someone (either one of you, or another party) tries to claim that they're the copyright holder for that video. Which ought to require at least some hard evidence.
Ideally[0], if that were to happen, YouTube would manually investigate the claim to determine whether it was reasonable, and the parties accused of infringement would have a chance to challenge the claim or offer another reason why the uploads are not infringing, such as prior permission or fair use, before anything permanent was done. Since the video is in the public domain, the claim should be rejected and the video marked as public domain in the content database after the investigation to preempt any further false claims.
Of course investigations like this require actual work. It's always going to be easier to just take down the video—especially since they're hosting it for free. Ad revenues won't cover the cost of investigating claims, much less protracted legal fights.
[0] Ideally ideally, copyright would simply be repealed and we'd all be much better off. But short of that…
> One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube. That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.
What if every time a creator receives a bogus claim+demonetization he/she immediately deletes the content from YouTube and moves it to a different platform, making sure there is a link somewhere to reach it without breaking YT rules? The troll won't get the money as well and some users could still watch the content. Yes, other platforms aren't comparable wrt the user base, and that would also defeat the initial purpose, but once the video is demonetized the creator wouldn't get the money anyway, so it could be a way to hurt the trolls where it matters most.
Dave Jones of EEVBlog fame frequently encourages his YouTube viewers to follow him on alternate platforms. I believe this is in preparation for when he finally runs afoul of the algorithm and his YouTube presence is no longer viable. If a creator waits until that inevitable moment they don't have much recourse. I'm not sure how a link to an alternate platform can be placed on YouTube with any kind of reach. The best way as far as I can tell is proactively moving the audience to alternate platforms.
> I'm not sure how a link to an alternate platform can be placed on YouTube with any kind of reach.
Assuming explicit links are disallowed (didn't check) the link could be exported as a torrent hash; it's not a link per se but search engines would find it, and they usually have a pretty long lifetime.
As an example, the following hash:
2E28D47963BF639EDAADCA33583546B39156D62D
Brings a 10+ years old Debian Linux image. The file would probably be dead now, also younger hashes are a lot easier to find, but all we need is the hash leading somewhere.
There are other ways to embed links in a video; for example either a barcode-like pattern on video, or short fsk sequence embedded in audio, that could be translated on the fly by a browser extension into ad address and lead there without any user intervention.
Odysee/LBRY is just moving to a new lord's fort. If it's successful it will at best buy a year or two of good behavior before they do the same thing, or something worse.
I had high hopes for the nebula model, but the platform owners have already clearly telegraphed their intent with regard to harvesting user data, nickel and diming, and at some point inserting ads.
The only solution is a platform that respects everyone. peertube is a good contender, although curation and payment for content (which are separate problems to distribution and discovery) need work. Tilvids seems to be doing okay curation-wise (although adoption is low).
Perhaps for payment, a client that locally tracks your view count and then stochastically tells you to deliver your payment to a particular creator to avoid a middleman holding the tin and sticking their fingers in.
Odysee is a centralised service with centralised comments that makes centralised decisions about which videos to platform and how to rank them. Its relationship to LBRY is no different to uploading a youtube video and posting a magnet link to a torrent of the same video in the description except you have to pay their cryptocoin (which they've reserved about 50% of for their own purposes) to add the link. They could remove lbry at any time and most of their user base would not even notice.
Pretty good heuristic for these things is to assume cryptocoins are always at least one scam.
> One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube
Youtube is free to do whatever they want on their own platform, within the law. Arguing that they dominate the market brings antitrust laws into play here. On these grounds their TOS about ContentID (basically we'll decide whatever we want and you'll take it) can be evaded.
> That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.
Why would the government do that though? The main complaint in this instance is that YouTube is attempting to enforce the government's rules. As far as I've seen, major complaints against YouTube when they act in the interests of a government (or political party in some instances).
It's a shame that Fran just can never seem to catch a break. She's such a lovely woman with a genuine passion for her work, but she always seems to be fighting one battle after another.
Every time I feel myself wanting to make content, I see stuff like this and I nope out of it. Why put so much effort into sharing your passion with the world only to be frozen out by some morons that are enabled by a billion-dollar company that doesn't care about you?
Copyright strikes are such a blatant example of the legal system being bought and paid for by the wealthy, it's not even funny.
Absolutely, which must make this all the more frustrating. If you're one of the lucky few to build a large audience and you draw the attention of the trolls, that would drive me insane.
Realistically, any popular creator is producing hundreds or eventually thousands of videos. If some of them get locked out, it's still a smart portion of their overall channel.
It is a problem, but it's not genuinely an obstacle for creators finding audiences. Making good content that people like and getting enough traction to have a userbase is orders of magnitude more of a risk than getting a copyright strike.
Post on decentralized platforms. Peertube, Odysee, etc. They are still small for now but they need to start somewhere. You can even set it up so any video you post to youtube gets automatically mirrored to the other platforms
Copyright strikes are such a blatant example of the legal system being bought and paid for by the wealthy, it's not even funny.
From personal experience I can't say the system works any better if you're a creator whose content is getting ripped from other sources and put onto YouTube either. I've had people ripping numerous videos and it apparently takes longer to complete YouTube's takedown form than it takes for the ripper to upload the exact same video to their channel again. I thought there was supposed to be some provision in the safe harbor laws that YouTube hides behind to deal with repeat offenders but apparently it doesn't carry any practical weight if there is.
I'd be the first to agree that copyright protection has been expanded too far and the mechanisms for enforcing it are often used unfairly and in a heavy-handed way. Reform is well overdue. I'd have slightly more understanding if those methods did at least work in cases of flagrant infringement that are exactly what copyright law was always supposed to prohibit but it seems they don't. Not for the little creator at least.
Content ID automatically finds a copyright holder to pay with ads on your video of white noise. It's an automated system that Google built, and it's ridiculous.
This is not about one creator vs another and filing counter-claims via DMCA, this is about extra-judicial automated bureaucracies designed by Google.
I wonder how many of the ContentID claims are actually even real. With so little transparency, maybe the system just generates fake ones to pad earnings?
In YouTube world, you are guilty until proven innocent, and if you get too many "strikes" you get shut down and lose your voice on one of the biggest platforms for creators. The sad thing is TikTok and FB/Meta are even worse. We live in a world now where large corporations get to decide who can speak and who ceases to exist online. How sad, and how far we've strayed from the early dreams for the open internet.
I've noticed many infotainment youtubers joining Curiosity Stream to avoid this and the demonitization policies. Still curious how well it can hold against the eyeballs on youtube.
I have private access to some pretty cool motorsports/boat-racing/etc stuff that a majority of people don't get to see (prototype/development vehicle testing, etc). I thought it might be fun for me to make some videos of these and share them, with the full support of the owners/teams behind this stuff. They gave me extra access, let me film everything over 2 days (3 full days of work considering the remote location in another state etc), and I put my first video up on YouTube showing off a prototype vehicle that was going for a world record.
The video went pretty viral... 8 digit views, got me 5 digit subscriber count, was posted on dozens and dozens of news sites and blogs and shared widely. I was excited, off to a great start with this whole YouTube thing.
