'Dubious' Copyright Claim That Took Down Drone Footage Of Football Stadium Not All That Dubious, But Still Isn't The Optimal Solution

from the rights-holder-bot-claims-upteenth-victim dept

Bogus YouTube takedowns? We've seen our share of those. So, when this arrived in the Techdirt submission box from one of our readers, I wasn't very surprised.

Over the past several weeks, an unidentified quadcopter owner has been flying over Kyle Field at Texas A&M shooting videos of the stadium as it undergoes massive renovations. Texas A&M University forced youtube to block the quadcopter videos over a copyright claim. The claim is (at best) dubious. The videos are posted for free, the school is a state school, and all shots are of outdoor objects. Perhaps the school believes that A&M logos located on and around the stadium are somehow subject to copyright. (via this link)

That could very well be. Entities often issue bogus takedown notices and cease and desists, often becoming the real "morons in a hurry" by conflating copyright and trademark in their hurry to flex their ownership. Even if the logos were protected, they would be covered under trademark law, rather than copyright. That's not to say YouTube videos can't be taken down for trademark violations, but it would be a rather unusual situation.

The video that no longer exists states clearly that it has been removed due to a "copyright claim by Texas A&M University." If Texas A&M was that assertive about its logos or making some bogus claim about owning the airspace over the stadium, it certainly would have at least tried to remove another video posted by the same account containing the same sort of footage. But it didn't.

And there's where we find our first indication that this takedown has nothing to do with trademark or A&M's physical property. In the comments, this exchange takes place.

If you can't see or read the screenshot it says the following:

Commenter: Should have had music provide by the Fight'n Texas Aggie Band.

Matt Burger (account owner): Look at the first video/photo slideshow. Right in your wheelhouse

This suggests the background music in the first (now removed) video may have featured Texas A&M's creations. A tweet by Matt Burger (creator of the drone footage) seems to confirm this.


If you can't see this, it says:

When editing it's hard to choose. Pick the song that sounds like a 90's montage, or the well known song that will violate copyright. #grind

So, it would appear that Texas A&M's copyright claim was all about the music and had nothing to do with what the drone recorded. While it would have been a bit kinder of A&M to simply have the soundtrack muted rather than kill the video entirely, that's entirely decided by presets on the college's end of the YouTube world, something that isn't going to be applied on a case-by-case basis. Goodbye, Burger's drone footage. And, like so many other cases involving both YouTube and other IP owners, goodbye fair use. That's what happens when algorithms do all the thinking.

This takedown wasn't abusive but it's still a long way from the most desirable outcome. Texas A&M shutting down a video taken by an incredibly loyal fan isn't really a win for anybody.

Filed Under: copyright, drones, takedowns, videos
Companies: texas a&m

Nintendo Has A Plan To Share Ad Revenue With YouTubers, But Nobody's Happy About It

from the all-new-questions dept

Roughly a year ago, Nintendo began a bold plan of declaring war on well-known YouTubers who created "let's play" videos using Nintendo IP. Well, perhaps war isn't the right word. Suddenly and swiftly, it claimed these YouTube videos through the site's system that then allowed it to push ads into the videos, the revenue for which it shared between YouTube and itself, leaving the videomakers out in the cold. It was misguided in several ways, the most obvious being that these kinds of videos and their creators are essentially free advertising for Nintendo, getting the word out to potential customers about games they may then pick up. It strains the mind to think of any large numbers of people who might substitute a "let's play" video for actually playing the game themselves, but Nintendo is Nintendo, so the company opted for control over goodwill.

Perhaps only coincidentally (or maybe not...), the last year has been rough for the gaming company. Console sales are down across the board, and Nintendo appears to be pinning its hopes on a couple of triple-A games coming out to save its skin -- which makes it all the more interesting that Nintendo is also announcing a new plan to share ad revenue with YouTubers who sign up for its affiliate program.

Nintendo's statement came from a series of messages on its Japanese Twitter account that mentioned "several affiliate programs" for YouTube users that would allow them to "receive a portion of the advertising revenue" coming from videos featuring gameplay footage. I reached out to the company for additional information, and here's what a representative from Nintendo of America had to say:

"Nintendo has been permitting the use of Nintendo copyrighted material in videos on YouTube under appropriate circumstances. Advertisements may accompany those videos, and in keeping with previous policy that revenue is shared between YouTube and Nintendo. In addition, for those who wish to use the material more proactively, we are preparing an affiliate program in which a portion of the advertising profit is given to the creator. Details about this affiliate program will be announced in the future."

On the surface, this seems like a huge step in the right direction. The once monolithic stance on collecting all the revenue possible from these videos is finally giving way to a program that will allow some of the fan-gathering YouTube personalities to have some skin in the game. You'd think there would be praise across the board for this. You'd be wrong. Between the ill-feelings still lingering from the actions of last year and the wariness of working under the umbrella of a Nintendo affiliate program, some of the bigger names seem suspicious in this phase where details are still lacking on the program.

