Copylaundering: Jay Leno Airs Campaign Video From YouTube, NBC Claims Ownership Of Original
from the what-a-neat-little-trick dept
This is easily one of the best responses to copyfraud I've ever read. Sure, Jay Leno is a pretty easy target for a roast, but musician Brian Kamerer does a brilliant job of taking him to task over a bogus YouTube takedown. I strongly suggest reading the whole thing, but here's the short version of what happened.
A few years ago, Brian helped a friend, who was running for mayor, create an intentionally silly campaign jingle and commercial, which they uploaded to YouTube. Two years later, they heard from another friend that the video had appeared on the Jay Leno Show as part of a segment about local campaign commercials. They just got a kick out of it, and moved on—until now, another three years later. Brian discovered that the YouTube video had been taken down on a copyright claim... by NBC (most likely as the result of a ContentID match as NBC uploaded old episodes into the system). So Leno mines the internet for material to air on his show—without permission or even the courtesy of letting them know—and then, years later, the network claims ownership of that material and accuses the actual creators and copyright holders of infringement. Brian is unimpressed, to say the least—and even supplies a script for how he imagines things went down:
JAY LENO
Hey remember those loser kids, we played their bit once, remember those guys? Let’s get em.
WRITER
What? Who? Why?
JAY LENO
Those guys, we took their video about three years ago and played it, I loved that song, remember?
WRITER
Oh yeah, sure, I remember those guys. So, what is it you want to do to them?
JAY LENO
I want to have the boys at NBC say that we own the video, so that if they try to watch their video on YouTube, they won’t be able to, and it will look like they stole the video, like Carlos Mencia!
WRITER
Or we could just leave those two nice boys alone. After all, you loved that song, remember?
JAY LENO
You’re fired! Secretary! Get me someone who has the balls to frame these two unknown assholes, so that eventually their work will be blocked on YouTube! And I need fifty more classic cars!
He's kidding of course—he knows that's not how it really happened. The real problem is that the system is broken: the law favors the accuser and permits this kind of copyfraud, giving NBC absolutely no incentive to narrowly target its takedown efforts. But Brian, quite reasonably, points out that he's not interested in excuses—everything that happened revolves around the public face of Jay Leno, and he sees no reason that Leno shouldn't bear the blame.
I know you’re reading this going, “Brian, you don’t understand! It’s not me, it’s just some NBC internet robot that scans YouTube videos and then compares the videos to the vast NBC library and just blocks the YouTube videos that match up, because the robot assumes the video has been stolen. Besides, you don’t own anything on YouTube! Don’t be mad at me, funny man Jay Leno! I liked your video! It’s the robot’s fault. The robot fucked up.”
Don’t hide behind NBC on this one, dude. And don’t blame YouTube. And forget about the robots. I’m not talking to the robot now. I’m talking to you, Jay Leno. Where does the buck stop on The Jay Leno Show, if not with Jay Leno himself? The buck stops with you Jay.
As more people fall victim to copyfraud—including this process whereby a TV network launders your copyrights into their own—and tell the story publicly (and entertainingly) as Brian has done, the aggressive entertainment companies are going to have a harder time recruiting stars as mouthpieces for the anti-piracy cause. Increasingly, they are going to see their own artists rebelling against their bogus takedowns and over-enforcement, as some already are. Combine that kind of pressure with transparency efforts like Google's newly available takedown data, and eventually something's got to give—starting with any remaining shred of public respect for copyright law.
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Filed Under: brian kamerer, contentid, copyfraud, jay leno
Companies: nbc
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I'm expecting this
Big multimedia company does copyfraud: Mistakes happen. Get over it Pirate Mike
T+1:
Kid downloads one song: PIRATE! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE! *drools on keyboard*
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Re: I'm expecting this
In addition to the copyfraud this case it's a case of THEFT plain and proper because the thief (Jay Leno/NBC) removes the original owner from having access to their own property.
also, i could easily add willfull commercial copyright infringement by Jay Leno/NBC to the list of claims, because by removing access to the original material it might prompt some of the users to search and watch the video of Jay Leno's show on NBC's site and that video is accompanied with NBC's ads.
Ads => money for NBC => commercial usage
=>
willful commercial copyright fraud => according to MAFIAA accounting = lots of $$$$ in damages for EACH time that the video clip is played on the infringer's site (i.e. NBC's site)
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Re: Re: I'm expecting this
If they can't call it theft because it isn't, then we can't call it theft for the very same reason, because it's not theft. They still have their master copy (at least they should if they were smart). You're justifying the same terminology and backwards reasoning the trolls use. In essence, you're acting just as badly as they are.
The only thing that might even come close to theft would be NBC claiming ownership of the copyright that applies to that video, but even that is a stretch.
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Re: Re: Re: I'm expecting this
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as MAFIAA does these days he should get an enforcement officer (DHS/FBI/ACME/etc) and confiscate the entire domain nbc.com for copyright infringement.
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REALITY: Narrative creators of bullshit propaganda.
Jay Leno should respond to this, but for the above reasons, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a response.
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Sue Sue Sue
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Hitchiker's guide
. The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a pack of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few footnotes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly tortuous Galactic copyright laws. It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time through a temporal warp and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.
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Re: Hitchiker's guide
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Re: Hitchiker's guide
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Re: Hitchiker's guide
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Re: Re: Hitchiker's guide
That Douglas Adams was one hoopy frood who really knew where his towel was.
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30000 dollar gold toilet
there fixed it for ya
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Re:
P.S does this count as strike one???
nothing of course will happen because....
"DO as I say, not as I DO".........