No music, no audio other than the engine sounds, absolutely zero reason anyone could possibly do a copyright strike... right?
Nope, some church minister in some tiny country did a copyright strike saying they own the rights to the word "spirit" in my video title (it was part of the name of the vehicle itself)... so they got all the money I earned from that video + I got a strike on my channel and a scary warning from YouTube saying my entire Google account could get banned including my Gmail. I disputed it with a very clear explanation of the situation, and they quickly reply saying they sided with the complainant and they'll be ignoring all future disputes.
Fuck YouTube/Google.
Edit: I went back to find the emails from Google and realised the story is even crazier than I remember. YouTube never reviewed the dispute, they let the person making the claim review their own dispute!!
> Hi [Name],
> After reviewing your dispute, [Dodgy Fuck's Name] has decided that their copyright claim is still valid.
I wonder why its "all the money" not some portion of it. I mean if you make a documentary with historic footage, you have to clear (pay to use) each piece of footage you use. If you use a clip it doesn't mean they own your documentary.
Apparently, you can use the same scheme to get half your money back.
1. Commission some original background music on fiverr with copyright attribution.
2. Put it in a video. Post on youtube.
3. Copyright claim your own video from a different channel.
4. Show your copyright info if necessary.
This way, you still get a fraction of your own video revenue by playing both sides.
Is it? If it's more expensive for them to get it right, then maybe not getting involved in the adjudication makes sense.
It does seem like a great reason for creators to not publish on YouTube, however.
Once there is sufficient competition I would expect them to start adjudicating.
And before someone jumps in and blames the money train, capitalism, etc. Please let me know how you would run a business that is not profitable. The money to pay salaries has to come from somewhere.
Personally I'd like to see them aimed at regional broadband ISP monopolies first, since that is an underlying infrastructure for the services we use.
I'm not sure where the FTC is on this, but I know the focus in media has shifted in recent years from Comcast etc. to FAANG. Perhaps that's because the problems from the platform-based monopolies enabled by ISPs are closer and thus more apparent to us. Or, maybe it's a campaign propped up by ISPs to take the focus off of them.
As a European, I have a hard time understanding what the US is doing and not doing regarding broadband regulations. As I do understand it from a distance, the ISPs had always argued and broadened their claims with regard to data that is accessible to the big platforms. There seems to be some "natural anti-alliance", with the parties involved seeking political alliances, which in turn provide the public attention or – more importantly – the lack thereof. (The idea of free businesses and public services being mutual exclusive, certainly doesn't help either.)
I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the argument has been that broadband is expensive to roll out to non-urban areas. So they'll make exclusive agreements with municipalities, and/or take government money to complete the work.
From a customer's perspective, it seems they take the money and run to the bank. Where competition is low, and that's a lot of places, so is the quality of customer service and the provided speeds. Fees can be high, and for the last 20 years they've been trying to figure out how to get even more money by gutting net neutrality. They can be very aggressive on this [1], and there aren't really any significant repercussions. You probably don't want to fine a company out of existence, and any fine you do apply doesn't mean much if they get to keep their customers.
These ISP and content conglomerates have just gotten too big, and I think it's biting us in the form of tech monopolies that sit atop them.
The FCC is trying to redefine broadband to be 100 Mbps [2]. Almost certainly, the 2 republican commissioners will vote against that, and the democratic commissioners will vote for it. So it won't pass until the final FCC chair is filled, which Manchin is stalling in the senate [3].
Chances are it comes down to midterms. It's an important issue, the challenge is making it relatable to the public amidst other issues.
So, root cause is media conglomerates again. That just underscores my belief we should be tackling broadband ISP monopolies, and that midterms are important to secure the final FCC seat. Then we can reclassify broadband to 100 Mbps instead of the miniscule 25 Mbps that we have now. The types of service customers are actually getting will become more clear, and that should foster competition.
> If it's more expensive for them to get it right, then maybe not getting involved in the adjudication makes sense.
Cynical hat firmly in place, you could go a step further and just say that if it's more expensive for them to do it fairly then this is actually "right" from their point of view...
Each of the A steps is discretionary and optional. They can abandon the process at any time-- in which case Google shrugs and moves on with life after a timeout expires.
The DMCA does not require YouTube to be involved in any part of the judgement. By just being the messenger YT is granted legal immunity for their part in spreading the alleged infringing work. The complaintent is the judge _by design_!
Is it? I thought that once the situation was contested by both sides, youtube had the option to default either way, and it was simply their deci$ion to side with claimants because the traditional claimants held a ton of media licenses while individual creators held few.
My understanding of the DMCA is that the person receiving the complaint is the judge by design of the law.
The complainant submits a complaint, the receiver submits a counter notice, youtube is granted immunity to put the content back up after 14 days (unless the complainant initiates a lawsuit within that timeframe) and the complainant has no recourse but to take the alleged-infringer to court.
Ultimately, you are correct, but the problem here is that 14 days. Effectively anyone can DoS your content for 14 days just by submitting a form online.
Technically, submitting a copyright claim with blatantly false information is perjury, but your only recourse as the victim is to beg a prosecutor to take the perpetrator to court over it. There is no civil remedy for false DMCA takedowns.
As far as I am aware, not a single person has ever been convicted of perjury because of information supplied in a DMCA takedown.
This is all a bit besides my point, which is that youtube's system is not just the system required by law, but much friendlier to the accuser.
That said, there are also civil penalties for false takedown notices under 512(f), which I believe have been successfully litigated. Still, the effort vs reward in litigating them is almost never worth it.
My limited understanding is that 512(f) claims are almost impossible to win because you have to prove the claimant acted in bad faith, which is very difficult. My comment should have said something like "no effective civil remedy" rather than "no civil remedy".
Foreign entities abusing the DMCA system also adds another layer of impossibility to the system. Good luck pursuing recourse against someone in North Korea or wherever, even if the DMCA claims are in blatantly bad faith.
The claimant should require some skin in the game to prevent this sort of nonsense, maybe a bond or surety of some kind held in the US?
Better would be to scrap the whole thing and make the claimant convince a court before getting an injunction like for pretty much any other kind of dispute. If the costs to the cours for that are too high then add a copyright holder tax.
Oh you sweet child. This is already a thing and has been for a decade at least. Anyone with enough money can hire a firm based out of a dodgy country that will abuse the DMCA, Content Reporting mechanisms and insider contacts to get whatever you want taken down from pretty much anywhere. I know because I've seen a couple rich fucks do it with things they didn't want online about them or a family member of theirs.
If you’re a Mr. Beast level big deal I’m sure somebody from YouTube will actually look into the matter.
This is of most impact to channels big enough for somebody to treat it as a full time job, but not so big that it will ever be worth YouTube’s time to provide them any level of service.
Is't this basically what happened with Destiny 2 channels earlier this year? Someone faked DMCA claims from Bungie across a wide swathe of Destiny 2 channels, possibly as retribution for having "music archiving" (which probably technically is a copyright violation) copyright-struck.
I guess, as long as they comply with the takedown, they feel sufficiently safely harboured, and don't feel compelled to implement the other part of the process since like what are you going to do, sue youtube to force them to host your video and run ads on it?
