Once Again, Political Speech Is Silenced By Copyright/ContentID
from the because-that's-how-it-works dept
This seems to happen every political season. When he was a Presidential candidate, John McCain got annoyed at YouTube taking down political videos based on copyright claims. During the last Presidential election, a Mitt Romney TV ad featuring President Obama singing an Al Green song was taken down via a copyright claim. And now, 2016 Presidential candidate Rand Paul has discovered that his announcement speech from Tuesday morning has been taken down. This wasn't a DMCA takedown, but yet another case of YouTube's over-eager ContentID doing the job:
Of course, Rand Paul has been sort of a mixed bag on copyright. He was one of the first Senators to speak out against SOPA/PIPA in 2011. But, not long after that, he and his father Ron put out a weird internet freedom "manifesto" that appeared to argue for much stronger copyright laws, and which argued that the public domain was an evil "collectivist" threat that was against basic property rights.
Of course, it would be nice if this little incident led candidate Rand Paul to support fixes to copyright law and the DMCA, but as some are pointing out, assuming this really was a ContentID takedown, changes to the DMCA wouldn't much matter -- since ContentID is a private solution, outside of copyright law. That said, it was put in place, in part, to help keep YouTube from getting sued over copyright claims, so a fixed DMCA might lead to a better ContentID offering. Unfortunately, despite a history of copyright and ContentID being abused against political candidates, it still hasn't really resulted in them taking a real platform stand on the problems of copyright law today and how it impacts free expression. It's unlikely that Rand Paul is going to really take a stand on this, especially given that weird manifesto from a few years ago.
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Filed Under: contentid, copyright, dmca, john rich, rand paul, shuttin detroit down, takedown, youtube
Companies: warner music group, youtube
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Live by the sword, die by the sword
I admit, I can't say I'm too broken up over an apparent copyright maximalist getting a little taste of their own medicine, and being hit, eve if only temporarily, with the kind of 'shoot first, never ask questions ever' copyright 'enforcement' that they seem to love so much.
Now, ridiculous automatic takedowns like this are still hugely problematical, no matter who they hit, but if they're going to affect someone, I'd at least prefer that they affect someone who is on the side for pushing for harsher copyright laws, which lead to these sort of systems, that of companies paying no attention to collateral damage as long as they can keep themselves safe from insane lawsuits.
The video won't be down for long I'm sure, a simple phone call will likely be enough to fix this(unlike what other people have to go through in similar conditions), but at least for a bit, a maximalist gets to enjoy some of the results of the maximalist mindset.
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Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
Lets see how he reacts...
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Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
FIFY
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Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
The content industry. We need a government by the natural persons for the natural persons, corporations be damned.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
Do the laws need fixing? Yes. Does that absolve others of wrongdoing at far greater levels than the government? No.
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Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
You mean Google has actual real humans that can answer phones in its employ? Wow, I never knew that!
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Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
Not for people like you and me, but I'm sure a US Senator can get in touch with someone there.
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Re: Re: Re: Live by the sword, die by the sword
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Google is the only one willing to deal with relatively unrestricted uploading. And the only reason they're given as much "freedom" as they are is because of the Content ID system. If they didn't have that, they would be up to their eyes in lawsuits. The problem is not Youtube, the problem is further up.
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How exactly would you fix the DMCA so that this wouldn't likely happen with ContentID, Mike?
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Obviously I'm not Mike, but I would start with opt-in copyright and a central database to track copyright ownership going forward.
It wouldn't help much with the mess we have on our hands now due to automatic copyright, but future generations would benefit.
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I think it would have.
Imagine Google's Content ID system built upon verifiable ownership, as opposed to unsubstantiated claims of ownership. It would be quite a bit different.
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that's exactly what ContentID is...
...and in this case WMG, being judge, jury and chief executioner, has decided that the political speech was infringing on their copyrights and ordered the assistant executioner (YouTube) to nuke it. They don't bother with minor details such as fair use when it doesn't let them squeeze money. /sarc
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Currently, the takedowns are sworn under penalty of perjury that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing.
Modify that section so that the takedown filer swears under penalty of perjury that the material is infringing, and does not fall under Fair Use or any other form of defense.
Require all automated takedowns to have human oversight. If *one* takedown is wrong, the company representative must assume responsibility.
Multiple false takedowns must lead to a company being banned from using the process. Abuse the right, lose the right.
There, that's three fair fixes.
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No, they have to swear they hold the copyright to the material in question. There's no requirement to swear anything about infringement. So that would be a good thing to add to the process.
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Reduce copyright term to ten years with opt-in, not opt-out. After that an option to renew for a fee.
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I didn't say this problem wouldn't happen if the DMCA changed. Just that if the DMCA were fixed that it *could* allow the rules of ContentID to work better.
