Paramount Sends More Bogus DMCA Takedowns On Fans Filming Transformers 3 Shoot
from the who's-copyright? dept
Earlier this year, there was a reasonable bit of fuss over Paramount issuing a bogus DMCA takedown on someone who had videotaped a brief snippet of the filming of the next Transformers movie, which was going on in an alleyway right outside the guy's office. It was difficult to see what sort of "copyright" violation there was here. The guy, Ben Brown, had filmed it himself, and it wasn't like it was a private set or anything. Paramount never made any sort of statement, but the video did go back up a few days later. Apparently, the over aggressive lawyers at Paramount didn't learn their lesson. Apparently, a bunch of videos that people shot themselves of filming of the movie going on in Chicago were all taken down from YouTube under DMCA claims. Again, it's difficult to see how these claims are legit -- and this is especially troubling, seeing as it comes from Paramount, which is owned by Viacom. Viacom, of course is involved in a bit of a legal battle with YouTube -- but, more importantly, in a previous legal battle over bogus Viacom DMCA takedowns, Viacom had agreed to manually review all takedown notices to avoid bogus takedowns like this one.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: copyright, dmca, transformers, videos, youtube
Companies: paramount
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Viacom 'promised'
Oh that's a good one! My ribs are hurting over that. A big content company telling the truth? Oh stop, you're killing me!
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Re: Viacom 'promised'
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Cry Wolf Viacom Re: Re: Viacom 'promised'
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Who cares about the legality of the takedowns...
I can tell you this, as I live in the city and work about six blocks from where they've been filming, people are coming downtown SPECIFICALLY to catch glimpses of this stuff. They're specifically trying to film snippets of the live action. They want specifically to share these with other fans.
....in other words, THESE PEOPLE ARE EFFING INTERESTED! Jesus, how tough is it to know that you don't look at your greatest potential customers, who happen to be sitting in a spotlight, and take a fat dump on their heads? Promote, you morons! Create buzz. Excitement. Interest. These aren't film prints, for Christ's sake. They're short snippets of the action, which are separately cool from the the actual movie specifically BECAUSE they're in the backdrop of a non-CGI enhanced first class city/skyline like Chicago.
Is Viacom, like, COMPLETELY devoid of any common sense? What is the possible net benefit of taking down these videos? What is their fear?
I don't get it....
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If anyone knows of a website that has templates of this nature (or any artists that would like to promote themselves through this book), let me know :)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Who cares about the legality of the takedowns...
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They'd pretty much have to show some grounds for claiming the copyright, otherwise there's that whole 'under penalty of perjury' clause in the DMCA.
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Re:
I've been saying that for years. But the rate at which it happens (or the complete lack of any challenges) makes me wonder how much ignorance plays into it.
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So when people are actually interested in this crappy new movie and get issued take-down notices, I say eff 'em. Boycott their sorry ass movie.
And remember...ONLY a Prime can kill a Prime...er...unless you are Megatron...I guess. :::eyeroll and groan:::
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In defense of Paramount, I do see a copyright issue here. (Again, it's worth stressing that I believe they are foolish to assert DMCA claims against their fans.) The staging of a movie set is performance art. Everything is planned in advance, from spoken parts, to the actions of the actors and inanimate objects (such as a car being tossed by an imaginary Transformer), to the background scenery. Since this is performance art, any video recording of the performance art is creating a derivative work of the art. If that video recording is done without permission, then the derivative work is unauthorized. When the fans post these unauthorized derivative works online, they are subject to DMCA takedown notices. But, because the movie set is performance art, and the derivative works unauthorized, the DMCA notices issued by Paramount are not bogus (even though I strongly disagree with Paramount's use of the DMCA notices in this instance).
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Either you're wrong or Wikipedia is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work#When_does_derivative-work_liability_exist.3F
Do you know of some other theory under which this could be copyright infringement?
"Even if a work is found to be an unauthorized derivative work, an alleged infringer can escape liability via the defense of fair use." Non-commercial, small portion of the final product, doesn't affect the market for the original... yeah I think this would be fair use anyway.
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Re: Performance Copyright??
DMM claimed:
But copyright doesn’t exist until the work has been “fixed in a tangible form”. As I understand it, that means there is no copyright in the performance itself, only in recordings of the performance.
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Re: Re: Performance Copyright??
But the script counts for this purpose - however if this was a sporting event there would definitely be no copyright.
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Re: Re: Re: Performance Copyright??
But they didn't put a copy of the script (which is probably in dead tree format) out there. They put videos that they took out there. The written script is protected by copyright, but the spoken lines are gray area at best.
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If that chaos is performance art I'm the uncle of quite a few monkeys.
A tranformer tossing an inanimate object will be done in a studio complete with green screen and not outdoors, for one thing.
Outdoors are used for a number of purposes, not the least backgrounds, weather and the fact that the action itself is too big to be contained on an indoor set. (See above about transformer and green screen.)
Also, it's easier to do explosions outdoors and there's
less chance of wiping out a studio that way!
So I'm failing to see where the copyright on the finished movie is infringed by taking a quick video of some outdoor chaos (planned or not and most of it isn't) and tossing it on YouTube.
As for the idiocy of issuing take down notices; we are in complete agreement. :-)
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- Hey, me too. When ever I walk down a street in public, I consider it to be a performance. I plan the route in advance, I know where I'm going and I say hi to people who are not creepy. This is all planned in advance.
"When the fans post these unauthorized derivative works online, they are subject to DMCA takedown notices."
- Warning to all you out there ... including the government, I will issue a DMCA take down notice of my performances if you post them. You have been warned.
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Man, I'd hate to tell you what I consider a performance....
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But what the heck, go ahead and sue, that is what copyright is for, civil suits, not criminal. Try and sue me for doing something like that, and I'll counter-sue for falsely claiming copyright on my copyright!
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I don't know why people think that something has to be "private" to retain a copyright. As the owner of a work, I can choose to publicly display without giving up rights to the underlying creative work. Just because you can take a photograph without someone stopping you doesn't mean that photograph is legal.
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But what the heck, go ahead and sue, that is what copyright is for, civil suits, not criminal. Try and sue me for doing something like that, and I'll counter-sue for falsely claiming copyright on my copyright!
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Now, the area around the performance is certainly more grey. My guess-and, yes, it is an opinion-would be that an infringement claim would hinge around your usage of such a recording. Posting a limited amount of the footage on YouTube or used with journalistic intent should be exempt. But if you were selling that footage for direct profit you might find a jury to be sympathetic with the plaintiff.
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The copyright on the resulting composition which will be seen when the movie is released doesn't exist until the composition exists. (Yes, movie companies routinely copyright rushes but that's another story.) If the pictures or videos aren't treading anywhere near the composition just how can anyone be infringing anything? Particularly as it's happening in public place?
Enquiring minds want to know!
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Transparent
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