Typically youtube copyright strikes aren't even from DMCA notices at all but from their own system they designed so they don't have to spend as much on processing DMCA notices and to make the record industry happy.
From reading through their stuff a bit, it sounds like you can get fake/internal non-DMCA strikes first, and then, usually, you can choose to escalate to require them to do an actual DMCA thing if you disagree hard enough, which seems sort of reasonable.
Wealthy entities are somewhat vulnerable to lawsuits. It would be prudent of YouTube to take the a very paranoid view of the law from a respectable lawyer - which is likely what they've done.
Judges sometimes take pride in interpreting a law to mean something other than what the words say. Let alone the risks of interactions with other parts of the law. Amateur understanding doesn't count for much.
The initial copyright claim process isn't DMCA, but if you dispute a copyright claim and lose you can then appeal that decision. The DMCA process then takes over. YouTube requires the claimant to file a DMCA take down notice to continue the process. If they do not then the claim is removed. If they do then you can follow the DMCA counter notice process.
Early on YouTube didn't even treat disputes as on the same track as DMCA - if your appeal got rejected they'd just side with the claimant and you had no further recourse. It's possible that this happened that long ago.
Of course, even being able to DMCA counter-notice isn't really a help, because you're just telling the claimnant to sue. You even have to dox yourself. What people want is to just not have to deal with copyright in these specific cases where there is no element of copyright being infringed.
They take a dim view of this attitude when it's a transparent attempt at dodging liability.
The relative success of anti-SLAPP statues and motions would indicate that there is at least some empathy for "not forcing people who have not committed a crime to prove that they haven't committed a crime".
Interesting. Does this mean that anyone can claim any content from any YouTube content creator?
I'm curious why this isn't being done more frequently, but if it is, what recourse do YouTube content creators have to still make it profitable for themselves.
Video game developer Bungie's had a blow a few months back where a disgruntled player started 'impersonating' (in quotes - they just created a gmail account) Bungie's IP lawyers to issue fake DCMA takedowns for popular youtubers videos.
>Does this mean that anyone can claim any content from any YouTube content creator?
According to the article "yes", but google working on it.
I'm surprised Bungie didn't go after google. They clearly talked to them, but Google's has a lot of money, as opposed to random disgruntled player.
Yes, anyone can claim your content. The only solutions are to be big and rich enough to throw your legal weight around or to exploit the same broken system to claim your own content (naturally this means paying extra fees to gatekeepers and potentially still splitting revenue with scammers)
"When both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, we will continue to run ads on that video and hold the resulting revenue separately," the company said. "Once the Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, we'll pay out that revenue to the appropriate party."
The more serious problem is that during that process they'd be banned from Google. Bus I suppose that might be worth the weeks of work to migrate all the accounts that use it as an email address.
If you find a lawyers firm that want to help start that, it will be a really successful one. I know dozens of people that have been impacted (and just these together is likely close to a million revenue)
Who are you going to sue? You have no contract with Youtube requiring them to host and monetize your videos for you. You can't class action every single last dog and pony trollster one by one.
The flip side of Youtube being a free hosting service is that they have no obligation to host anyone's content. We think of Youtube as being a commons or community resource, but it's not, it's privately owned. You have no more right to put a video on Youtube than you have to put an advert on the side of Google HQ, it's their choice to make and they set the terms. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
You can sue them for monetizing your content and giving someone else the money. Even if their ToC says they can do whatever they want doesn't mean they actually can.
I've dealt with Youtube's copyright resolution process and I don't believe this story at all.
You're either leaving out material facts that completely change the story or making the story up.
For starters...Youtube's copyright strikes are geographical...IOW, you can't assert a copyright against a video posted by a user in another country.
Second, Google doesn't let you file a copyright strike on the basis of a single word in the title. Words, by themselves, are not copyrightable. Especially not when they deal with trademarks...
Third, after you file a counter notification, the claimant must prove that they've taken legal action against the purported infringer by providing evidence of such action. Generally, this means a copy of a complaint, or at the bare minimum a letter from your lawyer asserting your ownership and offering terms for a settlement. If they don't, Google treats the infringement claim as invalid and removes the strike.
Fourth, if you dispute the strike (by filing the counter notification), Google doesn't pay anybody for the video until they receive proof of the legal resolution of the dispute, because if they pay the wrong party they'll end up having to pay the rightful copyright owner.
I've not had a lot of luck finding reports of successful actual-legal-DMCA counter notifications after copyright/content id claims, so I'm really glad to read your comment confirming that it basically works as advertised. Which side of those disputes were you on?
Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification? I mentioned this in another comment, but I found this article (which is somewhat old, and from a random website I'd never heard of) where apparently Google acknowledged the counter notification but chose not to restore the video out of contractual obligations to the claimant: https://www.newmediarights.org/copyright/DMCA/youtube_refusi...
Both, the side asserting copyright and the side fighting the claim (for separate videos).
Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification?
Yes, we contacted Google Legal with a letter from our General Counsel after the claimant failed to file a lawsuit asserting its ownership of the disputed content, and the matter was resolved within about a month. Google restored our ability to monetize videos and paid us for the amount held in escrow during the dispute.
Note that, as with all things Google, if you let the customer support system handle your complaint, nothing gets done because the CS dept in India doesn't have the power to do anything. You have to go around the CS system and talk to a person in the department that's actually responsible for your issue. For a legal issue like this, that means reaching out to their Legal department directly.
While we have tax treaties that afford some protections to copyright owners for cross-border violations, the processes outlined in those treaties aren't built into in Youtube's automated copyright claim process.
For cross-border violations you need to reach out to Google Legal.
YouTube seems like one of the most easily disrupted services - not by small fry, but by the big guys.
If Apple made a YouTube-alike or Microsoft, they would likely find the YT creators are champing at the bit to get onto their platform.
Has there ever been a real go at YouTube by a company with significant resources?
Yes I am aware of Nebula but it is not a serious competitor to YouTube. I say that because I tried to use it on PlayStation - which is where I watch all my YouTube and couldn't, which means Nebula is not a serious competitor. Any serious competitor must be available on all the most popular media consumption platforms, and it must not require signup/signin to start watching - that's the baseline set by YouTube.
Even NetFlix - why have they not created a new service for user created content?
Probably because they would have to navigate the same lawsuits and agree to the same kind of automated take-down system to the satisfaction of the largest rights-holders (Sony, Warner Bros, Disney etc)
See this comment [0] in this thread, the current incarnation of youtube is the result of millions spent in legal fees. What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success? IIRC YouTube wasn't profitable until very recently.
I don't agree that the big companies would be deterred by that.
The CEO's of those huge companies aren't likely to be even interested in legal matters unless it's the DOJ calling about anti monopoly practices - that's what they pay their legal counsel for.
I don't think they'd give the slightest rats about fighting out the content ownership issues, especially since YouTube has already shown that it can be done.
>> What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success?
Why "little hope of success"? No-one at that level has even tried.
It's completely different from trying to take on facebook, in which you need to build the network before the whole thing works. With user created content they can start at any size.
In fact, pre-Google YouTube has very loose standards with regard to copyright. Most of the content was blatant piracy, a bit like "tube" porn sites today (YouTube also had porn btw). But it was a small company, and rightsholders didn't really care.
