
Abuse of Youtube's copyright infringement claim process for doxxing purposes - iProject
http://owningyourshit.blogspot.ca/2012/08/abuse-of-youtubes-copyright.html
======
girlvinyl
That is not how the DMCA works. All she has to do to file a counter claim is
submit contact information of someone authorized to act on behalf of the works
submitted, be that an attorney, friend or other business agent (the only
requirement is a US address). Do you think Britney Spears puts her personal
phone number on RIAA take down requests? The RIAA doesn't even own the
copyrights they get taken down themselves, they're acting on behalf of the
copyright owner.

Also, if you're a site owner or content owner, you need to go right now to
<http://copyright.gov/onlinesp/> and register as a designated agent for
content and notifications. Get ahead of this before it becomes a problem. It's
$35.

~~~
Retric
Youtube obeys the DMCA rules, but also has a vastly streamlined process that's
being somewhat openly abused that lacks anyway to effectively fight back.

~~~
Ihavenoname
Considering how prevalent abusive and wildly inaccurate automatic take downs
are one must consider google itself is exploiting the process to obtain
personal information. Google absolutely doesn't want you to remain anonymous
it diminishethree value of their analitics. I think they should provide more
tools to the uploader so they can make informed choices and defend their
rights. I fear google will avoid this this as google benifits from the abusive
system.

~~~
icebraining
How does not having your name diminish the value of their analytics?

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knowtheory
Regardless of the truth of this woman's specific claims... This seems like the
point at which youtube has to make decisions about who their automated
takedown system actually serves.

Reddit's CEO refers to Reddit as akin to a city-state and himself as mayor.
Youtube has essentially the same problems in governance. They have to juggle a
host of competing interests ranging from free speech rights, to copyright
infringement, to the right to privacy. It has constituents large and small,
individual users on up to multimillion dollar companies. Their constituents
are not aligned on a host of issues, and this is clearly one of them.

So we know whose side the federal government is on, the question is, whose
side is Youtube on?

~~~
icebraining
I'd say they're on the side that doesn't expose them to a massive lawsuit by
media companies.

------
0x0
Interesting technique, and I see how the behaviour of the opponents can be
annoying. But the lawsuit threat is ridiculous. Is youtube required to provide
free anonymous video hosting to this person? Perhaps she should ask for her
money back instead.

~~~
rmc
Just because she is not paying money, doesn't mean she has no rights. YouTube
are still under contractual and moral obligations regardless of how much money
she gave them.

~~~
Symmetry
Contractual obligation? What contract? I guarantee you that the clickthrough
agreement the blogger signed explicitly said that Google might do what it's
doing now.

Moral obligation? If you start saying that someone providing a service has a
moral obligation to open themselves to civil suits on behalf of the people
they serve then you'd see a lot fewer people offering free services.

------
chris_wot
Perhaps they should refer to 17 USC § 512 (f). She can sue for
misrepresentation. Frankly, I'm surprised that nobody has! I'm sure if she
wanted she could extract a _lot_ of money. It would sure stop frivilous
takedown requests, too!

~~~
girlvinyl
The EFF famously sued a DMCA troll, it was quite dramatic.
<https://www.eff.org/cases/diehl-v-crook>

~~~
Symmetry
Wow, I didn't know that aspect of the DMCA had ever been used. Do you know of
any other cases of that happening?

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peterwwillis
I wish I could care about this, but the 'doxx' and lulz and generally childish
writing make me assume this is another case of internet entitlement issues.

~~~
knowtheory
Regardless of your personal feelings for this woman, do you agree that this is
an exploit that youtube exposes where attackers may be able to get personal
information about a youtube account holder?

~~~
roel_v
Regardless of what the (obscure) legal reality is in this matter, do you agree
that this woman presents her case in a juvenile way, and shows a general lack
of understanding of the real-world procedures (as opposed to how keyboard
warriors imagine things are or should be) in matters like this, and an
apparent unwillingness to learn about them, to a point where it makes her seem
unsuitable to voice an informed opinion about it, and certainly ill-suited to
be the flag bearer for a contentious topic like this one?

See how that works?

~~~
Goladus
_do you agree that this woman presents her case in a juvenile way_

No, I don't agree. Anger at harassment and injustice isn't juvenile. Use of
jargon familiar to her audience isn't juvenile either. Although I can see why
others would see it that way.

 _apparent unwillingness to learn about them_

I do agree this seems apparent.

 _To a point where it makes her seem unsuitable to voice an informed opinion
about it_

I don't know enough to judge.

------
porsupah
The posting implies that the RL information required to make a counterclaim
will be supplied to the party making the complaint.

Is this indeed how YouTube's process works? If so, it certainly would seem to
be problematic. A proxy, such as a shell company, or simply a friend, would
seem to be plausible alternatives.

~~~
girlvinyl
Youtube is simply following the DMCA here and this is precisely how the
process works. If it worked any other way, the hosting provider (youtube in
this case), would not enjoy safe harbors under the law. This aspect of the
DMCA is specifically created to protect hosting companies from lawsuits
involving automated upload of copyrighted material.

Essentially, Prima makes an accusation - "I swear your user is hosting my
copyrighted material via your site." Host informs Secunda. Secunda has two
options, either 1) Have the material removed by host or 2) submit sworn
statement to host that they did not violate copyright and that Prima can come
sue them at this address.

At that point the host re-instates the material in question and will remove it
only upon receipt of initiation of a lawsuit.