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Comcast owns NBC I think, does that mean that all the production houses that are tied to NBC also have their own telecom company in-house? And do they have to get a court order to reveal the IP addresses of people on their service? Or does this only matter when the company is not in-house and requesting Comcast to turn over their customers?
Its been bugging me for a while, and this story of NBC just made me want to ask it.
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Sue sue sue
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The more apt term, if one must try to denigrate at every opportunity everything associated with copyright law, should be "copyerr" or, perhaps, "copyerror".
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Re:
When an individual does this to a corporation, the word used to describe the action is "theft". When a big corporate entity does it to an individual, the words used are: "We are big and you are small. You know our lawyers will crush you if you try to seek compensation. Besides, the exposure benefits you. So get over it."
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Re:
Thanks, I'll start using that.
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Re:
For example, I love the famous quote: "Good artists borrow, great artists steal."
Stealing is not truly the right word, but it was a lyrical choice. In fact it is used there to mean making something "your own" by adding to it - not by taking it away from someone else. The implication is not that copying is equivalent to theft, even though that's the choice of words, and I don't think anyone could see it that way.
But when someone says "you pirates just love stealing movies" then the implication is very much that copying is somehow depriving another person of something. Indeed, people are happy to explicitly say stuff like "downloading a movie is no different from stealing a DVD" - and that is bullshit. That's what I take issue with.
As for "copyfraud", I think it is far more accurate than calling piracy theft. Theft means deprivation, but infringement involves no deprivation. Fraud means misrepresentation, which absolutely is involved in everything we call "copyfraud".
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Re: Re:
Ugh. Even if I'm willing to hear someone's reasoning for why they think calling infringement "theft" is fair, I am certainly never going to be convinced that it's "theft, plain and simple"
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Re: Re: Re:
But it's important to point out the difference because in a court of law, they are handled very differently. Monetary damages for infringement are significantly worse than for theft.
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Was the original artist attributed by the Jay Leno show? IF the answer is no, then this is malicious misrepresentation over a copyright. That is the very definition of IP fraud (or copyfraud, in this case).
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Re:
I agree that in the case of robot false positives, the term doesn't really apply.
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Re: Re:
Heh, funny, we were just discussing this - but actually, there isn't. (Well, in this case there was no DMCA notice anyway since it was just ContentID or YouTube's takedown tool I assume - but even assuming there was...)
The DMCA is sneakily worded. You will notice that "penalty of perjury" is not at the beginning of the sworn statement. It's at the end, right before the part where you say you are "the copyright holder or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder of the allegedly infringed work" (forget the precise wording). Basically, the wording is structured like this:
[Swear on Good Faith Belief] - that the targeted work is infringing
[and, on penalty of perjury,] - that I hold the rights / am authorized on the work that is being infringed
So in a situation like this, where the "allegedly infringed" work is the Jay Leno show, NBC would not invoke the penalty of perjury. In fact they could basically send a takedown to absolutely anything they wanted, claiming it infringed on Leno, and all they would be violating is the "swear I have a good faith belief" part - not the "swear on penalty of perjury" part. And it's a hell of a lot harder to challenge someone on a "good faith belief" because the law basically has to take their word for it unless you can show substantial evidence that they had specific reason not to believe the work was infringing.
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Re:
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Dangerous
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Re: Dangerous
Nothing.
But listen to our resident copyerror maximalists claim that copyerror law does not ever conflict with freedom of speech.
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Copyright?
I agree that Jay Leno is the "face" of the show (and they are always an easy target for folks who like to complain without doing any real homework), but is he actually searching YouTube for clips to use or is it more likely a staffer. Also, would it really be Jay's job to check out the legalities of using the clip or more likely a staffer from their legal group.
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Re: Copyright?
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Re: Copyright?
It's my understanding that the creator/s of a work automatically own the copyright unless they assign it to someone else.
And anyway, aren't you missing the point? Regardless of whether or not Jay's a nice guy, it's NBC who are claiming copyright infringement - of a work they didn't create, and which they used without the creator's permission.
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Re: Copyright?
I don't think it is really Jay's responsibility. It should be the responsibility of the network and the producers though.
But the point of focusing on Jay here is that Jay is the public face around which this whole thing revolves. It was on Jay's show. It is because the video aired on Jay's show that this video was flagged by content id. If it wasn't for Jay, this guy's video would still be there.
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Which could (and hopefully will) render them vulnerable to multi-million dollar lawsuits!
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Re: Copyright?
He was the one, on screen, who showed the clip to millions of people. How he got it is irrelevant. Yes, legal should have cleared it, but he is the one performing the action. He may have assumed that some staffer did the foot work, but that is an issue of trust between him and NBC.
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Re: Copyright?
See a reasonably well informed discussion of the process here
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/N7LaB524fkA
It looks like:
1. You retain copyright and a TV show using tyour viseo without permission is breaking the law..
2. BUT - if you didn't register the copyright, you may not get a good result by suing.
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Phony copyright claims
It was an enormous amount of effort and fun and represented more than 2 years work, especially the original material.
AP claimed copyright on the NASA LCROSS let's crash into the moon and see if there is water video. All NASA material is public domain. That didn't stop AP. Associated Press and Fox News make false copyright claims
Then Fox claimed cell phone footage of the riots in Tehran, taken by people in the riots, which I got from LiveLeak - again not Fox video since those guys don't leave the safety of their offices.
Then after Dylan decided he'd sold enough copies of his new CD, he had Web Sheriff take down his video. It all happened in a few days and I couldn't keep up with 3 strikes and lost my YouTube account - and all that work. I fought back for almost a year and then gave up. I have my own video site now but don't post as much since it's flash not H.264.
Taught me good lesson - only post original content. Even those guys lost that battle with Leno.
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