The minute it was bought by Google and their deep pockets, it was lawsuit after lawsuit.
They just need to promise to fix the problems that content creators like Fran are unhappy about. Alot of YouTube content creators are very unhappy but they have no choices offered to them.
Bring over some of the biggest YouTubers by buying them - such as Linus Tech Tips.
Offer better terms than YouTube does for monetization to the long tail of content creators.
Money talks, and those big companies have more money than you can fit in a phonebooth.
Spotify did something similar when it paid big money for the Joe Rogan podcast.
I appreciate that Fran has an example of monetizing content without claiming copyright (she digitizes public domain footage and is free to run ads on her channel, the money comes from an agreement with the broadcaster to advertise to her audience, nothing to do with the ownership of the content)
People assume that without copyright there would be no way for artists to make an income, but the two aren't really related. It's actual purpose is to prevent art from being made unless it is sufficiently "original"
Until it is litigated or you are charged and convicted it isn't against the law. YouTube and the entertainment industry have zero interest in your rights. Media companies make agreements between themselves. They make agreements with YouTube to avoid litigation. Larger YouTubers who make a living via YouTube don't have the motivation to band together, biting the hand that feeds you and all.
"Because copyright protection happens so easily, and lasts so long, you should assume that any work you want to use is copyrighted, unless it is very old or produced by the U.S. government." https://www.baylor.edu/copyright/index.php?id=56543 The U.S. government would have to go to YouTube and assert they produced the work in question and then sue YouTube. It doesn't help there is no clear definition how much of a work you can use before it is considered infringement. This means each claim that is made and disputed could end up in court to be decided. I don't have the solution to this. Until new laws are passed to change the situation people without the means to challenge lose.
She keeps saying "everybody's going to tell me I'm a whiner" with a ridiculous tone. She is indeed a whiner.
Not because of protesting YouTube's ridiculous copyright system, but because she uses that smug tone to talk to people who owe her nothing, and are making reasonable suggestions (like syncing with alternative platforms) for mitigating the problem.
Having other people seizing the fruits of your work is upsetting. Syncing to other platforms is just more work and doesn't prevent the primary problem.
> Syncing to other platforms is just more work and doesn't prevent the primary problem.
Maybe, but my objection isn't to the fact that she doesn't want to use alternative platforms. That's understandable. It's to how she looks down on people who dare to make that suggestion.
The immediate problem is that her video got flagged, but the "real" problem is being over-reliant on youtube without having any leverage against censorship and racketeering.
Even if the immediate problem were fixed, it would ultimately not change anything in the long run because it would only motivate uploaders to continue entrenching themselves on the website. You cannot have real change without competition.
Being called a whiner is not "abusive".
She complains about the website, yet she goes on to unfairly disparage the alternatives. By the end of the video she is patting herself on the back for being a "youtuber" and staying loyal to the website.
She wants a full time income doing something fun, using a free platform that does the marketing for her at no cost and complains when the rug gets pulled. This is business. Even in a job you can be replaced, fired or your skills go out of date. Life is a constant fight, everyone has to be up for that.
I am a bit saddened that Fran Blanche produced this video in the way she did. Fran is clearly, and justifiably, frustrated by the circumstances. She has every right to be. Yet claims like she owns the copyright if anybody since she owns an original reel is poorly articulated. I think Fran meant to say she may own the copyright to her transfer of the reel and she has the right to make a copy of the reel since the film is in the public domain.
The copyright situation is a mess though. Another poster said that they nope out of the idea of creating content due to stuff like this. I understand that feeling. On the other hand, their content would simply be ripped and reposted on somewhere else without some sort of technical means to enforce copyright. Either way, people who know how to abuse the system are going to abuse the system to their own benefit. There is no effective means to combat that abuse. The courts are out of reach to most people. Even a company as big as Google would have trouble handling and verifying claims. Even if they could dedicate the resources, it would probably expose them to being successfully sued in borderline cases. (Fran can point to her original reel, not everyone can do the same.)
EDIT: for those who are insisting that I am twisting Fran's words, I made it perfectly clear that she said if anybody. If you disagree with what I am saying, fine, but please don't claim that I am saying she said something she didn't because I am not.
Fran was unequivocal in her belief that no one can claim copyright on the content. If you’re referring to the quip she made along the lines of “if anyone” I think you’re missing the point of her video
Different people are going to interpret what she said in different was. In my case it was Fran venting her frustration. In my case, I realize she wasn't making a copyright claim, but it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine somebody out there would interpret Fran's words in that manner.
I'm guessing you're not a native English speaker because this: Yet claims like she owns the copyright if anybody since she owns an original reel is poorly articulated isn't at all how I interpreted what she said.
Regarding "if anybody", mind that this is about a given technical resolution of the media, comparing a low-resolution, multiple generation copy to a fresh copy from the original that she physically owns. There is unique work involved in this.
The trouble is that YouTube is more of a social phenomenon than a technical platform. There's been countless technical recreations of YouTube, but people don't want to be there, they want to be part of the YouTube movement so to speak. They want to be YouTubers, they want to talk to YouTubers, watch YouTubers and so on. No one wants to be a Vimeoer.
Videographers want to upload their videos to Vimeo, and it's just as good of a video platform as YouTube (better in some ways). But there's no social movement around it, or many other video platforms, and that's what people actually congregate to.
Imagine you're the copyright adjudicator for this claim at YouTube. You don't know if the claim is accurate. If it is and you leave the content up, your employer might be fined, and you get a write-up from your boss. If you take the content down, no fine, no write-up.
What would you do? Even if you try to side with creators, you might eventually be let go for making too many mistakes.
I understand that YouTube doesn't adjudicate claims themselves, but I think this may explain why they don't. Their adjudicators are heavily incentivized to take everything down. As a result, YouTube is hands off.
If this is an accurate framing of the situation, then incentives may not be properly aligned. Alternatively, YouTube (and others) simply have a monopoly position that needs to be out-competed.
>Imagine you're the copyright adjudicator for this claim at YouTube.
there is no such thing. All YT is obligated to do is give you and claimant a place to voice your opinions, and if you still insist to own rights to a piece of content then claimant can file DMCA, if you counter DMCA then they are free to sue.
> I understand that YouTube doesn't adjudicate claims themselves, but I think this may explain why they don't. Their adjudicators are heavily incentivized to take everything down. As a result, YouTube is hands off.
Yes the free internet is dead and the implications are bad. You can win a battle but not the war so we have to deal with this shit.
I don't know why we keep re-hashing how the internet is dead to knowledgable people who 'are not supposed to be there' or are not being financially supported from someplace. It is just true.
These days it is VERY hard for a "consumer" wait sorry a "human product" to curate and share their own interests. Most popular internet platforms and forums are toxic to independents or people without money. While I'm sad that we're enabling content demolishing trolls but everyone around this topic is exhausted.
I'm probably going to delete this but damn can we not. This conversation isnt productive and people who can make this outrage productive are too expensive. Every time I see something like this I do a spit take and water my plants with Brawndo cause Brawndo's got electrolytes because thats what plants crave.
