

Achievement Unlocked - guptaneil
http://blog.metamorphium.com/2012/12/22/achievement-unlocked/

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sdfjkl
This needs a better title (it's about YouTube's lack of an appeals process for
takedown notices).

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guptaneil
Do moderators have the ability to change titles? When I posted this, the title
was "Achievement Unlocked (thoughts on bogus DMCA takedowns)" I don't know
when or why it changed.

EDIT: I updated the title of the blog post to "Thoughts on YouTube's DMCA
Takedown Process." Could a moderator please update the title of this
submission? Thanks!

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gwillen
The moderators can and do change titles, and it is oft-remarked that they tend
to do it from useful towards useless, rather than vice-versa, for unclear
reasons.

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guptaneil
This site is hosted on GitHub Pages, which seems to have gone down
(<http://status.github.com>). Here is a quick copy of the post, in case you
can't load the original. <http://markdown.me/50d647e6c4fee09771000000>

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pfortuny
When clueless laypeople become judges (and they are judging you and punishing
you) they commit atrocities unheard of since at least the Romans, in the name
of 'justice'.

Oh, my. Tell the people at Youtube and Google to just read a book and
cultivate themselves.

I know this is a private issue yada-yada, but then they should stop trying to
seem 'honest' and 'just' and to make it look like they have a 'due process'.

It may be just 'capitalism', I get it. (Sorry: could not help this) </rant>

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kevingadd
As much as I dislike the DMCA, behavior like this from big companies suggests
that it wasn't even necessary to pass it. Why buy senators and get them to
pass laws that are somewhat in your favor, when you can get big companies to
create one-sided 'enforcement' regimes that universally assume that all
individuals on the planet are copyright infringers?

YouTube doesn't let you appeal takedowns because there's no reason to: YouTube
isn't about personal expression or freedom of speech or sharing information.
YouTube is about selling ads. Who buys ads? Big companies that hold copyrights
and want to be able to take down content without any sort of due process.
Presumably the series of legal entanglements with companies like Viacom helped
convince Google that it was more profitable to just roll over and do whatever
the media companies wanted.

It's too bad there aren't any major video hosting sites I can think of that
don't treat their users this way. Vimeo is the only one I know of that's
theoretically attractive (you can at least pay them to host your videos), but
given that they decided to universally ban the kind of content I produce
(video games), I can't really try them out and see whether they actually treat
their customers with respect. Anyone tried any services that do better here?

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Evbn
YouTube needs content to show ads against. Less content, and fewer views,
fewer ads, and less money.

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barclay
But that's looking at the big picture... something that clearly, the powers
that be at big companies no longer do.

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msrpotus
YouTube does have a process to appeal complaints, though I've never had any
success with getting them to restore a video.

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CamperBob2
They certainly used to have an appeals process, but apparently they no longer
do.

I created a 'Downfall' parody video two years ago that was yanked by order of
Constantin Films the day after I posted it. The notification from YouTube
contained a link to dispute the DMCA notice, which I did, claiming fair use.
YouTube restored the video almost immediately.

I would have been pretty pissed if I'd received this notice with no way to
appeal the takedown.

Google, are you not even going through the _motions_ of "don't be evil"
anymore?

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unsquare
There's still an appeal process.

A popular youtuber (2,314,015 subs) recently got hit by one of those for his
Gangnam style parody.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6U_dVGRFZQ&list=UUHiJwRo...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6U_dVGRFZQ&list=UUHiJwRooppwzgkNHHUtU8MQ&index=5)

He explains the process pretty well.