For example, if the DMCA were switched to notice-and-notice instead of notice-and-takedown, not only would it better serve the First Amendment, but it would enable ContentID to be set up similarly, such that identified videos could first lead to a notice, allowing the uploader to respond to the notice within a certain time frame, before the video was taken down. As such you'd avoid situations like the above.
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You have to prove it is infringing and isn't fair use, and if you lose you pay.
3 bogus take-downs and you lose your ability to issue take-downs.
Level the field.
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How exactly would you fix the DMCA so that this wouldn't likely happen with ContentID, Mike?
Spartan hates me :|
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it wouldn't be fair to say that if it IS fair use, the complainer has to pay and possibly lose the ability to complain, and if it is NOT fair use then the video just gets taken down and nothing else. there would be no incentive to keep people from infringing in the first place.
one should never completely lose their ability to complain.. perhaps greater and greater limitations the more you cry wolf though.
as someone who has had videos blocked, and I've not contested the block because even though I thought the videos were transformative enough to be fair use, I'm no expert and am unwilling to accrue a strike against me by appealing and losing..
I'd like youtube to spell out some clear guidelines of what can make a video qualify as "fair use", and then I can see the stick I'm being measured against, as opposed to the invisible stick I'm being beaten with.
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At least on YT, there's the three strikes and you're out (lose your account). That's a pretty substantial cost IMO.
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I was hasty in my earlier reply and didn't finish reading... there are no clear guidelines on what is fair use, which is one difficulty with copyright law. This isn't Google's fault - the law just doesn't have cut and dried rules for what is and what is not fair use.
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They could, but then if that guidance should conflict with actual law, somebody would run into a problem.
- takedown request
- user relies on Google guidance to contest based on fair use
- rights holder doesn't back down
- court finds not fair use
- oops
AND/OR
- takedown request
- user relies on Google guidance and decides it isn't fair use
- video is taken down
- might it have been fair use if contested? We'll never know.
I'm sure Google decided it was better to just not stick their neck out on fair use in the first place.
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But he doesn't hate musicians!
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Those having a sharing problem are the rights holders. That's what we call all those, whose creativity runs towards living off others (artistic) work.
Like you, they love to jangle the artist to deflect focus from their leeching.
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He dared place free speech over and above profits and control. That combined with a rare opportunity for an anonymous troll to actually appear to be on the side of the actual artist rather than just the label or corporation makes the comment too juicy for him to resist making!
Of course, anyone really paying attention will be aware that the above article is perfectly in tune with the general stance of protecting free speech and fair use normally associated with this site.
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That wasn't me! I only made the one comment above. Don't be so paranoid!
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Fix copyright
Well, sure. Corporations are people, and the Public Domain rips control from them while they are alive.
As long as you postulate that corporations are people, they are being treated unfairly by the Public Domain. However, in contrast to real people they have the slight advantage that they are basically immortal.
So to level the playing ground, they must not get extra privileges or penalties due to being immortal.
Which means that copyright really needs to be fixed to publication+x years. Decoupled from the life time of an author. Then an author knows exactly what he is selling when selling the proceeds for a work. And when there are 20Â contributing authors, you don't get to prolong copyright indefinitely by putting one on life support. They way things are going these days, the big copyright industry players will soon turn to entertaining their own cryogenics departments and the standard MAFIAA contracts will contain an option to freeze content creators when their expected remaining lifetime drops under a pre-agreed threshold.
"Surely it would not come to that." How often did that prediction turn out correct when pitted against greed?
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Rand Paul is a psychopathic asshole
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Not a libertarian viewpoint
The giggle there is that copyrights (and patents) are market artificialities issued by the government creating an artificial shortage of goods. Hence they conflict with libertarian free market principles. The conflict between intellectual "property" rights and non-imaginary property was perhaps best summed up by Thomas Jefferson, the Father of the U.S. patent system:
VI Writings of Thomas Jefferson at 180-181 (Washington ed.), as quoted in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 footnote 2 (1966), http://supreme.justia.com/us/383/1/case.html (italics added).
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Re: Not a libertarian viewpoint
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Have fun. I did.
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How much spittle did you get on you? Or did you have the foresight to stand back?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Not a libertarian viewpoint
I'm friendly enough with the small "L" libertarians, they're not actively promoting a corporate agenda. It's the anarcho-capitalists who think we can run a Jennifer Government-style society and make it function as intended that I have the problem with. Small L's generally understand the limitations inherent in a consumer economy where regulation is too damn light and the incumbents lock out competition.
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Licenses ?
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If the information ceases to be available, the public is getting short-changed if the unavailability continues; it no longer has access to the information.
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That won't do much. Big publishers would make 10 copies a year and sell them in one physical store to satisfy the requirements.
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