As an aside, I used to really love how cable tv attracted all of the advertising idiots while the internet wasn't pummeled to death with money and influencers. Cable and the internet had their own place. Now we see web destruction on a scale we cant replace or re-create a space for what the internet used to mean. There is no 'side stream' to filter out non consumer traffic.
Internet is bigger than the mainstream. It's not just YouTube and Facebook. If you really wish to have a side stream, maybe go on 4Chan or visit the dark web.
Because let's not pretend that the internet was easy to navigate back in the day. You wanted the alternative nichy stuff, you needed to work for that. That never changed, neither online nor offline.
Judging by the green name, you're new here. You might want to read the community guidelines. Snark doesn't add anything to a conversation and it's boring to read.
Off topic, but I never heard of nebula (don't watch much videos). It's amazing how slow that site loads for me. Their /videos takes around 10s to load. I need to wait almost 3 seconds for _something_ to show up on the page.
Even once cached, the entire site (e.g. search), is slow enough to be noticeable.
About 9 years ago I worked for a fairly large (20+ million users) video platform. These numbers on catalog pages would have been barely accepted for an entire page load, let alone a couple CSS file.
This is the beauty of using RESTful hypermedia! You can change video host without changing the URL your fans have bookmarked. Maybe use some Switzerland based host!
In terms of the domain name system and takedowns: You are subject to the law still but I believe that it will be the law itself rather than a Go program in a google server saying “tough shit”
Yes, but actual DMCA process, not YouTube's process that isn't really based on DMCA at all.
The process DMCA uses is: 1) person claiming their copyright is being infringed sends a DMCA takedown notice to the platform. 2) Platform takes down the content (doesn't "keep it up and redirect revenue" like YouTube does) and notified the person who posted the content. 3) The person who posted the content can submit a counterclaim, at which point platform provider reinstates the content.
Then the person claiming their copyright is being violated disagrees, they have to sue the person in federal court for copyright infringement at that point.
Also there are penalties for making false DMCA claims. There don't appear to be ANY penalties for repeated, egregious violations of YouTube's own claim system.
What YouTube is doing isn't DMCA enforcement AT ALL.
Would a class-action lawsuit brought by content creators/owners who have been unfairly impacted by YT's poor enforcement of copyright strikes have a chance against the Alphabet/Google rent-seeking advertising juggernaut?
It is quite sad and irritating that unencumbered content is under attack by IP trolls who raised dubious claims and are prevailing under YT's flawed system.
262 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 251 ms ] threadWhy are people still on YouTube?
I really think Netflix should have a crack at it. (But clearly labeled as a different kind of thing. )
And, why are people still on YT? Well, because it's where everybody is. I.e., critical accumulation, out ruling any other considerations. It may turn out that having a viable path to justice on such a system of critical mass may be as important as having anti-trust clauses.
15 years later and still nothing even close to a viable YouTube alternative.
Obviously, there are more than 1000 big youtubers. The fee could be reduced and the budget increased by growing the union.
Millionaire youtubers can already afford high-priced lawyers if they want to, I'm not worried about that.
Who I am worried about are regular people who create content but don't have large followers and don't make to it to the frontpage of HN, but still get hit by copyright trolls.
The rich still benefit from organization.
Also, an organization may have legal standing where an individual does not, and can then deploy their lawyer-army. Where an individual has to wait for an issue to personally affect them, the organization will almost always have at least one affected member and can therefore keep up the pressure constantly, and eventually perhaps make the internet a better place.
They're saying that individual, successful/rich/"powerful" YouTubers can defend themselves against these spurious claims already, but that by organizing they would be even more well equipped, at less personal cost, and also make it possible for smaller creators to also defend themselves (with even less cost).
None of that has anything to do with any Vietcong analogy I can think of.
(Though in practice, it probably wouldn't be everyone - see the differences in how well-protected major- vs minor-league baseball players are.)
Edit: Maybe I've misinterpreted your comment, but I stand to the importance of publicity that may be lent by such cases.
Content creators don't use youtube for its video hosting. There are dozens of video hosting sites, many objectively better. Content creators use youtube because that's where the eyeballs and advertisers are, which also means that's where the money is.
And, 100k won't be enough to pay for one developer, let alone a herd of reviewers/lawyers to handle all of the DMCA noticed that will flood in, regardless.
I don't see how this doesn't get solved without amendments to the DMCA, which is probably where the money should be put.
I mostly agree with you. But $100k/month will definitely pay for a developer.
She also discusses "Visual Claim"[0] and how this will make things worse and how copyright trolls have nothing to lose with doubling down on illegitimate claims.
One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube. That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.
[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7037712?hl=en
(IANAL, so I may be totally off base with those terms.)
tortuous interference with a business is a good angle to start from.
malignant process or malfeasance may be possible as well.
But the bottom line is that most individual creators could never justify the legal costs of fighting copyright claims.
However, if a few thousand people sue Google on a small amount, a simple demand to repair monetary damages (this seems to have a different name every country), or co-name Google with a John Doe because Google has the information on Doe or is the only presence on that particular country, they will need to represent or risk a default. And the process won't scale on their side only.
A legal and ethically correct DDoS on Google, but requires thousands of people motivated enough to navigate the bureaucratic depths.
And Fran's comment about lawyering up is probably valid on USA where, AFAIK, the procedure for small claims is different.
IIUC, the idea was to sue in small claims court not on DMCA grounds, but on whatever state laws might relate to tortious interference, slander of title, defamation, etc.
Edit: reading in another thread that perhaps this is content ID. Not that, that is any better.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6013276?hl=en
I thought that was Copyright law?
I pay for a Vimeo account but almost no one watches my videos compared to YouTube.
>Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.[8][9][10] Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works"
>Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over 12 terabytes of data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site
>In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. The performance rights organization GEMA argued that YouTube had not done enough to prevent the uploading of German copyrighted music
Note that, for actual DMCA claims, YouTube WILL go to bat for their creators, especially if it's an obvious case of videos falling under fair use, eg https://youtu.be/aY1CYF3MKec?t=27
In general, Content ID was created in response to Viacom dragging YouTube through court for not preemptively stopping people from uploading episodes of Spongebob. Viacom was planning to take it further up the appeal process until a settlement was reached which lead to the creation of Content ID, eg "viacom will upload copyrighted material to YouTube and YouTube will automatically scan every video to check if it violates viacom's rights". After this happened, of course, other copyright holders like AT&T (WarnerMedia)/NBC/etc and small international rights-holders weren't going to let themselves miss out on this revenue stream, so YT expanded the system to allow any rights management firm or copyright holder to use the system if they were big enough or powerful enough in their region.
That said, third party Content ID claims for works not exclusively owned by the claimant are against YouTube's partner terms. The enforcement is just lacking.
This is obviously not the case. This is really the entire point of having Content ID in the first place: Had YT been free to monetize under their own contracts whoever uploaded an episode of Sponge Bob, Viacom wouldn't have had a case.
Okay, so that's supposed to make a legitimacy claim. I've had arguments with the internet claiming that I made upres copies of digibetas when photographic evidence showing the 16mm prints on the telecine, but the internet still disagreed. So I KNOW the pain.
