5 ms·

Most articles I've seen about the YouTube system are wildly misinformed. Here's the facts: in almost all cases [0], anyone can easily get rid of any abusive cl

by ikeboy 7y ago

Most articles I've seen about the YouTube system are wildly misinformed. Here's the facts: in almost all cases [0], anyone can easily get rid of any abusive claim by simply disputing it, and filing a counternotice if and when it is elevated to a DMCA notice (copyright strike). The only way for the copyright holder to prevent this is by actually filing a lawsuit, and being as this requires a lawyer to sign off on, is extremely unlikely to happen for frivolous cases. Any article that claims that this can't be easily disputed, or that the burden of proof is on the YouTuber who uploaded the video (outside of the exception discussed below) is wrong, full stop. [0] there is an exception for a small number of content owners. See https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-youtube-removals#contractual-obligations https://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property/guide-to-yo... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-contractual-obligations-users-free-speech https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/casualty-youtubes-cont.... As far as I can tell, the only company known to be part of this is UMG.

winkeltripel 7y ago
There are 2 different ways Copyright-Owners can interact with Content Creators via Youtube: 1. manually file copyright strikes. If a Content creator has 3 of these at once, their entire channel gets taken offline. The dispute resolution mechanism leaves the video in whatever state the copyright owner chose (for possibly 2 months), and they get to keep the revenue from the dispute period, even if they lose (its possible that youtube has changed this). 2. ContentID. Copyright-Owners just give Youtube a copy of your copyrighted works, and tell it if you'd like videos containing your content to be left alone, monetized for your adsense account, or have the video taken down until the offending content is removed. This can be manual, or automatic. Contesting these is basically impossible (its possible that youtube has changed this).
- ikeboy 7y ago
  It's possible it worked that way in the past, but it's certainly not the case now. If disputed within five days, all revenue is escrowed until resolution. And content ID claims can be easily disputed and must be turned into a DMCA claim if not withdrawn. See my post at https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/how_youtube_copyright_claims_work_from_beginning https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/h... which goes into extensive detail on the process with sources. See also the eff links in my above comment which has the same information.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    This doesn't go into the "three strikes and you're shutdown" which has been used extensively against small creators. For example (and notwithstanding the rest of the issue) how 2k Games knocked the Borderlands 3 leaker (SupMatto) off YouTube, permanently, by making dozens of copyright notices against their channel. There's also the case of Alex Mauer (a song writer) who took several channels offline as a side effect of her legal battle with a videogame creator. Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline. As a side note, the revenue escrow is very new. It took YouTube over a decade (Content ID was introduced in 2007) to come to this fairly reasonable middle ground. Just... don't take a vacation, OK?
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      3 unopposed strikes and you're shutdown. >Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline. Note that per https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en >If your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, you are eligible for a 7 day courtesy period after 3 copyright strikes before your channel is disabled. During this period, your copyright strikes won’t expire and you won’t be able to upload new videos. Your channel will remain live and you will be able to access it to seek a resolution for your strikes. If your strikes are resolved through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and they are ultimately successful, your channel will not be disabled. The Youtube Partner Program is the system that allows for monetization, so everyone that's making money off Youtube ads is in it. I.e., everyone who's making money off Youtube ads has 7 days from receiving the strikes to file counternotices, and by my reading their account will remain active until those are resolved one way or the other. It says the channel won't be disabled if the notices are successful, implying that it isn't disabled even temporarily. Regarding your examples, yes, if there's actual legal action then the creator will be in trouble. But that's true regardless of whether they got strikes or filed a counternotice. I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious fair use cases is "astonishingly rare".
      - 7y ago
munk-a 7y ago
For people who make their livelihood through YT disputing a claim can be quite dangerous - the brand that you're maintaining (so many subscribers following such and such a name) can easily evaporate if the account is banned - then you need to build it all back up from scratch. Yea, you're in the right, and yea, that absolutely sucks - but that's the way YT works right now, in part due to the hilariously terrible DMCA but also due to internal policies to minimize costs. YT doesn't care if you get banned (unless you're going to lose them a bunch of eyeballs) so they're not going to defend you - and how much money do you think most content creators have to throw around in lawsuits against big corporations?
- ikeboy 7y ago
  This is incorrect. The account will not be banned if you submit counternotices to all complaints. You don't need to sue: as I explained, it's the company alleging infringement that needs to sue to keep the claim going. This is astonishingly unlikely for a clear case of fair use. DMCA is a great policy: it's what permits YouTube to reinstate videos after a counternotice is received. Otherwise they'd just keep everything removed for fear of liability. I'm currently suing a large company [0] for false IP claims against my Amazon account. Those are under trademark law, not copyright law, and so there's no similar ability to send a counternotice and get the claim reversed. I wish there was a similar DMCA framework applied to trademarks, it's just so much better than the status quo. Also, YouTube has a fund to defend fair use. [Case is Thimes Solutions Inc v Tp-link et al if you want to follow it]
jessaustin 7y ago
'ikeboy I've known for some time that you have firm, novel, and pro-corporate opinions about selling on Amazon. TIL you also have firm, novel, and pro-corporate opinions about publishing on YouTube. In your estimation, is there any massive online firm that does any of the horrible things its users have documented it doing?
- ikeboy 7y ago
  >is there any massive online firm that does any of the horrible things its users have documented it doing? The multibillion dollar one I'm currently suing for doing horrible documented things to me (Thimes Solutions Inc vs TP-Link et al, also mentioned elsewhere in this thread) I'm not particularly pro or anti corporate. It depends on the individual case. In these cases, I know a lot about the topics from personal experience or extensive research (re Amazon, extensive personal experience, re Youtube, research: you'll note I linked a post of mine from almost a year ago that is sourced extensively on the topic). The standard media narrative is laughably wrong in both cases, and, I assume based on Gell-mann amnesia is similarly wrong in cases I don't have extensive knowledge about. Whenever I comment accusing the media or others of getting it wrong, I try to stick to pointing out the facts that can be easily sourced. And yet, I constantly see people apparently determined to back up the prevailing narrative. Even on this thread, someone replied to my post with sources with outdated information (that money is not escrowed and that content ID can't be disputed). Amazon does plenty of horrible things as well. The most corrupt I've seen is asking sellers for invoices purportedly to prove authenticity and using those to go around the seller and source from their supplier, but there's plenty of others. Here's links to articles I've submitted that are anti-Amazon or at least pointing out issues with or abuse of their system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484250, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21127715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21127715, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20834972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20834972, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20716059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20716059, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20615756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20615756, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20404674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20404674, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19865355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19865355, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17999282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17999282 But instead of focusing on those documented abuses, all too often I see people pushing conspiracy theories about how Amazon supposedly can't track commingled inventory. And even when I point out that their policy explicitly says otherwise and that it's actually rather trivial to track, people right here on HN have asserted that they must be lying without any evidence. People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.

