Copyright Dispute Means Germans Can't See All Those Russian Meteor Videos
from the but-copyright-isn't-censorship dept
You might have heard about last week's Russian meteor strike. The news, which broke quickly and was so odd that many initially suspected a hoax or even a viral marketing campaign, was rapidly realized as legitimate. Part of what helped the news spread so quickly was a ton of videos uploaded to YouTube very quickly, the vast majority of which came from dashcams in cars -- showing the fiery trail through the sky from a variety of different angles and distances. A bunch of publications covered the fact that having a dashcam has become almost a necessity in Russia to use as evidence concerning accidents and to prevent scams, which are unfortunately common.But, of course, when people drive, they're often listening to music. And so many of the dashcam videos of the meteor include music playing from car radios. And, as we've discussed many times, in Germany, most popular music is blocked from any YouTube video due to a longstanding (and ridiculous) legal fight between YouTube and GEMA, the German music collection society. GEMA wants rates that are simply laughable, so throughout Germany, most videos that contain music get blocked.
And yes, this means that a large number of these videos are being blocked in Germany, as noted by Cyrus Farivar over at Ars Technica.
Sorry, this video, which includes music from SME [Sony Music Entertainment], is not available in Germany because GEMA has not granted the publishing rights thereto.Amusingly, when Farivar asked GEMA for its response to all of this, it answered (via Twitter):
YouTube blocks apparently randomly.Which is an... interesting interpretation of that ongoing fight. And by "interesting," I mean completely wacko. Another part of that conversation included GEMA trying to blame YouTube further for this, and then defending this whole thing by saying:
GEMA is obliged to all users who give of their perceived rights for a reasonable allowance d copyright.And, apparently, that includes incidentally overheard radio music in videos which have tremendous importance in news coverage.
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So....
Do the people who say copyright is not censorship want to take a stab at this?
Or will they chicken out for this article?
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Re: So....
They will chicken out, as always. They have no interest in being answerable to things that are this egregious and clearly bullshit. They are only interested in spreading "piracy is the downfall of mankind!" FUD and anything that pushes for more laws and greater enforcement at the expense of the very public copyright is supposed to serve in the first place.
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Re: So....
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If they give in to the content industries demands for money, they will lose any chance of making a reasonably rentable business.
If they give in to the content industries demands for censorship, they will get sued left and right and lose any chance of making a reasonably rentable business.
If they start to protest by overenforcing the contend industries demands for censorship they will get punished hard by regulaters and the content industries getting shut out will sue Google for their last penny (unless penny gets removed?).
If they give in to the regulaters in EU, they will get squeezed even further by regulators in other countries, making their business a lot less rentable.
Nothing they can do will change that their business will get severely cornered and they will loose a lot of money. Only choice is spreading information and hoping for the best!
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The best solution
Likewise, the best solution is to be sure to block Germans from seeing anything that conceivably could be claimed by GEMA.
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Re: The best solution
you see, we have this insane part in the laws that gives gema the power it has, that says, unless you can to 100% bring proof that the music in question is not licensed by gema (by giving first and last name, current address and birthdate of the artist/authors whatever else gema demands)it is automatically assumed that the piece in question is licensed by gema.
To make matters worse, even if you bring the information they ask for gema may or may not decide wether it is proof enough or not. And you have to do this for every track in question. And no, proving that the track in question is licensed under creative commons is *not* enough, it explicitly has to be the personal information of the artists in question.
The reason is, the gema contracts say, that every work of an artist that is listed with gema automatically becomes subject of gema licensing regardless if you wish that in specific cases or not.
It is completely criminal, and extortion racket towards artists and public alike and I hope google can bring them down for good. even though I doubt there is any good chance for it.
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Google does have a choice...but they want to pressure GEMA instead
It seems pretty clear that Google is deliberately choosing to make a point to German YouTube users by denying them as much content as possible to pressure GEMA into ceasing its ridiculous, overboard demands.
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Re: Google does have a choice...but they want to pressure GEMA instead
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Re: The best solution
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"
Can someone translate this for me? What the heck does this statement have to do with them blocking the news?
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But of course!
/sarcasm
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alternately..
not that that would be a good overall functional solution, but might be a temporary legal one.
otherwise, I thought music clips (shorter than X seconds) were generally acceptable, is that not the case in germany?
and, if there is someone talking over the music, or there is a car engine, does that not qualify as transformative work?
just wondering. :-)
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Re: alternately..
I would guess two reasons, and you have to bear in mind that this is an algorithm picking these up, not someone looking at the video and flagging it - so the context isn't considered.
The first is that they'd potentially still be liable for any infringement on the video side - which could be anything from edited movie footage to the song's official video. Better to block the whole thing on GEMA's request rather than open themselves up to copycat demands from other saying "well you detected the audio why not the video?".
The second is to mitigate complaints from users. I can imagine that a lot of people would blame YouTube for the sudden silence on a lot of videos, complain that the service is broken, swamp their support or move to competitors. By blocking in this way, they're clearly saying "we can't let you see this, blame GEMA". If they did it any other way, any notice of why the audio was removed would probably be missed or ignored by many users.
"otherwise, I thought music clips (shorter than X seconds) were generally acceptable, is that not the case in germany?"
Possibly not, as a lot of other copyright regimes don't officially recognise fair use, although I'm not familiar with Germany's stance.
"and, if there is someone talking over the music, or there is a car engine, does that not qualify as transformative work?"
It should, but the record industry won't accept that because it might damage a fictional revenue stream.
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Curiously
additionally,
As of November 5, 2012, the German parliament had already received 1863 petitions against GEMA
Who is propping this legacy turd up? They frankly serve no purpose. They are simply part of a long standing institution of bad shit.
Nigel
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"No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
Take a loopy tour of Techdirt.com! You always end up at same place!
http://techdirt.com/
Gosh, don't ya just wanna peek ahead at the next exciting re-write? -- Well, you can see Mike's queue if PAY for the privilege!
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Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
Except for all those times when he has been critical of Google. Which is more times than he defends them.
STFU unless you are going to stop your bald-faced lying.
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Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
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Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
You, much like bob, need to do the world a favor and not procreate. I can't bear the thought of your brand of stupidity spreading beyond your own life.
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Re: Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
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Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
Except for the artists whose music isn't being heard. But they don't matter in this discussion, right Blue?
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Re: "No evidence of real harm." -- One of Mike's standard defenses.
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If musical aliens invade
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However, the music was purely incidental during a once in a life time event (Tunguska was the previous relative meteorite activity in 1908...GEMA is stupid for pulling the video for that reason.
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That's why it's not logical to do it, because you need specialized equipment to block out just the music on the radio and not everything else.
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Want reform? We need to reform ourselves first. Don't go into personal debt except for a home mortgage. Then you won't be a slave to some corporation and won't be afraid to rock the boat.
Note the price of used vehicles, especially atv's etc...
Know why prices are staying so high for a ten year old toy? Because people aren't thinking "It cost $10 000" they are thinking "It cost $15 000 after tax and interest on the loan."
When they are selling with that mentality, think of the value retained on my bike, since it was paid for in cash, with 0% interest and 0 payments forever.
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Google has all the weapons to throw GEMA image in the garbage. It's about time they started using these weapons heavily.
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Can't even upload my own music video
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Can't even upload my own music video
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