However, let's say that you, me, and Dupree all have a print of the Apollo 12 scene. We all pay to have the things done to have it available as a digital file, and eventually we all post our independent videos to YT. If we did some sort of perceptual hashing to each video, would it not be logical to assume we'd all be flagged? At that point, what's an algo to do?
Flagged for what, exactly? The perceptual hash would show that all three of you uploaded the same video, but not that any those uploads were infringing. Nothing should happen unless someone (either one of you, or another party) tries to claim that they're the copyright holder for that video. Which ought to require at least some hard evidence.
Ideally[0], if that were to happen, YouTube would manually investigate the claim to determine whether it was reasonable, and the parties accused of infringement would have a chance to challenge the claim or offer another reason why the uploads are not infringing, such as prior permission or fair use, before anything permanent was done. Since the video is in the public domain, the claim should be rejected and the video marked as public domain in the content database after the investigation to preempt any further false claims.
Of course investigations like this require actual work. It's always going to be easier to just take down the video—especially since they're hosting it for free. Ad revenues won't cover the cost of investigating claims, much less protracted legal fights.
[0] Ideally ideally, copyright would simply be repealed and we'd all be much better off. But short of that…
What if every time a creator receives a bogus claim+demonetization he/she immediately deletes the content from YouTube and moves it to a different platform, making sure there is a link somewhere to reach it without breaking YT rules? The troll won't get the money as well and some users could still watch the content. Yes, other platforms aren't comparable wrt the user base, and that would also defeat the initial purpose, but once the video is demonetized the creator wouldn't get the money anyway, so it could be a way to hurt the trolls where it matters most.
Assuming explicit links are disallowed (didn't check) the link could be exported as a torrent hash; it's not a link per se but search engines would find it, and they usually have a pretty long lifetime.
As an example, the following hash: 2E28D47963BF639EDAADCA33583546B39156D62D
Brings a 10+ years old Debian Linux image. The file would probably be dead now, also younger hashes are a lot easier to find, but all we need is the hash leading somewhere.
There are other ways to embed links in a video; for example either a barcode-like pattern on video, or short fsk sequence embedded in audio, that could be translated on the fly by a browser extension into ad address and lead there without any user intervention.
I had high hopes for the nebula model, but the platform owners have already clearly telegraphed their intent with regard to harvesting user data, nickel and diming, and at some point inserting ads.
The only solution is a platform that respects everyone. peertube is a good contender, although curation and payment for content (which are separate problems to distribution and discovery) need work. Tilvids seems to be doing okay curation-wise (although adoption is low).
Perhaps for payment, a client that locally tracks your view count and then stochastically tells you to deliver your payment to a particular creator to avoid a middleman holding the tin and sticking their fingers in.
Odysee is just a website frontend for LBRY. Of course, Odysee operators can choose who to show on their website.
Pretty good heuristic for these things is to assume cryptocoins are always at least one scam.
Youtube is free to do whatever they want on their own platform, within the law. Arguing that they dominate the market brings antitrust laws into play here. On these grounds their TOS about ContentID (basically we'll decide whatever we want and you'll take it) can be evaded.
Why would the government do that though? The main complaint in this instance is that YouTube is attempting to enforce the government's rules. As far as I've seen, major complaints against YouTube when they act in the interests of a government (or political party in some instances).
Copyright strikes are such a blatant example of the legal system being bought and paid for by the wealthy, it's not even funny.
Nothing against creating content for yourself, or your friends, or future people though. Just don't expect fame or money.
It is a problem, but it's not genuinely an obstacle for creators finding audiences. Making good content that people like and getting enough traction to have a userbase is orders of magnitude more of a risk than getting a copyright strike.
From personal experience I can't say the system works any better if you're a creator whose content is getting ripped from other sources and put onto YouTube either. I've had people ripping numerous videos and it apparently takes longer to complete YouTube's takedown form than it takes for the ripper to upload the exact same video to their channel again. I thought there was supposed to be some provision in the safe harbor laws that YouTube hides behind to deal with repeat offenders but apparently it doesn't carry any practical weight if there is.
I'd be the first to agree that copyright protection has been expanded too far and the mechanisms for enforcing it are often used unfairly and in a heavy-handed way. Reform is well overdue. I'd have slightly more understanding if those methods did at least work in cases of flagrant infringement that are exactly what copyright law was always supposed to prohibit but it seems they don't. Not for the little creator at least.
They take a song, rename it under a fake name, and then when you upload the actual song you get a copyright claim from the fake song.
They especially do this with small and traditional record labels that do not have an online presence.
This is not about one creator vs another and filing counter-claims via DMCA, this is about extra-judicial automated bureaucracies designed by Google.
The video went pretty viral... 8 digit views, got me 5 digit subscriber count, was posted on dozens and dozens of news sites and blogs and shared widely. I was excited, off to a great start with this whole YouTube thing.
No music, no audio other than the engine sounds, absolutely zero reason anyone could possibly do a copyright strike... right?
Nope, some church minister in some tiny country did a copyright strike saying they own the rights to the word "spirit" in my video title (it was part of the name of the vehicle itself)... so they got all the money I earned from that video + I got a strike on my channel and a scary warning from YouTube saying my entire Google account could get banned including my Gmail. I disputed it with a very clear explanation of the situation, and they quickly reply saying they sided with the complainant and they'll be ignoring all future disputes.
Fuck YouTube/Google.
Edit: I went back to find the emails from Google and realised the story is even crazier than I remember. YouTube never reviewed the dispute, they let the person making the claim review their own dispute!!
> Hi [Name],
> After reviewing your dispute, [Dodgy Fuck's Name] has decided that their copyright claim is still valid.
> Copyrighted content: Spirit
> Claimed by: [Dodgy Fuck's Name]
Makes me wonder if anyone at Google is aware of the term "perverse incentive"
1. Commission some original background music on fiverr with copyright attribution. 2. Put it in a video. Post on youtube. 3. Copyright claim your own video from a different channel. 4. Show your copyright info if necessary.
This way, you still get a fraction of your own video revenue by playing both sides.
Step 1 is dispute claim.
Step 1A is the claimant choosing to release or reinstate the claim.
Step 2, if they reinstate the claim, you can "appeal".
Step 2A, the claimant can either release the claim, or file a formal DMCA notice.
Step 3, if they file a formal DMCA notice-- you can file a DMCA counter-notification.
Step 3A, if they disagree, they can sue.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12104471#zippy=%2C...
Is it? If it's more expensive for them to get it right, then maybe not getting involved in the adjudication makes sense.
It does seem like a great reason for creators to not publish on YouTube, however.
Once there is sufficient competition I would expect them to start adjudicating.
And before someone jumps in and blames the money train, capitalism, etc. Please let me know how you would run a business that is not profitable. The money to pay salaries has to come from somewhere.
Personally I'd like to see them aimed at regional broadband ISP monopolies first, since that is an underlying infrastructure for the services we use.
I'm not sure where the FTC is on this, but I know the focus in media has shifted in recent years from Comcast etc. to FAANG. Perhaps that's because the problems from the platform-based monopolies enabled by ISPs are closer and thus more apparent to us. Or, maybe it's a campaign propped up by ISPs to take the focus off of them.