by ikeboy 7y ago

winkeltripel 7y ago

There are 2 different ways Copyright-Owners can interact with Content Creators via Youtube: 1. manually file copyright strikes. If a Content creator has 3 of these at once, their entire channel gets taken offline. The dispute resolution mechanism leaves the video in whatever state the copyright owner chose (for possibly 2 months), and they get to keep the revenue from the dispute period, even if they lose (its possible that youtube has changed this). 2. ContentID. Copyright-Owners just give Youtube a copy of your copyrighted works, and tell it if you'd like videos containing your content to be left alone, monetized for your adsense account, or have the video taken down until the offending content is removed. This can be manual, or automatic. Contesting these is basically impossible (its possible that youtube has changed this).

ikeboy 7y ago
It's possible it worked that way in the past, but it's certainly not the case now. If disputed within five days, all revenue is escrowed until resolution. And content ID claims can be easily disputed and must be turned into a DMCA claim if not withdrawn. See my post at https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/how_youtube_copyright_claims_work_from_beginning https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeCompendium/comments/aga8yl/h... which goes into extensive detail on the process with sources. See also the eff links in my above comment which has the same information.
- falcolas 7y ago
  This doesn't go into the "three strikes and you're shutdown" which has been used extensively against small creators. For example (and notwithstanding the rest of the issue) how 2k Games knocked the Borderlands 3 leaker (SupMatto) off YouTube, permanently, by making dozens of copyright notices against their channel. There's also the case of Alex Mauer (a song writer) who took several channels offline as a side effect of her legal battle with a videogame creator. Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline. As a side note, the revenue escrow is very new. It took YouTube over a decade (Content ID was introduced in 2007) to come to this fairly reasonable middle ground. Just... don't take a vacation, OK?
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    3 unopposed strikes and you're shutdown. >Also, the strikes remain until the disputes are resolved entirely, so even if you dispute everything, you can still be taken offline. Note that per https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2814000?hl=en >If your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program, you are eligible for a 7 day courtesy period after 3 copyright strikes before your channel is disabled. During this period, your copyright strikes won’t expire and you won’t be able to upload new videos. Your channel will remain live and you will be able to access it to seek a resolution for your strikes. If your strikes are resolved through a retraction, or we forward your counter notifications and they are ultimately successful, your channel will not be disabled. The Youtube Partner Program is the system that allows for monetization, so everyone that's making money off Youtube ads is in it. I.e., everyone who's making money off Youtube ads has 7 days from receiving the strikes to file counternotices, and by my reading their account will remain active until those are resolved one way or the other. It says the channel won't be disabled if the notices are successful, implying that it isn't disabled even temporarily. Regarding your examples, yes, if there's actual legal action then the creator will be in trouble. But that's true regardless of whether they got strikes or filed a counternotice. I stand by my claim above that legal action in obvious fair use cases is "astonishingly rare".
    - 7y ago

