
You Can't Stop Universal From Removing Your YouTube Videos - gregpurtell
http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-universal-music-video-takedown-deal/
======
citricsquid

        filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown of the video
    

An attempt to pre-empt some comments: this seems to be a misunderstanding. The
DMCA is not involved at all with these private agreements between Youtube and
record labels, Youtube is a private company and can remove any content they
want for any reason. They have given these companies permission to remove
content they believe breaches their copyright. Anyone can file a DMCA notice
with Youtube, what Universal etc. do bypasses it entirely.

If Universal etc. were doing this using a DMCA notice they would be breaching
the terms of the DMCA.

~~~
FireBeyond
Exactly. As annoying as it is, this isn't a breach of DMCA in any way, shape
or form - it's YouTube saying "it's more important for us to make the record
labels happier than it is you". And, for better or worse, that's their perfect
right.

~~~
sliverstorm
* cue someone arguing that YouTube can't do that, because it's a violation of the First Amendment

~~~
Tuna-Fish
It's not. The First Amendment guarantees you a voice, but not an audience.
Youtube has every right to tell you to sod off if they don't like your content
for any reason.

~~~
sliverstorm
Of course it isn't. YouTube isn't the government, so it doesn't even apply. My
comment was poking fun at people who forget about that.

~~~
AgentConundrum
FWIW, I upvoted you back into the black, since I thought your intention was
clear. Lots of people seem to make this mistake, that somehow the first
amendment means that private companies aren't allowed to censor you.

~~~
sageikosa
Technically, they are not censoring you, they just aren't providing you a free
podium.

------
delinka
Although the article claims this was for a DMCA takedown notice, I think we've
seen the articles explaining the arrangement between Google and The Media
Conglomerates whereby aforementioned Conglomerates get to takedown whatever
they want, whenever they want. No courts, no perjury, no fair use. Just
outright removal.

What's a creative professional to do? Pay Vimeo or some other site to host
your content. Pay a web developer to get you set up to host this stuff on your
own site. Turn it into a podcast. If you think YouTube is the only game "in
town," you need to get out more.

~~~
fleitz
Isn't vimeo a wholly owned subsidiary of Youtube?

~~~
sbarre
You might be thinking of VEVO (which is for major label music videos)..

~~~
btipling
VEVO is not owned by Google or YouTube.

~~~
sp332
VEVO has a deal with Youtube where they get their own-branded player (with a
VEVO logo in the corner instead of Youtube), and I think there's a way to
search for only VEVO-brand videos on Youtube or something.

~~~
Nick_C
And a way to search for only non-VEVO videos. (I hate the VEVO player.)

In Firefox, click the Searchbar drop-down "Manage Search Engines", and then
the link "Get more search engines". Find and install the YouTube search
engine.

Now edit the $HOME/.mozilla/firefox/<your profile>/searchplugins/youtube-
video-search.xml file. Change the os:URL tag template section from
"?search_query={searchTerms}&amp;" to
"?search_query={searchTerms}+-vevo&amp;".

Your Youtube searches will now default to excluding the term "vevo" from any
result.

------
chewxy
Actually, the fact that you cannot appeal for fair use (or at least give
rationalization) points to how broken the system is.

On the other hand, I can also understand why his appeals fall to deaf ears.
When handling the first few DMCAs for Fork the Cookbook, I would contact the
user who uploaded the recipe, and talk to the user (and offer the user to post
counter notices)

It was a time consuming, draining process, having to feel fire from your
users, and the copyright holders. It's very draining, and I was very tempted
to write an automated DMCA process for Fork the Cookbook. In the end, I
decided not to for a few reasons.

The way we approach copyright in the information age is broken. I have some
ideas to fix it, but you'd have to buy my book (c) Chewxy 2014

------
malandrew
It's stories like this that are the reason I can't wait until P2P video
streaming and sharing over WebRTC become commonplace enough to replace YouTube
and similar sites. You can't assert copyright via the DMCA against fair use
material on a fully distributed P2P network.

Ironically, the quality of comments and discourse on a P2P network would
probably be an improvement over what can be found on YouTube.

------
darkchasma
Can a case be made that YouTube is abusing it's effective monopoly on web
video? I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
afreak
The case can be made that Google does not have an effective monopoly on web
video actually.

------
vpeters25
His only recurse might be to sue both Youtube and Universal seeking a
declaratory judgement the work doesn't infringe copyright under the fair use
doctrine, injunction to have it reinstated and another injunction forbidding
both Youtube and Universal from ever removing it again subject to a massive
fine/day.

A good lawyer could even get slander of title up there against Universal for
claiming copyright on a video which they clearly don't own, in which case he
could get a nice paycheck out of the lawsuit. They could also stick some RICO
act in there.

The question is whether suing would be worth the trouble, maybe the EFF would
be open to pursue such case to set case law and make an example of them to the
rest of the copyright mafia.