This provision of the DMCA was created by the ISPs and specifically the cable
companies because they didn't want to be liable for things their users did on
their networks. This is the result.

~~~
zokier
I think this is _not_ DMCA request. Google has it's own takedown mechanism,
which afaik what this is about.

~~~
girlvinyl
When you submit a takedown notice to youtube or google for user content hosted
there, their takedown mechanism IS a DMCA takedown. They explicitly state that
when using the wizard. They just accept via email, fax, postal mail and
additionally via their own mechanism that they created which allows for self-
service creation.

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__alexs
Transfer the ownership to EFF and put their info on the form?

~~~
engtech
Interesting idea. I wonder if anyone has stepped up to prevent the chilling
effect of DMCA takedown notices?

It seems like a non-profit could handle this role where they act as a proxy
where the victim of the notice asserts they have copyright, sends the
information to the proxy and then the proxy acts on their behalf?

~~~
uxp
Isn't that basically what Righthaven was doing, on the other side of the legal
courtroom? Taking control of the copyrighted work and suing infringers on
behalf of content owners?

~~~
Natsu
Not quite. Righthaven did not receive an assignment of the copyrights
themselves, they tried to get only a bare "right to sue" that is not
recognized by law. The copyright holders were none to eager to give up the
entire copyright, after all, but this reluctance doomed their lawsuits.

If he were to fully assign the copyrights to the EFF, they would not run into
the same trouble Righthaven did.

------
lubujackson
YouTube's policy is beyond broken and is clearly being abused at this point.
On the other hand, it a free site giving you unlimited hosting bandwidth for
video. I don't think you get to sue the hell out of them for having internal
policies you don't like - feel free to host your videos on your own server.

------
drcube
You have a blog, post your videos there. Stay off of Youtube, because it has
shitty policies like this. Easy peasy.

Don't complain when people or companies abuse the control you voluntarily gave
them over your content and creations. Take that control back, and own your
shit.

~~~
beezee
It actually bugs me the sense of entitlement- YT is a free service,
technically can take stuff down for no reason at all and nothing anyone can
say about it. I can understand why this woman is frustrated, but expecting YT
to have human resources in place for DMCA takedown requests is totally
unrealistic- chances are that channel would be flooded if it existed.

Either way, if you're not paying for something, what do you expect.

~~~
ubernostrum
I don't really understand why so many people seem to see an entitlement issue
here (other than knowing from other contexts how many people really strongly
dislike this woman, and so might be looking for ways to blame the situation on
her).

YouTube is a free video hosting service whose use does not require you to sign
up with or disclose your real identity. It is not "entitlement" to expect it
to be what it is.

~~~
aeturnum
So, because they're a free video hosting service, they have the right to
handle DMCA takedown notices any way they want. They can just ban you right
away, offer no appeals process, and decide they want to have nothing to do
with you.

Being upset that the free service that you use is refusing to do stuff for you
for nothing is entitlement.

~~~
ubernostrum
Several problems with your views here.

One is conflating "I have a right to do this thing" with "It is right for me
to do this thing". There is no such equivalence, and much of the argument
seems to come from people who believe there is. There are many things we all
have a right to do which are not right to do.

Second, and much more frightening, is the assumption that abuse of a person is
acceptable or excusable on the grounds that a person using a free service
somehow deserves such abuse for not being a paying customer, or that not being
abused is some sort of special privilege of which not all people are
deserving. Perhaps you'd like to step back and think a bit about your own
ethical framework before continuing this discussion?

------
at-fates-hands
The easy solution to this is to simply delete your account - and not engage in
this little game, and then move your videos to Vimeo or some other video
hosting site.

------
drucken
As far as I understand, Youtube operates the following copyright tools [1],

A. Content owners: Copyright Infringement Notification (modelled on US DMCA
takedown).

\- content owners fill out a form with specific pre-stated legalese
expressions for specific content.

\- contact: email address is preferred, no specific contact information is
mandated.

\- user content blocked, replaced with claim statement and Strike received on
account.

B. Content owners: Copyright Verification Programme.

\- this seems to be an expedited and broader version of the CIN tool for mass
content removal.

\- need to identify agents for your ownership. Identity process unknown.

\- user content blocked, replaced with claim statement and Strike received on
account.

C. Content owners: Content ID (nothing whatsoever to do with US DMCA).

\- an automated or semi-automated process to flag content according to any of
a number of policies that content owners decide.

\- _this includes deciding what is or is not "Fair Use"..._

\- unlike the CIN and CVP processes, accounts of matching content are not
issued Strikes, which would ultimately close the account if sufficient number
received, but the content is blocked.

D. Content owners: Retractions.

\- process that requires specific content identification, and content owner
name as signature from original claimant account.

\- removes claims and restrictions of CIN and CVP. Unclear how, if at all, it
interacts with Content ID.

E. Users: Copyright Counter-Notifications.

\- form that, among other things, requires full address information that is
always relayed to original claimant.

\- note. copyright laws of user's country of residence are irrelevant. The
form of allowable counter-notification is based on the "location" [2] of the
original claimant.

\- _Youtube "may then reinstate the material in question at our discretion"._

In this case, the two claimants likely used the CIN which will result in
Strikes without action by the user with Copyright Counter-Notifications.

In short and in my opinion, it is clear that this process is _highly
asymmetrical and prone to abuse_ \- in this case as a form of harassment, if
as claimed the user had zero infringing content in her videos.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_owners>

[2] Ambiguous if whether that could refer to jurisdiction of any of the
registered agents under the CVP, for example.

