3 ms·

Make the financial consequences of bogus copyright claims expensive and enforcable. Youtube needs to make it impossible for "VengefulFlame" to register a copyr

Make the financial consequences of bogus copyright claims expensive and enforcable. Youtube needs to make it impossible for "VengefulFlame" to register a copyright claim, without a real-world identity attached to it and a ironclad agreement that they 100% have the right to enforce this specific copyright claim, under agreed up front financial penalties if they are wrong (even if they're accidentally or algorithmically wrong, they still owe the penalty). Youtube should pay (or perhaps 70:30 split?) those penalty payments with the content creator who was fraudulently or accidentally accused, if paid out via Youtube T&Cs and contractual arrangements, and Youtube should provide all required evidence and documentation (including verified real work personal identities and their digitally signed assurences to Youtube of copyright ownership) to the victim in a super-easy "boilerplate" form, so that it'd be a slam dunk legal case that any lawyer with an associate with an hour or two spare would happily take on on a no-win no-fee basis. There's probably some cross jurisdiction legal difficulties to address, but I reckon YT should step up to actively take abusers of copyright claims to court in their own jurisdictions on behalf of their victim content creators. If you live in a jurisdiction without strong civil copyright law which includes penalties for fraudulent claims, maybe you should pay a bond before being allowed to file any copyright claims?

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
The underlying problem here is that Google has no capacity to adjudicate copyright claims. How the heck are they even supposed to know who the copyright holder is? The troll claims it's theirs, the user claims it's theirs, they have no basis on which to believe one or the other. In theory you can register with the copyright office, but it isn't required and >99% of YouTube users won't have registered anything, so then what does that prove? This before you even consider fair use, which is hard enough for judges after a year long trial, much less something they're expected to decide thousands of times every day. So you have the claimants post bond. Then what? You still need a way to know which claims are false, which they still haven't got. They're making decisions based on no information. They're trying to play a role they're not equipped to play. Google is not the court system.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  For starters, actually enforce the required elements of a DMCA notification: (i) a legal signature (ii) identifying the infringed content (iii) identifying the infringing content (iv) proper contact information (v) statement of good faith belief the content is infringing and (vi) statement the information is accurate and statement under penalty of perjury of authorization. Last I saw every pseudonymous troll can make claims, not fulfilling (i) at the very least. I remember I used to click some of those chilling-effects/lumendatabase links google displays when they removed some things from search, and I remember I found it rather curious that a lot of these usually where incomplete notices, usually failing (i) (ii) (v) and (vi) (and they only got (iv) right because they emailed and every email has a From:). "How the heck are they even supposed to know who the copyright holder is? The troll claims it's theirs, the user claims it's theirs, they have no basis on which to believe one or the other." The DMCA has a procedure for that: 1) Copyright "owner" claims content with google 2) "Uploader" files a counter claim with google 3) At which point google has to put it back after 10 days if the "owner" doesn't notify google they filed an action against the "uploader" in a court. Yes, this is still far from optimal, for all parties involved, however, it's still a lot better than what google does with ContentID.
- bigiain 8y ago
  I'm not saying Google should adjudicate on the copyright ownership. (In fact they probably should explicitly avoid doing so, as you point out.) What they should, in my opinion do, is ensure that if a claim is made, and it's then objected to - that the claimant has a realistic risk of direct financial penalty for doing so fraudulently. Google should demand all relevant documentation for both parties before accepting or acting on a disputed claim, so that either or both of them have a lawyer/court ready package of the specific claims, counterclaims, and identities of everybody involved. I also think it would be smart and desirable for Google to have an internal mediation system with a penalty enforceable by T&Cs for Google Accounts. If, for example, Sony Music's lawyers incorrectly claim copyright on a content-creators piano performance of a public domain work (which has happened more than once), and the performer objects, it would be nice if Sony had the option to say "Ooops, sorry, charge our Google account the $500 erroneous claim fee, and pay it to the content-creator" to avoid having the content-creator's lawyer slam dunk them in court with the documentation Google provides as above. There should also be the same sort of "three strike and you're excluded from all google services forever" nuclear option, that applies equally to copyright claimants as it does to content creators, and also applies equally to Sony Music and VengefulFlame's legal identity. Sony need 100% to be at-risk of having _their_ content deleted from Youtube and their Google accounts permanently revoked for sending fraudulent copyright claims, just the same as the rest of us risk having our Google accounts shut down for illegally uploading Sony's copyright works.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

The underlying problem here is that Google has no capacity to adjudicate copyright claims. How the heck are they even supposed to know who the copyright holder is? The troll claims it's theirs, the user claims it's theirs, they have no basis on which to believe one or the other. In theory you can register with the copyright office, but it isn't required and >99% of YouTube users won't have registered anything, so then what does that prove? This before you even consider fair use, which is hard enough for judges after a year long trial, much less something they're expected to decide thousands of times every day. So you have the claimants post bond. Then what? You still need a way to know which claims are false, which they still haven't got. They're making decisions based on no information. They're trying to play a role they're not equipped to play. Google is not the court system.

rndgermandude 8y ago
For starters, actually enforce the required elements of a DMCA notification: (i) a legal signature (ii) identifying the infringed content (iii) identifying the infringing content (iv) proper contact information (v) statement of good faith belief the content is infringing and (vi) statement the information is accurate and statement under penalty of perjury of authorization. Last I saw every pseudonymous troll can make claims, not fulfilling (i) at the very least. I remember I used to click some of those chilling-effects/lumendatabase links google displays when they removed some things from search, and I remember I found it rather curious that a lot of these usually where incomplete notices, usually failing (i) (ii) (v) and (vi) (and they only got (iv) right because they emailed and every email has a From:). "How the heck are they even supposed to know who the copyright holder is? The troll claims it's theirs, the user claims it's theirs, they have no basis on which to believe one or the other." The DMCA has a procedure for that: 1) Copyright "owner" claims content with google 2) "Uploader" files a counter claim with google 3) At which point google has to put it back after 10 days if the "owner" doesn't notify google they filed an action against the "uploader" in a court. Yes, this is still far from optimal, for all parties involved, however, it's still a lot better than what google does with ContentID.
bigiain 8y ago
I'm not saying Google should adjudicate on the copyright ownership. (In fact they probably should explicitly avoid doing so, as you point out.) What they should, in my opinion do, is ensure that if a claim is made, and it's then objected to - that the claimant has a realistic risk of direct financial penalty for doing so fraudulently. Google should demand all relevant documentation for both parties before accepting or acting on a disputed claim, so that either or both of them have a lawyer/court ready package of the specific claims, counterclaims, and identities of everybody involved. I also think it would be smart and desirable for Google to have an internal mediation system with a penalty enforceable by T&Cs for Google Accounts. If, for example, Sony Music's lawyers incorrectly claim copyright on a content-creators piano performance of a public domain work (which has happened more than once), and the performer objects, it would be nice if Sony had the option to say "Ooops, sorry, charge our Google account the $500 erroneous claim fee, and pay it to the content-creator" to avoid having the content-creator's lawyer slam dunk them in court with the documentation Google provides as above. There should also be the same sort of "three strike and you're excluded from all google services forever" nuclear option, that applies equally to copyright claimants as it does to content creators, and also applies equally to Sony Music and VengefulFlame's legal identity. Sony need 100% to be at-risk of having _their_ content deleted from Youtube and their Google accounts permanently revoked for sending fraudulent copyright claims, just the same as the rest of us risk having our Google accounts shut down for illegally uploading Sony's copyright works.