From a customer's perspective, it seems they take the money and run to the bank. Where competition is low, and that's a lot of places, so is the quality of customer service and the provided speeds. Fees can be high, and for the last 20 years they've been trying to figure out how to get even more money by gutting net neutrality. They can be very aggressive on this [1], and there aren't really any significant repercussions. You probably don't want to fine a company out of existence, and any fine you do apply doesn't mean much if they get to keep their customers.
These ISP and content conglomerates have just gotten too big, and I think it's biting us in the form of tech monopolies that sit atop them.
The FCC is trying to redefine broadband to be 100 Mbps [2]. Almost certainly, the 2 republican commissioners will vote against that, and the democratic commissioners will vote for it. So it won't pass until the final FCC chair is filled, which Manchin is stalling in the senate [3].
Chances are it comes down to midterms. It's an important issue, the challenge is making it relatable to the public amidst other issues.
[1] https://youtu.be/BEXuK073bkE?t=749
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/19/fcc-bro...
[3] https://www.axios.com/2022/06/03/biden-fcc-nominee-gigi-sohn...
Else, we could skip straight to 3A (which is still them not being involved, and it is their legal obligation to maintain safe harbor under DMCA).
Cynical hat firmly in place, you could go a step further and just say that if it's more expensive for them to do it fairly then this is actually "right" from their point of view...
If they don't sue the purported infringer, Google treats the original copyright complaint as invalid and releases the strike.
The law is broken and needs to change.
The complainant submits a complaint, the receiver submits a counter notice, youtube is granted immunity to put the content back up after 14 days (unless the complainant initiates a lawsuit within that timeframe) and the complainant has no recourse but to take the alleged-infringer to court.
Technically, submitting a copyright claim with blatantly false information is perjury, but your only recourse as the victim is to beg a prosecutor to take the perpetrator to court over it. There is no civil remedy for false DMCA takedowns.
As far as I am aware, not a single person has ever been convicted of perjury because of information supplied in a DMCA takedown.
That said, there are also civil penalties for false takedown notices under 512(f), which I believe have been successfully litigated. Still, the effort vs reward in litigating them is almost never worth it.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
The claimant should require some skin in the game to prevent this sort of nonsense, maybe a bond or surety of some kind held in the US?
This is of most impact to channels big enough for somebody to treat it as a full time job, but not so big that it will ever be worth YouTube’s time to provide them any level of service.
I guess, as long as they comply with the takedown, they feel sufficiently safely harboured, and don't feel compelled to implement the other part of the process since like what are you going to do, sue youtube to force them to host your video and run ads on it?
Judges sometimes take pride in interpreting a law to mean something other than what the words say. Let alone the risks of interactions with other parts of the law. Amateur understanding doesn't count for much.
Of course, even being able to DMCA counter-notice isn't really a help, because you're just telling the claimnant to sue. You even have to dox yourself. What people want is to just not have to deal with copyright in these specific cases where there is no element of copyright being infringed.
The relative success of anti-SLAPP statues and motions would indicate that there is at least some empathy for "not forcing people who have not committed a crime to prove that they haven't committed a crime".
I'm curious why this isn't being done more frequently, but if it is, what recourse do YouTube content creators have to still make it profitable for themselves.
Bungie is now suing them. I'm surprised they didn't go harder after Youtube, but I guess that's a lot more difficult in court. https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-send...
According to the article "yes", but google working on it. I'm surprised Bungie didn't go after google. They clearly talked to them, but Google's has a lot of money, as opposed to random disgruntled player.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/28/11532734/youtube-complain...
"When both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, we will continue to run ads on that video and hold the resulting revenue separately," the company said. "Once the Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, we'll pay out that revenue to the appropriate party."
It seems like this would be a perfect target for class action lawyers who go after very large targets (ie Google) for causing distress en-mass.
https://www.lieffcabraser.com/contact/
You could try contacting them.
> I have private access to some pretty cool motorsports/boat-racing/etc stuff
The flip side of Youtube being a free hosting service is that they have no obligation to host anyone's content. We think of Youtube as being a commons or community resource, but it's not, it's privately owned. You have no more right to put a video on Youtube than you have to put an advert on the side of Google HQ, it's their choice to make and they set the terms. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
You're either leaving out material facts that completely change the story or making the story up.
For starters...Youtube's copyright strikes are geographical...IOW, you can't assert a copyright against a video posted by a user in another country.
Second, Google doesn't let you file a copyright strike on the basis of a single word in the title. Words, by themselves, are not copyrightable. Especially not when they deal with trademarks...
Third, after you file a counter notification, the claimant must prove that they've taken legal action against the purported infringer by providing evidence of such action. Generally, this means a copy of a complaint, or at the bare minimum a letter from your lawyer asserting your ownership and offering terms for a settlement. If they don't, Google treats the infringement claim as invalid and removes the strike.
Fourth, if you dispute the strike (by filing the counter notification), Google doesn't pay anybody for the video until they receive proof of the legal resolution of the dispute, because if they pay the wrong party they'll end up having to pay the rightful copyright owner.
Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification? I mentioned this in another comment, but I found this article (which is somewhat old, and from a random website I'd never heard of) where apparently Google acknowledged the counter notification but chose not to restore the video out of contractual obligations to the claimant: https://www.newmediarights.org/copyright/DMCA/youtube_refusi...
Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification?
Yes, we contacted Google Legal with a letter from our General Counsel after the claimant failed to file a lawsuit asserting its ownership of the disputed content, and the matter was resolved within about a month. Google restored our ability to monetize videos and paid us for the amount held in escrow during the dispute.
Note that, as with all things Google, if you let the customer support system handle your complaint, nothing gets done because the CS dept in India doesn't have the power to do anything. You have to go around the CS system and talk to a person in the department that's actually responsible for your issue. For a legal issue like this, that means reaching out to their Legal department directly.
How does that work? So anyone in Norway can copy anything produced in the US and not be taken down on a copyright claim?
For cross-border violations you need to reach out to Google Legal.
Just going to guess... Was this vehicle the Spirit of Australia II?
If Apple made a YouTube-alike or Microsoft, they would likely find the YT creators are champing at the bit to get onto their platform.
Has there ever been a real go at YouTube by a company with significant resources?
Yes I am aware of Nebula but it is not a serious competitor to YouTube. I say that because I tried to use it on PlayStation - which is where I watch all my YouTube and couldn't, which means Nebula is not a serious competitor. Any serious competitor must be available on all the most popular media consumption platforms, and it must not require signup/signin to start watching - that's the baseline set by YouTube.
Even NetFlix - why have they not created a new service for user created content?
See this comment [0] in this thread, the current incarnation of youtube is the result of millions spent in legal fees. What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success? IIRC YouTube wasn't profitable until very recently.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32160488
The CEO's of those huge companies aren't likely to be even interested in legal matters unless it's the DOJ calling about anti monopoly practices - that's what they pay their legal counsel for.
I don't think they'd give the slightest rats about fighting out the content ownership issues, especially since YouTube has already shown that it can be done.
>> What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success?
Why "little hope of success"? No-one at that level has even tried.
