MLB Issuing Tons Of YouTube Takedowns; Don't Try To Share Your Love Of Baseball
from the illegal-fandom dept
A few folks have sent over the news that a whole bunch of YouTube videos containing short clips of Major League Baseball games were taken down recently. Considering the fact that a bunch were taken down at once, I'm guessing that MLB just uploaded a bunch of video to YouTube's Content ID system, and the system matched up a bunch of videos. The site that talks about this (a Philadelphia sports blog) points out how incredibly short-sighted this is in annoying fans. It also points out that the NHL actually encourages fans to share videos, and monetizes them with ads:When it comes to online video, the NHL is an example of a league that just gets it. Instead of combing YouTube and other video sites, the NHL allows fans and bloggers to embed videos right on their site. In case you haven't noticed, most of our Flyers highlights are taken directly from PhiladelphiaFlyers.com. They encourage it. Why? Because it raises awareness for their product and is sometimes laced with an ad. Many news outlets do this too. People can use their videos, so long as they watch a :30 second ad prior to it. A fair trade off.Of course, the site also claims that MLB's actions are "legal in every sense of the word." While that might be true in some cases, it sounds like certainly not all. The blog notes that many of the videos taken down have exceptionally brief clips of MLB coverage, suggesting that with at least some of them, there's probably a decent fair use claim:
I noticed that YouTube had sent me a few of my own. They removed eight videos that, when pooled together, included about 20 seconds of game play footage (they were mostly screenshots of fans, including guys in Nacho Libre masks).If it's actually true that his videos contained a grand total of 20 seconds of MLB coverage across eight videos, you'd have to imagine that there's at least a reasonable possibility that the videos were protected by fair use. Unfortunately (thanks to the take downs), I can't actually see the videos to get a better determination of whether or not they were likely fair use. Either way -- whether fair use or not -- the site is right. Pissing off fans, out of some bizarre need to "control," when you could instead excite fans by enabling them to share their fandom, just seems incredibly short-sighted on the part of Major League Baseball.
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But why they feel that removing anything and everything is even SLIGHTLY a good idea really shows how utterly clueless they are with the media and social networks
This does nothing but shut down access to the game by MANY people
Idiots
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disseminate the accounts and descriptions of MLB without express written consent.
Deaf, dumb, and blind.
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Re: disseminate the accounts and descriptions of MLB without express written consent.
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Re: Re: disseminate the accounts and descriptions of MLB without express written consent.
/Mean comment.
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NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
Within 2 hours the video had been taken down and I'd been given my second copyright notice by YouTube. Third strike and my account would shut down, which really worries me cos is my YouTube account my Google account? My Gmail, analytics, docs, everything?
I hadn't filmed a game. I hadn't shown anyone recognisable. My only crime was recording and publishing video from a football stadium. Isn't that fair use? I hadn't got footage of goals, just fans singing, and I was one of them.
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Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
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Re: Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
Because the stadium is private premises, the club and the league set down the rules :-(
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Re: Re: Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
If they want to bring a civil suit against you for contract violation, that's fine. But copyright? No way.
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Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
Claim copyright ownership and respond to the copyright claim and have YouTube put the video back up.
Wouldn't that also clear your strike?
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Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
Even if you had there is no case to answer. There is no inherent copyright in a sporting event.
Anyone who claims otherwise is effectively admitting that their event is staged (which would be a major criminal offence if true).
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Re: NHL is only just starting, the FA have been doing it for ages.
This is always a concern with Google, facebook, etc. It is why I suggest never investing one's life in a hosting service/cloud where your data is not your data. There are tens of thousands of examples of this happening through no fault of the account owner.
Good luck!
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And yet...
Well Mr. Sports Talk Radio Personality - we also have the option of voting with our wallets! Since MLB, by virtue of their anti-trust exemption, pulls stupid stunts like this repeatedly and doesn't quite understand why the fans in this economy don't want to spend $10 on a beer and $6 on a hot dog plus $20 for the "privilege" to park within 3 miles of the stadium before they even buy the ticket they will just have to suffer for their ignorance. Attendance figures are down and the ratings for the World Series were among the worst ever (get clue MLB - most of the folks who have jobs work during the daytime when you are televising your showcase championship!) and yet MLB just seems to not quite understand why this is the case.
As a lifelong, hardcore baseball fan it's beyond discouraging to watch the fall of America's pastime.
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Bud Selig is a moron
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I promise
I won't post videos about MLB anything anywhere.
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Maybe NHL is *hoping* to get noticed, while MLB is doing fine.
Just for an intellectual exercise, consider that maybe MLB isn't "short-sighted" at all, that by ruthlessly applying legal tools they might actually keep the lid on. -- I think that likely, and it near certain that your carping about it, nor even loss of revenue, will *not* cause them to change.
MLB is *established*. Call them dinosaurs, fossils even, but they've *got* control over their monopoly, shrinking though it may be, right as you may be. -- SO start your own baseball league! That's consistent with Mike's view elsewhere on monopolies: you are *free* to compete. Should be a simple matter to get funding and network coverage, like the, er, what *was* that football league that was attempted some years back...
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Re: Maybe NHL is *hoping* to get noticed, while MLB is doing fine.
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It's like watching paint dry
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Brilliant!
Absolutely brilliant!
NOT!
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