Updates on technology policy issues
A Step Toward Protecting Fair Use on YouTube
Thursday, November 19, 2015
More than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Some
of those uploads make use of existing content, like music or TV clips,
in new and transformative ways that have social value beyond the
original (such as a parody or critique). In the U.S. this activity is
often protected by fair use, a crucial exception to copyright law which
can help discussion and creativity across different mediums to continue
flourishing.
YouTube will now protect some of the best examples of fair use on YouTube by agreeing to defend them in court if necessary.
We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe
represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns.
With approval of the video creators, we’ll keep the videos live on
YouTube in the U.S., feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them.
We’re doing this because we recognize that creators can be intimidated
by the DMCA’s counter notification process, and the potential for
litigation that comes with it (for more background on the DMCA and
copyright law see check out this Copyright Basics
video). In addition to protecting the individual creator, this program
could, over time, create a “demo reel” that will help the YouTube
community and copyright owners alike better understand what fair use
looks like online and develop best practices as a community.
While we can’t offer legal protection to every video creator—or even
every video that has a strong fair use defense—we’ll continue to resist
legally unsupported DMCA takedowns as part of our normal processes. We
believe even the small number of videos we are able to protect will make
a positive impact on the entire YouTube ecosystem, ensuring YouTube
remains a place where creativity and expression can be rewarded.
A simple change would be once a claim is made against a video to hold (escrow) all revenue until the dispute is resolved or one party fails to respond in the given time. After there is a resolution, the revenue is released to the correct party.
Last, a strike should not be issued while a DMCA counter notice is pending. It is far to easy in the current system for a claimant to make multiple claims at once and "carpet bomb" a channel to three strikes. I have personally been hit by Nintendo at least 3 times with strikes on multiple videos at once. Because Nintendo uses multiple accounts (Nintendo Music, Nintendo of America, etc) these look like independent violations. I have successfully counter noticed every claim but at the cost of not being able to upload new content or monetize my existing content because of the process heavily favors the claimant and punishes the creator for an appeal (had I just accepted their claim and ads, there would have never been a DMCA notice though I would give up my rights to my creation).
Channels with a long history of popular contribution should also be less vulnerable to strikes than those that just appear and start reposting the work of others.
IF YouTube is being sincere in this effort then we will see, I for one do not believe this, all of my videos I post under the fair use clause taken down; so starting today FIREFOXNEWS ONLINE™ Productions all videos we post will have the clause will open and close all videos before the opening title sequence and at the end of the ending credit sequence (even ones that have no title or end sequence), and if my videos continue to be targeted by YouTube then I will know this is total nonsense and that would be unfair, because to lie to we the users as well as the general public would be the worst thing one can do.
We the users will see.. I will be sharing this tonight on my Blog Talk Radio broadcast; let us all hope YouTube is being honest in this policy change, it would be unfortunate wouldn't it if they were not being so...
I enjoyed reading your blog post. The making of unjustified infringement claims is an issue of great concern to content producers and the measure announced appears to be a step in the right direction. I have described below two other ways in which YouTube could address this issue on a more systemic basis.
My videos have been subjected to repeated and unwarranted DMCA takedown requests. In some circumstances, when I have filed counter-notifications, the alleged rights-holder has allowed the initial DMCA takedown notification to lapse, only to make an identical takedown notification some months later. I would urge YouTube to look at ways of discouraging such obviously vexatious abuses of process on the part of claimants.
Another issue I would urge YouTube to address is the operation of the copyright strikes system. At present, a user may have copyright strikes recorded against their account (resulting in loss of access to key functionality or, it seems, even deletion of one's account) as a result of multiple takedown notices even when the YouTube user immediately files counter-notifications in response. This creates the possibility that YouTube users may have their accounts limited or even deleted when they have done nothing wrong and when they have taken every step available to them to respond to baseless claims of infringement. YouTube could address this problem by providing that, during the pendency of the notification/counter-notification process, no copyright strike be recorded against a YouTube user's account.
Kind regards
Hugh Atkin
youtube.com/hmatkin
Specifically, I cant see Jim Sterlings video, that's currently in this program.
I hope this block is temporary, and wont mean that in the future I will need a proxy to view videos from people like Jim Sterling, who seems to get a lot of these false takedown notices.
There is very little transparency as how YouTube's monetization approval system works.
For example, on my most popular video ("Will The Real Mitt Romney Please Stand Up"), monetization was allowed for a time, but was subsequently revoked. This appears to have followed the lodging of an infringement claim against the video, which claim I successfully challenged. The abandonment of the infringement claim notwithstanding, YouTube has maintained its revocation of monetization for several years, resulting in considerable lost revenue.
On another video of mine ("Ike to Obama - 60 Years of Campaign Ads"), against which no claim of infringement has ever been made, I provided written documentation of the licence I purchased to use the background production music. Monetization was rejected in respect of that video with no reasons or recourse ever having been given.
I have repeatedly attempted to correspond with YouTube's copyright team in relation to this and other videos, but have received non-responsive pro forma responses each time. It is a most unsatisfactory situation.
YouTube's contentID system obviously gets a lot of hits every day, and parsing all of them by hand would be impossible for a team of any size, but there are a finite number of large channels, and it's very difficult to achieve a high subscriber count by reposting other people's content. I wouldn't ask you to help defend me in court if it did come to a lawsuit - just make it so that my channel's growth can't be instantly crippled by negligent lawyers or malicious legal attacks.
For the record, I'm using 10k as a benchmark because I have 14k subscribers at present, but if you needed a higher target number than that to make this feasible I'd completely understand. Somewhere up the youtube food chain, though, exceptions like this need to start being implemented.
Jim Sterling is in the program, so if it goes live like this, that means that any developer who dosnt like his videos, can greatly limit their reach, simply by sending a DMCA takedown notice.
Fully expecting it to autofail, but however that will block the video from being visible to anyone outside the US, and as such, still accomplishes much of what they want.
And this time, not in a temporary fasion.
Please correct me if I'm wrong on this, and I hope I am, and you arent just about to give them a way to make the censorship of criticism much more effective, outside the US.
It appears to me that Youtube/Google really need to implement a management process which does not involve too many people merely 'clicking' stuff and 'doing stuff' without any transparency or communication.
Their complaints and response process could be called flawed IF it was clearer what they were doing. At the moment it merely appears as if some automated system is put in place and rarely reviewed by a person.
While I appreciate what Google provides (and use a lot of their products) they are in danger of creating a mammoth wave of problems merely by refusing to address the 'human' in the equation.
That in itself is a huge statement. Interesting times! :) (grabs popcorn)
Getting Permission: How to License & Clear Copyrighted Materials Online & Off
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Permission-License-Copyrighted-Materials/dp/1413319335/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448025667&sr=8-1&keywords=getting+permission
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