~~~
comex
Except that YouTube is under no obligation to host his video and is free to
remove it for any or no reason, so it couldn't be forced to reinstate the
video.

~~~
vpeters25
Yeah, but it is removing it because Universal is claiming it owns the
copyright of it, that's slander of title afaik.

------
tingletech
humm, is it still a safe harbor if there are contractual obligations like this
in place?

~~~
nwzpaperman
The CDA safe harbor is likely in jeopardy if the right class and attorney got
together. This is moving from independent ISP status to discretionary content
management. Aka being a publisher.

------
njharman
Perfect example of how Music Companies are in the business of distribution and
not content creation. They've co-opted YT into allowing them to control
distribution "required to remove specific videos from the site, block specific
videos in certain territories," of content regardless if it's something they
have copyright over or not.

Without absurd efforts to prop up its model the business of distribution of
content is near worthless in age of near zero cost, perfect copies and
Internet.

------
ijk
Music copyright is incredibly messed up, even compared to the rest of
copyright. I was doing research for a project I'm working on, and it's nearly
impossible to determine if any 20th century recording is in the public domain
unless the author explicitly declared it as such.

YouTube (and by extension Google) are actively making this worse with
automated ContentID. There are many documented cases of author-released
public-domain or creative commons work being claimed by other people [1].
Create a false entry in the ContentID database and issue takedown notices to
the original creator and anyone else who used the music. Even if you get
caught you can drop the claim and still walk away with the money you made off
of their videos.

[1] See <http://incompetech.com/wordpress/category/copyright/> for several
examples

------
sethbannon
Time for some more competition in the online video market.

~~~
onemorepassword
There is already plenty of competition, especially outside the US.

Since Google has always heavily "moderated" videos based on American values
and American commercial interests, most countries had a viable market for an
alternative for a long time.

The same also applies to the other end of the market, because YouTube is a bit
of a cesspool when it comes to thing Google doesn't want to censor (like
racism and homophobia). Many don't want to be associated with that in any way.

------
acomjean
Ultimately self defeating as publicity helps. Especially with Rap that doesn't
get a lot of replay (vs say classic rock) Unless the review was negative and
thus the take-down (this would be troubling).

Youtube seems to have its own music search <http://www.youtube.com/disco>

------
sexyalterego
This story was syndicated from the Daily Dot. Original link here:
[http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-universal-music-
video-t...](http://www.dailydot.com/news/youtube-universal-music-video-
takedown-deal/)

------
lucb1e
I can testify this. It even seems impossible to get in touch with a Youtube
official without a lawyer in place or posting on public boards in the hope for
an official response.

------
edwardunknown
>Now, when a user wanted to file an appeal, the claim would go directly to the
copyright holder.

I put up a Buddy Holly biography a few years ago, Warner (I think) claimed
infringement on a song snippet, I filed an appeal that included a link that
showed Paul McCartney owned the Buddy Holly catalog and Youtube put it back up
in less than an hour. I doubt if the appeal went straight to Warner Music it
would have happened quite like that.

------
OGinparadise
The way I understand: Google has entered in private agreements and as a
private company it can remove even a video celebrating your mom's bday, for
reason or no reason.

>> _The problem for McKelzey now is that he's picked up a strike in YouTube's
two-strike system. According to the site's Terms of Service, YouTube can
terminate an account if its found to be in violation of site rules more than
once._

Does that take Adsense, Adwords, GooglePlay, G+ and everything with it? If so,
that's scary.

~~~
ptaipale
Are there still reasons Google cannot use, under U.S. law?

At least in many European companies, particularly in matters of employment or
offering services, improper reasons are illegal. For instance, you cannot deny
service to someone on basis of race, skin colour, religion, etc. If you cannot
prove you have any proper reason, a racist reason can be assumed and you're
facing trouble.

~~~
roel_v
If you add 'sex' to your list, you have a complete list (of the major factors
that matter). So it's not like there are a whole lot of reasons.

"If you cannot prove you have any proper reason, a racist reason can be
assumed and you're facing trouble."

No, this is not true. In the general case, the burden of proof is on the
claimant, i.e. the person feeling discriminated against. There are specific
circumstances where case law stipulates that discriminatory motifs may be
assumed unless proven otherwise, but those are far and few in between, and to
be interpreted narrowly.

