5 ms·

Lionsgate copyright claims over reviews by YouTuber AngryJoeShow [video]

110 points by grecy 8y ago

lousken 8y ago
Interesting that even youtubers with millions of subscribers still have to deal with this stuff. Would be interesting to know how many smaller youtubers got owned by fake claims and we never see any videos about it. Since this has been going on for years I wonder if youtube has even any plans to deal with this nonsense or just ignore it and force youtubers to create their own platforms like Linus and Floatplane and move their audiences there while smaller ones will have to move to something like peertube.
- duxup 8y ago
  YouTube long ago made the decision to just let some content providers run wild over their users.
- lathiat 8y ago
  The thing that frustrates me, personally, watching a large number of very popular youtubers who are clearly producing both popular and also educational content, is that they still have a "3 strikes" system no matter the size of your channel of quality of videos that you upload. If you hit 2 strikes you can't live stream and if you hit 3 strikes your channel is gone. And those strikes are not just for copyright but also community violations. But not just egregious ones, it applies equally to "borderline" violations. 3 strikes probably makes sense when the rulings are more absolute and clear intentional violations of these policies. But you would think that channels which have a long history of generally follow the rules and producing original content would have a little more lee-way on the channel-shutdown level of 3 strikes, particularly for more borderline cases. A common one I keep seeing is popular scientific channel "Cody's Lab". In one case his strike was for a video making basic, centuries old, gunpowder. A topic covered by 100s of other videos still up on YouTube. All of his strikes have been along those lines. In another case he microwaved fruit flies, knowing that they would not be harmed by this, they weren't harmed and the point of that video was exactly that. I would say yes, it's arguable, but it seems to me like these are the kinds of cases that should allow a little more lee-way than 3 strikes and your entire career is gone. Also consider that there is no way to ask for a review ahead of time to say "yes this is OK" - you just get randomly struck down later most often many months after the video was published. Meanwhile to criticize this after a string of these, he released a wonderful video of him "dangerously" drinking Hydric Acid (also known as Dihydrogen Monoxide): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCdHfyaDLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCdHfyaDLM
  - cryptonector 8y ago
    The YouTube 3-strikes concept is draconian. The risk to content creators is so outsize that it is the thing that could give a competitor a leg up, and the only reason it's not enough is that YT could fix this at any time, thus limiting the appeal of a competitor. But the risk to YT is not zero: at some point there may be a terrible-for-PR incident that drives content creators elsewhere. YT management must be aware of how terrible the situation is for content creators. The question is: why not address this?
- flukus 8y ago
  > Interesting that even youtubers with millions of subscribers still have to deal with this stuff. Even more interesting is the seemingly little interest in defending against it by uploading to other sites or running there own. Their entire income/career/company has googles algorithmic gun to their head at all times and they won't hedge their bets. The only ones that have moved on seem to be the one's who've had their content category outright banned.
gumby 8y ago
The DMCA protection against false claims are woefully inadequate to the point of being non-existant.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  What's the practical mechanism that stops official videos like trailers from being DMCA'd every time one is uploaded?
  - gumby 8y ago
    Well if they're uploaded by the copyright holder they're unlikely to be DMCAed (though it happens :-). And why should they protest a trailer -- it's an ad for their film, right? But these shortsighted folks often will DMCA one. In theory you can be liable for damages for filing a false DMCA claim (a couple of examples here: http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/consequences-of-filing-a-false-dmca-takedown-request/ http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/consequences-of-filing-a-false-... ). In practice it almost never happens, which surprises me as they are a nuisance for the YTs of the world who have to handle the complaints.
    - stanmancan 8y ago
      People get copystrikes on YouTube all the time for ridiculous reasons. Playing a cover of a song? Copystrike. Humming 3 seconds of the halo theme song? Copystrike. Playing a song on a paper towel dispenser in a public bathroom? https://youtu.be/Tqj2csl933Q https://youtu.be/Tqj2csl933Q
    - Waterluvian 8y ago
      I mean what's stopping malicious people from trying to fight fire with fire by incorrectly claiming all the movie and music industry's legitimate stuff? Does YouTube give them special status?
- Khaine 8y ago
  Except they are not using the DMCA, they are using google's own content id process, which has no checks and/or balances[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/12/19/the-injustice-of-the-youtube-content-id-crackdown-reveals-googles-dark-side/#3b78c46c66c8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/12/19/the-injus...
lucd 8y ago
The French youtuber Benzaiehad this happen to him too.. Culprit was 20th Century Fox, for X-men Apocalypse. Reuploaded the review without the movie content playing in the background. https://youtu.be/9DjfTisCYDg https://youtu.be/9DjfTisCYDg
oth001 8y ago
Would somebody be able to manually copyright claim videos produced by Lion's Gate? By the way, this is happening with BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) claiming videos in which there's no music at all.
moron4hire 8y ago
Uhm, his video contained the trailer in whole.
- judge2020 8y ago
  It was likely fair use since there was discussion and criticism of the trailer, but I agree that the full trailer shouldn't have been played.
  - moron4hire 8y ago
    Unfortunately, Fair Use is a guideline, it's not a strict set of legal exemptions. It's usually considered impossible to claim Fair Use when monetization is involved. I can't tell if they were trying to run ads on the video originally, but given the general sense of the channel, it seems likely.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
I'm usually very much on the side of the small(er) YouTubers who have to deal with these bullshit, broadstroke copyright claims by large media companies, but then I looked at the original HellBoy trailer reaction video. It contained the entire trailer, in full, no editing. I can't imagine any court deeming this is fair use. You couldn't just take a video of an entire movie, add some commentary to it, and expect a fair use defense to stand.
- barnesto 8y ago
  You mean a trailer studios use to promote movies? This seems more like them not appreciating the criticism than copyright infringement.
  - zenexer 8y ago
    Unless you're actually licensed to distribute the trailer, you don't actually have the right to do so, I believe. Of course, the copyright holder probably isn't going to care if you do it in a way that helps them, but it's entirely their decision.
demarq 8y ago
Why don't you tubers just form a union. YouTube will always lean towards favor of the bigger scarier party. Also such a union would be able to lead boycotts and protests of movies albums etc
- neuralRiot 8y ago
  What kind of union can fight against a corp. that spends $200M making just one shitty movie.
cannonedhamster 8y ago
Stop using Youtube then. Seems like a mass exodus of top talent might make Youtube react. Otherwise they aren't going to do anything. You're not worth it unless you're impacting Google's bottom line.

