
Sony blocks Sintel on YouTube - Morgawr
http://www.blendernation.com/2014/04/05/sony-blocks-sintel-on-youtube/
======
tibbon
There really needs to be a process of recourse against companies that
overzealously flag things to have them removed. Yes, its often an automated
process- but are we so far down the path of automation that there is no
responsibility any more?

~~~
MWil
512(f) + evidence

~~~
nitrogen
I seem to recall reading that (1) the DMCA is not being used for YouTube
takedowns (YouTube has its own takedown process that doesn't have a possible
penalty of perjury), and (2) an automated process won't ever meet the bar for
penalties under the DMCA.

Obviously I'm not a lawyer, and I'd love to see someone turn the tide with a
solid victory against a false DMCA or non-DMCA takedown. Corrections welcome.

~~~
MWil
(1) yeah, that doesn't sound right to me. a DMCA takedown notice by any other
name is still a DMCA takedown notice. the specifics that you might find in the
statute are the floor (a minimum) so of course YouTube is free to develop
their own takedown process that goes above and beyond but it doesn't mean it's
somehow opted out of the copyright statutory scheme.

(2) Never say never.

~~~
nitrogen
What I mean by (1) is that if you ask a mutual friend to display a picture I
took in her gallery, I ask her politely to take it down, and she voluntarily
complies with my request, the DMCA wasn't involved at all. This is how I
understand the arrangement between YouTube and the 800lb copyright gorillas.

~~~
MWil
Your example isn't really a good one because your friend isn't a service
provider, she's an uploading user to a service provider. So yes, when you go
right to the source user, you are somewhat circumventing the DMCA process but
imagine how inefficient that is in the most common cases.

The point of implementing a proper DMCA notice and takedown system is to take
advantage of the DMCA safe harbors. I guarantee YouTube, as a service
provider, isn't NOT taking advantage of the DMCA safe harbors and claiming its
notice and takedown procedures help to qualify it for such (perhaps even
stronger than the default, perhaps not).

~~~
nitrogen
_Your example isn 't really a good one because your friend isn't a service
provider, she's an uploading user to a service provider._

By "gallery" I mean a physical art gallery, so she _would_ be a service
provider in my example. In the analogy, she would be YouTube, "I" would be a
copyright holder, and "you" would be a YouTube user.

 _The point of implementing a proper DMCA notice and takedown system is to
take advantage of the DMCA safe harbors._

The safe harbor, as I understand it, protects service providers from copyright
holders and users, as long as the service providers register a copyright agent
and comply with DMCA notices. Nobody's saying that YouTube _doesn 't_ have a
registered agent and comply with DMCA notices. Further, there is almost
certainly a point in YouTube's ToS that exempts them from liability for taking
down content regardless of whether it was due to a DMCA notice.

What I'm saying is that YouTube has an _additional_ , private, voluntary
takedown process, that doesn't invoke the DMCA at all (and thus no penalty of
perjury for falsely claiming to represent the copyright holder). Having this
additional process wouldn't jeopardize their safe harbor eligibility, as I
understand it.

I don't like this situation. It gives enormous power to large copyright
holders, with significant collateral damage to independent creators like the
Blender Foundation. I just don't see how a case made under 512(f) will turn
the tide.

    
    
        ----------------
    

Maybe I'm misreading the DMCA as a layperson, but it looks like there are two
penalties for false DMCA takedowns, neither of which would apply to a
voluntary, non-DMCA takedown process: (1) perjury for falsely claiming to
represent a copyright holder, and (2) liability under 512(f)(1) for "knowingly
materially" misrepresenting a claim.

Perjury for falsely claiming to represent a copyright holder comes from this
section (apologies if my citation notation is incorrect):

 _501(c)(3)(A)(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is
accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is
authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is
allegedly infringed._

    
    
        ----------------
    

Liability for damages for a "knowing material" misrepresentation comes from
this section (emphasis mine):

 _512(f) Misrepresentations.— Any person who_ knowingly materially
_misrepresents under this section—

(1) that material or activity is infringing, or

(2) that material or activity was removed or disabled by mistake or
misidentification,

shall be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred
by the alleged infringer, by any copyright owner or copyright owner’s
authorized licensee, or by a service provider, who is injured by such
misrepresentation, as the result of the service provider relying upon such
misrepresentation in removing or disabling access to the material or activity
claimed to be infringing, or in replacing the removed material or ceasing to
disable access to it._

I'm using
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512)
as my reference.

~~~
MWil
First, I never even considered that you meant gallery in the traditional
sense. Just sounds like that app I use all the time, ha!

Second, I get that you are saying that this is some extra, additional,
voluntary system - but I also don't see how that's possible. Copyright only
exists as a legally recognized utility. Think about what you're saying. It
would mean that YouTube is allowing people to say they should be empowered to
direct action be taken with respect to some specific content that's been or
could be uploaded by another, but it's not because that power is called
copyright protection, through which the DMCA is the relevant scheme of
copyright protection. It's because they just have some extra volunteer system
that says if you want this taken down, they'll take it down.

Maybe you need to explain the actual YouTube system to me better because I'm a
lawyer and I can analyze the law well enough for myself.

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camus2
Happened to me twice, songs that i created all by myself,without any samples
or whatever were blocked on youtube because a third party claimed some
copyrights on this,and there is nothing I could do.

Youtube has serious issues with abusive take downs.