It's completely different from trying to take on facebook, in which you need to build the network before the whole thing works. With user created content they can start at any size.
The minute it was bought by Google and their deep pockets, it was lawsuit after lawsuit.
They just need to promise to fix the problems that content creators like Fran are unhappy about. Alot of YouTube content creators are very unhappy but they have no choices offered to them.
Bring over some of the biggest YouTubers by buying them - such as Linus Tech Tips.
Offer better terms than YouTube does for monetization to the long tail of content creators.
Money talks, and those big companies have more money than you can fit in a phonebooth.
Spotify did something similar when it paid big money for the Joe Rogan podcast.
People assume that without copyright there would be no way for artists to make an income, but the two aren't really related. It's actual purpose is to prevent art from being made unless it is sufficiently "original"
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=1qCM9L_FaFU
(May be a network issue. I'm located in Europe.)
"Because copyright protection happens so easily, and lasts so long, you should assume that any work you want to use is copyrighted, unless it is very old or produced by the U.S. government." https://www.baylor.edu/copyright/index.php?id=56543 The U.S. government would have to go to YouTube and assert they produced the work in question and then sue YouTube. It doesn't help there is no clear definition how much of a work you can use before it is considered infringement. This means each claim that is made and disputed could end up in court to be decided. I don't have the solution to this. Until new laws are passed to change the situation people without the means to challenge lose.
Not because of protesting YouTube's ridiculous copyright system, but because she uses that smug tone to talk to people who owe her nothing, and are making reasonable suggestions (like syncing with alternative platforms) for mitigating the problem.
Calling her a whiner is unnecessary abuse.
Maybe, but my objection isn't to the fact that she doesn't want to use alternative platforms. That's understandable. It's to how she looks down on people who dare to make that suggestion.
Even if the immediate problem were fixed, it would ultimately not change anything in the long run because it would only motivate uploaders to continue entrenching themselves on the website. You cannot have real change without competition.
Being called a whiner is not "abusive".
She complains about the website, yet she goes on to unfairly disparage the alternatives. By the end of the video she is patting herself on the back for being a "youtuber" and staying loyal to the website.
Welcome to adulthood.
She wants a full time income doing something fun, using a free platform that does the marketing for her at no cost and complains when the rug gets pulled. This is business. Even in a job you can be replaced, fired or your skills go out of date. Life is a constant fight, everyone has to be up for that.
Sorry, "being up for" being the target of racketeering and fraud-- I expect better than that.
Indeed, one might say it's the only fight that matters, as other options just lead to unabated extortion.
The facts are she is whining while not willing to do anything about it (lawyer/contesting)
The copyright situation is a mess though. Another poster said that they nope out of the idea of creating content due to stuff like this. I understand that feeling. On the other hand, their content would simply be ripped and reposted on somewhere else without some sort of technical means to enforce copyright. Either way, people who know how to abuse the system are going to abuse the system to their own benefit. There is no effective means to combat that abuse. The courts are out of reach to most people. Even a company as big as Google would have trouble handling and verifying claims. Even if they could dedicate the resources, it would probably expose them to being successfully sued in borderline cases. (Fran can point to her original reel, not everyone can do the same.)
EDIT: for those who are insisting that I am twisting Fran's words, I made it perfectly clear that she said if anybody. If you disagree with what I am saying, fine, but please don't claim that I am saying she said something she didn't because I am not.
I interpreted this as having a laugh at how ridiculous it is for someone else to claim it's their footage, "I have the original right here!"
What she says that if it was possible to have a copyright claim it should be her because she owns the reel. But not that she has copyright.
There should be some decentralized platforms.
Videographers want to upload their videos to Vimeo, and it's just as good of a video platform as YouTube (better in some ways). But there's no social movement around it, or many other video platforms, and that's what people actually congregate to.
What would you do? Even if you try to side with creators, you might eventually be let go for making too many mistakes.
I understand that YouTube doesn't adjudicate claims themselves, but I think this may explain why they don't. Their adjudicators are heavily incentivized to take everything down. As a result, YouTube is hands off.
If this is an accurate framing of the situation, then incentives may not be properly aligned. Alternatively, YouTube (and others) simply have a monopoly position that needs to be out-competed.
there is no such thing. All YT is obligated to do is give you and claimant a place to voice your opinions, and if you still insist to own rights to a piece of content then claimant can file DMCA, if you counter DMCA then they are free to sue.
I don't know why we keep re-hashing how the internet is dead to knowledgable people who 'are not supposed to be there' or are not being financially supported from someplace. It is just true.
These days it is VERY hard for a "consumer" wait sorry a "human product" to curate and share their own interests. Most popular internet platforms and forums are toxic to independents or people without money. While I'm sad that we're enabling content demolishing trolls but everyone around this topic is exhausted.
I'm probably going to delete this but damn can we not. This conversation isnt productive and people who can make this outrage productive are too expensive. Every time I see something like this I do a spit take and water my plants with Brawndo cause Brawndo's got electrolytes because thats what plants crave.
As an aside, I used to really love how cable tv attracted all of the advertising idiots while the internet wasn't pummeled to death with money and influencers. Cable and the internet had their own place. Now we see web destruction on a scale we cant replace or re-create a space for what the internet used to mean. There is no 'side stream' to filter out non consumer traffic.
Because let's not pretend that the internet was easy to navigate back in the day. You wanted the alternative nichy stuff, you needed to work for that. That never changed, neither online nor offline.
Wow thanks for the advice. I cant believe I didn't know those existed.
https://cloud.typography.com/6361472/632446/css/fonts.css takes ~700ms
https://standard-fonts.s3.amazonaws.com/789323/56D15C61E7EF4... takes 2.1 seconds.
Even once cached, the entire site (e.g. search), is slow enough to be noticeable.
About 9 years ago I worked for a fairly large (20+ million users) video platform. These numbers on catalog pages would have been barely accepted for an entire page load, let alone a couple CSS file.
She doesn’t want solutions and instead will just give up and go back to work.
But for anyone else: your own domain, videos on s3, sponsors instead of ads.
Pay a techie to set it up if you are not techie.
Use YouTube too but just for traffic into the site. Shorter/lower quality video there with link to site for better videos.
Your site will have the better UX! You can get them on a mail list. Get closer to the audience. See if they want to pay for a premium membership.
In terms of the domain name system and takedowns: You are subject to the law still but I believe that it will be the law itself rather than a Go program in a google server saying “tough shit”
Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft
The process DMCA uses is: 1) person claiming their copyright is being infringed sends a DMCA takedown notice to the platform. 2) Platform takes down the content (doesn't "keep it up and redirect revenue" like YouTube does) and notified the person who posted the content. 3) The person who posted the content can submit a counterclaim, at which point platform provider reinstates the content.
Then the person claiming their copyright is being violated disagrees, they have to sue the person in federal court for copyright infringement at that point.
Also there are penalties for making false DMCA claims. There don't appear to be ANY penalties for repeated, egregious violations of YouTube's own claim system.
What YouTube is doing isn't DMCA enforcement AT ALL.
It is quite sad and irritating that unencumbered content is under attack by IP trolls who raised dubious claims and are prevailing under YT's flawed system.