ContentID takedowns are not DMCA takedowns. They operate on a different, much less strict standard. Anyone that works with YouTube can flag any video for any reason (see Scripps taking down a public-domain NASA video[0]), and the content is removed immediately without giving the initial uploader a right to contest it (it can be restored laterº. A YouTube user has way fewer rights under ContentID than they do under the DMCA. If you are found in violation of ContentID, you must fight both YouTube and the claimant to have your case heard under the DMCA.
[0] http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/nasa-s-mars-rover-crashed-i...
s512(c)(1)(C) "upon notification ... responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to"
"Expeditiously" is the key. That is, today, understood to mean now, not after the weekend or once Bill comes back from lunch. On a giant system like Youtube, it requires an automated system.
Add to this YouTube's poor view of fair use (they've come under fire in the past for misrepresenting fair use in a copyright education video), and it's a recipe for disaster.
I think the headline in the article and here is misleading and should be changed.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311402
This particular video seems like a nice test case of the review system.
The issue comes from the second sentence of the second paragraph:
> Therefore, applicants must have the exclusive rights to the material that is evaluated.
YouTube does nothing to verify the exclusive rights, as far as I can tell.
Setting a high bar for eligibility presumably cuts down on fraud, wasted cycles vetting obvious noise, and the need for an army of people to do the vetting and legal checksumming around the clock.
The little guy is collateral damage in this case, not the intended target. You could argue, hey, potato potahto, the net result is a system that favors the large content publisher and offers the little guy no chance to participate. But intent matters. If Google's intent is to manage scale, then hopefully Google acknowledges the unintended problems its solution creates, and it's working on a better solution. If Google's intent is indeed to favor the big publishers, then that's a different story.
ContentID is more acceptable to the only potential litigants against whom Google would care about the DMCA safe harbor against than is the process which makes available the DMCA safe harbor, so that wouldn't matter.
A safe harbor is a protection against legal liability which you otherwise might have. If you have a separate arrangement which is both lower cost for you to operate and more acceptable to the only people against whom you are concerned about using the safe harbor than the actual safe harbor process, you don't care about a safe harbor.
If google didn't agree to the ContentID system, Viacom would have most likely been able to strip them of their safe harbor status.
And that means the end of Youtube.
Yeah, something needs to be done, but having humans review takedowns just doesn't work at this scale, and if they aren't extremely over zealous about taking things down, they will be shut down.
Google is under the thumb of Viacom and other big media companies, and there really isn't anything they can do about it except agree or close up shop.
(Mind you, I think that there are definitely ways that Google can improve the situation, and that they should be pressured to do so, but it's not as simple as saying they are "evil")
This is just a small taste.
The damage is done, the money is made, and the perpetrators can just say, "whoops" and absolve themselves of any wrongdoing while they take their ill-gotten gains to the bank.
They use robots to create reports (maybe not in this case) because for them there is simply zero downside.
That downside needs to exist.
So there the problem is that Youtube gives preferential treatment to their more profitable users, they don't have to submit a legal document to Youtube, they just flag the content and are done.
I bet there was never even a human in this particular loop.
EDIT: Of course the ContentID system probably circumvents that entirely because technically your content is taken down automatically rather than because of a DMCA claim. Even though the effect on the uploader is the same: impacting the monetisation of a video they may have invested a significant amount of time into. If anything it's worse because there is no built-in way to counter-claim or claim damages (without directly going to court).
In any case a simple air date sanity check would have prevented this particular case.
So he figured out how to get around stupid contentID flags. He put in clips of videos from different companies and spliced them into his videos. This caused a couple of companies to claim copyright over his video, but when there are multiple claimants for one video, Google's system doesn't give any of them any ad money. So in effect he gets to continue to use clips while not having any companies monetize his viewers.
If that's true, then couldn't he simply file a claim of his own to counter a single company's claim?
I'm guessing part of the reason he did this was more for the humor of screwing with larger media companies.
Upload priority is not proof of ownership or creation. If you upload one of Fox's movie trailers before they do, they should still definitely be able to take you down.
This seems like a special case deserving of special attention. It doesn't seem like something that should be sloppily addressed by an algorithm.
The only time this would be a problem is if the bootleg trailer were uploaded before they uploaded the ContentID data, and Fox wanted to then upload the ContentID data and have it removed automatically. I can't see why they would do this, however, since presumably they are reacting to the bootleg upload in this case, and can then simpply issue a manual takedown request.
And now that Youtube is moving into licensed, subscription-based streaming with Youtube Red, channels using third party content under fair use are interfering with Google's potential future revenue, regardless of their actual legality. I still believe "hiccups" like the recent wave of let's play and reviewer channels disappearing mysteriously are an attempt by Google to drive those channels away, to make the site look more attractive for media companies and their IP.
The real problem here is that FOX copied the exact contents of an existing 7-year old youtube video in their Family Guy episode (maybe the creators tried to give a tribute). The ContentID rules state that you should have exclusive rights to the content in a specific region, which they don't.
Thinking about this again, the ContentID system is also at fault here: it is blatantly ignoring the upload date for video's on youtube. I don't know how the ContentID system works, but you should at least give the date on which the copyright of the reference content (=Family Guy episode) starts. If FOX would try to upload the Family Guy episode, the ContentID system should give a warning that it uses already existing, older content. Now Youtube/Google, that can't be so hard to implement, now can it?
Also, Youtube should handle complaints from incorrect takedowns a bit better. Like keep a reputation on parties using the ContentID system. Say you start at 100. If you do incorrect takedowns, your reputation decreases. If you do correct takedowns, it rises (come up with some statistical efficient tool)_. If it falls below 50, you are excluded from the ContentID system for breaking the rules, or somebody could sue the party or something. Make it transparent (yearly report) to the public, so they can judge.
Also the irony of responding with an uploaded video of a copyrighted show owned by a major studio is delicious. :)
http://youtubecreator.blogspot.co.at/2016/04/improving-conte...
Although I prefer buying content directly from the artist, like Louis CK does. As long as it seems "fair", I buy.
That where piracy comes from: a rational argument about a skewed market.