110 points by grecy 8y ago

Interesting that even youtubers with millions of subscribers still have to deal with this stuff. Would be interesting to know how many smaller youtubers got owned by fake claims and we never see any videos about it. Since this has been going on for years I wonder if youtube has even any plans to deal with this nonsense or just ignore it and force youtubers to create their own platforms like Linus and Floatplane and move their audiences there while smaller ones will have to move to something like peertube.

duxup 8y ago
YouTube long ago made the decision to just let some content providers run wild over their users.
lathiat 8y ago
The thing that frustrates me, personally, watching a large number of very popular youtubers who are clearly producing both popular and also educational content, is that they still have a "3 strikes" system no matter the size of your channel of quality of videos that you upload. If you hit 2 strikes you can't live stream and if you hit 3 strikes your channel is gone. And those strikes are not just for copyright but also community violations. But not just egregious ones, it applies equally to "borderline" violations. 3 strikes probably makes sense when the rulings are more absolute and clear intentional violations of these policies. But you would think that channels which have a long history of generally follow the rules and producing original content would have a little more lee-way on the channel-shutdown level of 3 strikes, particularly for more borderline cases. A common one I keep seeing is popular scientific channel "Cody's Lab". In one case his strike was for a video making basic, centuries old, gunpowder. A topic covered by 100s of other videos still up on YouTube. All of his strikes have been along those lines. In another case he microwaved fruit flies, knowing that they would not be harmed by this, they weren't harmed and the point of that video was exactly that. I would say yes, it's arguable, but it seems to me like these are the kinds of cases that should allow a little more lee-way than 3 strikes and your entire career is gone. Also consider that there is no way to ask for a review ahead of time to say "yes this is OK" - you just get randomly struck down later most often many months after the video was published. Meanwhile to criticize this after a string of these, he released a wonderful video of him "dangerously" drinking Hydric Acid (also known as Dihydrogen Monoxide): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCdHfyaDLM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vCdHfyaDLM
- cryptonector 8y ago
  The YouTube 3-strikes concept is draconian. The risk to content creators is so outsize that it is the thing that could give a competitor a leg up, and the only reason it's not enough is that YT could fix this at any time, thus limiting the appeal of a competitor. But the risk to YT is not zero: at some point there may be a terrible-for-PR incident that drives content creators elsewhere. YT management must be aware of how terrible the situation is for content creators. The question is: why not address this?
flukus 8y ago
> Interesting that even youtubers with millions of subscribers still have to deal with this stuff. Even more interesting is the seemingly little interest in defending against it by uploading to other sites or running there own. Their entire income/career/company has googles algorithmic gun to their head at all times and they won't hedge their bets. The only ones that have moved on seem to be the one's who've had their content category outright banned.