~~~
DanBC
Didn't you file a counter notice?

~~~
emidln
I've done this with home videos (the counter notice) and it was summarily
rejected and ignored by YouTube. My solution is to stop using YouTube.

~~~
viseztrance
A few years ago, I created a Vimeo account for a company I used to work with
at the time. It was used to upload a video that similarly was found to contain
copyrighted content. Vimeo deleted the account on the spot. So as bad as
YouTube can be, it can get worse.

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nullc
I have a Big Buck Bunny upload to youtube (from some codec testing) and every
couple months some copyright troll flags it and tries to collect advertising
revenue, which also takes down the webm version of the video (because until
recently youtube couldn't put ads on those). Fixing it wastes hours of my time
and youtube never stops the trolls or even responds to my requests for
information about them so _I_ could take them to court.

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NotOscarWilde
I've also faced a YouTube content ID match the other day. In my case, it was a
bit more warranted -- a 30 second clip of a 2003 episode of The Simpsons,
which I wanted to be able to refer to. Content ID matched it, I filed a
dispute citing fair use, somebody from Fox submitted a DMCA takedown.

Yet while I say "being more warranted" it still holds that such a citation is
legal in my country.

I would really welcome services that are able to work internationally and yet
will make it easy for me to share information based on the laws of the country
I live in.

(The reason for the services being international is simply the wish that
they'd survive -- we have seen time and again that local websites die down as
a large international one (YouTube, Facebook) picks up more and more users.)

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bdcravens
When I was picking between a PS4 and an XBox One (I'm a casual gamer at most),
Sony's actions like this over the years are what swayed me to get the XBox; I
just couldn't in good faith support Sony. No, it's not lost on me that the
XBox is made by Microsoft: I think that says alot about my opinion of Sony.

~~~
cdash
I doubt Sony even took this down themselves but was youtube's automated
fingerprint scanner.

~~~
Buge
If you look at the tweet, it says the Youtube video was matched to a Sony
video that had Sintel in the name.

So Sony submitted a Sintel video to Youtube saying "this belongs to us, take
down anything that matches it."

~~~
jamesbrownuhh
Remember that we're talking about digital video/audio fingerprints here, so
it's not just a case of "someone uploaded a video with Sintel in the name".

The question is why Sony would be uploading a copy (or a content ID
fingerprint) of an open-source work to YouTube and claiming it as their own.

YouTube's ContentID would appear to be Working As Designed. The problem is
that Sony would appear to have falsely claimed title to a work that is not
theirs. It's for Sony to work it out, and for the uploader to quickly and
immediately hit the 'dispute' button, which effectively then moves the
situation back to Sony to "put up or shut up".

I'm not sure that the best way to deal with this situation - which is clearly
an error and nothing more - is to run directly onto twitter and start
screaming about there being no better reason to support open movies and urging
everyone to "donate now" though.

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keithpeter
Is this the unintended outcome of some kind of automated/algorithmic
recognition process?

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danmaz74
If this has no merit, wouldn't it be possible to sue Sony for libel?

~~~
espadrine
An entity that files false copyright claims can face legal consequences:

> Misuse of this process may result in the suspension of your account or other
> legal consequences.

That said, this was probably a ContentID claim, which means the video / audio
stream matched something similar-looking from Sony according to software
designed by Youtube, in which case Sony isn't liable. That system is plagued
by false positives since day 1.

In which case, since Youtube users agreed to the TOS, _no_ , they are not
allowed to sue for libel:

> YouTube shall not be liable to you for […] the deletion of […] any Content
> […] maintained or transmitted by or through your use of the Service

[https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms](https://www.youtube.com/static?gl=GB&template=terms)

[http://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/copyright-
complaint.html](http://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/copyright-complaint.html)

~~~
Tobu
That TOS bit only protects YouTube, to the extent that it's applicable. It
doesn't protect Sony.

~~~
neohaven
ContentID is not the DMCA.

~~~
nitrogen
The DMCA is not the only law that holds companies responsible for their
actions.

------
pyalot2
Proof that the system is broken and needs to be abolished.

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bananas
Sony really don't need bad press at the moment. They are circling the drain.

Time to make a big thing about this and push them over the edge.

Nothing I've had from them has been anything but pain for the last 15 years.

~~~
ericraio
This sounds like your opinion that comes off as a fact...

~~~
bananas
Let's list it then shall we:

We've had DRM hell, lots of proprietary crap (media
formats/interfaces/software), impossible to get parts for most machines after
a year (I've repaired a lot of Sony kit), poor support, stuff that doesn't
actually work properly ever, screwing of Linux PS users, massive leaks of
data, shoddy engineering at best, predatory behaviour as a media publisher and
possibly the worst user interfaces of any devices ever.

Who haven't they pissed off?

~~~
zwegner
Don't forget those rootkits...

(For the curious:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal))

~~~
bananas
Damn I missed one. Thanks for the reminder :)