munk-a 7y ago

For people who make their livelihood through YT disputing a claim can be quite dangerous - the brand that you're maintaining (so many subscribers following such and such a name) can easily evaporate if the account is banned - then you need to build it all back up from scratch. Yea, you're in the right, and yea, that absolutely sucks - but that's the way YT works right now, in part due to the hilariously terrible DMCA but also due to internal policies to minimize costs. YT doesn't care if you get banned (unless you're going to lose them a bunch of eyeballs) so they're not going to defend you - and how much money do you think most content creators have to throw around in lawsuits against big corporations?

ikeboy 7y ago
This is incorrect. The account will not be banned if you submit counternotices to all complaints. You don't need to sue: as I explained, it's the company alleging infringement that needs to sue to keep the claim going. This is astonishingly unlikely for a clear case of fair use. DMCA is a great policy: it's what permits YouTube to reinstate videos after a counternotice is received. Otherwise they'd just keep everything removed for fear of liability. I'm currently suing a large company [0] for false IP claims against my Amazon account. Those are under trademark law, not copyright law, and so there's no similar ability to send a counternotice and get the claim reversed. I wish there was a similar DMCA framework applied to trademarks, it's just so much better than the status quo. Also, YouTube has a fund to defend fair use. [Case is Thimes Solutions Inc v Tp-link et al if you want to follow it]

jessaustin 7y ago

'ikeboy I've known for some time that you have firm, novel, and pro-corporate opinions about selling on Amazon. TIL you also have firm, novel, and pro-corporate opinions about publishing on YouTube. In your estimation, is there any massive online firm that does any of the horrible things its users have documented it doing?

ikeboy 7y ago
>is there any massive online firm that does any of the horrible things its users have documented it doing? The multibillion dollar one I'm currently suing for doing horrible documented things to me (Thimes Solutions Inc vs TP-Link et al, also mentioned elsewhere in this thread) I'm not particularly pro or anti corporate. It depends on the individual case. In these cases, I know a lot about the topics from personal experience or extensive research (re Amazon, extensive personal experience, re Youtube, research: you'll note I linked a post of mine from almost a year ago that is sourced extensively on the topic). The standard media narrative is laughably wrong in both cases, and, I assume based on Gell-mann amnesia is similarly wrong in cases I don't have extensive knowledge about. Whenever I comment accusing the media or others of getting it wrong, I try to stick to pointing out the facts that can be easily sourced. And yet, I constantly see people apparently determined to back up the prevailing narrative. Even on this thread, someone replied to my post with sources with outdated information (that money is not escrowed and that content ID can't be disputed). Amazon does plenty of horrible things as well. The most corrupt I've seen is asking sellers for invoices purportedly to prove authenticity and using those to go around the seller and source from their supplier, but there's plenty of others. Here's links to articles I've submitted that are anti-Amazon or at least pointing out issues with or abuse of their system: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484250 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21484250, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21127715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21127715, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20834972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20834972, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20716059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20716059, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20615756 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20615756, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20404674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20404674, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19865355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19865355, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17999282 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17999282 But instead of focusing on those documented abuses, all too often I see people pushing conspiracy theories about how Amazon supposedly can't track commingled inventory. And even when I point out that their policy explicitly says otherwise and that it's actually rather trivial to track, people right here on HN have asserted that they must be lying without any evidence. People have a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.