gumby 8y ago

The DMCA protection against false claims are woefully inadequate to the point of being non-existant.

Waterluvian 8y ago
What's the practical mechanism that stops official videos like trailers from being DMCA'd every time one is uploaded?
- gumby 8y ago
  Well if they're uploaded by the copyright holder they're unlikely to be DMCAed (though it happens :-). And why should they protest a trailer -- it's an ad for their film, right? But these shortsighted folks often will DMCA one. In theory you can be liable for damages for filing a false DMCA claim (a couple of examples here: http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/consequences-of-filing-a-false-dmca-takedown-request/ http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/consequences-of-filing-a-false-... ). In practice it almost never happens, which surprises me as they are a nuisance for the YTs of the world who have to handle the complaints.
  - stanmancan 8y ago
    People get copystrikes on YouTube all the time for ridiculous reasons. Playing a cover of a song? Copystrike. Humming 3 seconds of the halo theme song? Copystrike. Playing a song on a paper towel dispenser in a public bathroom? https://youtu.be/Tqj2csl933Q https://youtu.be/Tqj2csl933Q
  - Waterluvian 8y ago
    I mean what's stopping malicious people from trying to fight fire with fire by incorrectly claiming all the movie and music industry's legitimate stuff? Does YouTube give them special status?
Khaine 8y ago
Except they are not using the DMCA, they are using google's own content id process, which has no checks and/or balances[1]. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/12/19/the-injustice-of-the-youtube-content-id-crackdown-reveals-googles-dark-side/#3b78c46c66c8 https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/12/19/the-injus...

lucd 8y ago

The French youtuber Benzaiehad this happen to him too.. Culprit was 20th Century Fox, for X-men Apocalypse. Reuploaded the review without the movie content playing in the background. https://youtu.be/9DjfTisCYDg https://youtu.be/9DjfTisCYDg

oth001 8y ago

Would somebody be able to manually copyright claim videos produced by Lion's Gate? By the way, this is happening with BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) claiming videos in which there's no music at all.

moron4hire 8y ago

Uhm, his video contained the trailer in whole.

judge2020 8y ago
It was likely fair use since there was discussion and criticism of the trailer, but I agree that the full trailer shouldn't have been played.
- moron4hire 8y ago
  Unfortunately, Fair Use is a guideline, it's not a strict set of legal exemptions. It's usually considered impossible to claim Fair Use when monetization is involved. I can't tell if they were trying to run ads on the video originally, but given the general sense of the channel, it seems likely.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

I'm usually very much on the side of the small(er) YouTubers who have to deal with these bullshit, broadstroke copyright claims by large media companies, but then I looked at the original HellBoy trailer reaction video. It contained the entire trailer, in full, no editing. I can't imagine any court deeming this is fair use. You couldn't just take a video of an entire movie, add some commentary to it, and expect a fair use defense to stand.

barnesto 8y ago
You mean a trailer studios use to promote movies? This seems more like them not appreciating the criticism than copyright infringement.
- zenexer 8y ago
  Unless you're actually licensed to distribute the trailer, you don't actually have the right to do so, I believe. Of course, the copyright holder probably isn't going to care if you do it in a way that helps them, but it's entirely their decision.

demarq 8y ago

Why don't you tubers just form a union. YouTube will always lean towards favor of the bigger scarier party. Also such a union would be able to lead boycotts and protests of movies albums etc

neuralRiot 8y ago
What kind of union can fight against a corp. that spends $200M making just one shitty movie.

cannonedhamster 8y ago

Stop using Youtube then. Seems like a mass exodus of top talent might make Youtube react. Otherwise they aren't going to do anything. You're not worth it unless you're impacting Google's bottom line.