Zack Scott, another popular YouTuber and the one who first brought the issue to light last year after he noticed that some of the Nintendo-focused videos on his popular ZackScottGames channel were being tagged with the network's Content ID system, told Kotaku at the end of last June that he had resumed posting such work once Nintendo appeared to back away from its crackdown. I followed up with him today to see if anything had changed since his tentative return to posting Nintendo-centric "Let's Play" videos last year. He said that while he's been impacted "very, very minimally" by any changes in Nintendo and YouTube's policies so far, he could "definitely see a future" where this has a bigger influence.

"I feel the relationship between video creator and content publisher is mutually beneficial," Scott wrote in an email. "Numerous companies already understand this balance. I'd hate for the model to become where a popular creator can request revenue of a publisher in exchange for coverage. I'd equally hate for a publisher to request revenue of a creator in exchange for access."

Left unsaid is the converse: will Nintendo use its affiliate program to attempt to exert control over YouTubers' video content. Keep in mind that the Nintendo IP on display isn't really the draw in these videos. After all, there are a million such videos for a million games. The popular ones are popular because of the personality of the YouTuber. They share the stage with the game and they got their audience on a ledger of trust from the viewers. If Nintendo attempts to leverage that trust by exerting control through its affiliate program, such as by only allowing access to content in exchange for positive or non-negative editorial speech within the video, it will be a massive problem, one that will ultimately backfire in Nintendo's face, while torpedoing a bunch of YouTube personalities along with it.

Either way, the devil is most definitely in the details with this kind of program. If Nintendo makes it extremely clear that editorial content is hands-off and that the affiliate program will be free from YouTuber corruption, this might, possibly work. Given the company's history, however, I have my doubts.

Filed Under: let's play, monetize, promotions, videos
Companies: nintendo

UK Conservative Party Decides To Memory Hole Its YouTube Presence As Well

from the three-years-of-content-is-not-really-an-'archive' dept

It appears the UK Conservative Party isn't quite finished "archiving" its history into the nearest memory hole. Last week, it was discovered that PM David Cameron's party's webmasters had sent speeches made from 2000-2010 into the ether, aided by an altered robots.txt that kept Google from crawling its pages and prompted a retroactive deletion of the corresponding pages from the Internet Archive.

The Guardian passes on the news that the same behavior is being observed over at the Conservative's YouTube account.

Now it has emerged that every video on the Conservatives' YouTube page that dates from before 2010 has been removed or marked as private. Videos such as Ask David Cameron: Shared ownership, EU referendum, PMQs are now marked as unavailable on YouTube. Others, such as Boris Johnson at the pre-election rally in Swindon, and David Cameron down on the farm, are now unlisted, ensuring that only users with a direct link can see them.

WebcameronUK, the official YouTube channel now hosts only 60 videos. At the moment, 296 videos are still listed at the Conservative's official site. However, videos created previous to the party's arbitrary cutoff date will not load (which, in this case, appears to be April 24, 2009).

A member of the Conservative party offered this excuse.

On Wednesday, Chris Grayling said that there is "a limit to how much you can put and keep on your website year after year", and a Conservative spokesman claimed that the changes to the website were to "allow people to quickly and easily access the most important information we provide – how we are clearing up Labour’s economic mess, taking the difficult decisions and standing up for hardworking people.”

Yes, storage limits can be an issue, but it's hard to believe the party currently in power in the UK can't afford to purchase more. Furthermore, if storage is such an issue, let YouTube handle the storage/bandwidth and just host links at the website. Finally, storing text takes next to no space at all, so this excuse doesn't really pan out for all the (text only) speeches the Conservatives removed last week.

The second statement is nothing but spin, so nothing to see here. And the spokesmen didn't have much to say when confronted with previous non-theoretically-storage-related actions.

When asked about the YouTube deletions and why it was necessary to remove webpages from the Internet Archive, a spokesperson for the Conservatives declined to comment.

What this looks like is a swift rewrite of history ahead of the general election. ComputerWeekly, which broke the news of the first Conservative history cull, suggested the party was attempting to bury Cameron's old campaign promises, which revolved around openness and transparency. The Guardian has another theory.

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, pointed out that the material is still available on the UK Web Archive, a project run by the British Library to archive British websites.

Nonetheless, he said: "The suspicion has to be that at the point they are engaged in a huge debate about mass surveillance … they are removing the videos where they criticise Labour for doing the same thing. That's why it's absolutely important that that material remains available."

Sadly, it's not just one political party refurbishing its past. The Labour party has been busy as well.

Labour has also edited its news archive. The party's new website only goes back to September 2010, leaving Ed Miliband's keynote at the party conference that year the oldest speech available. But unlike the Conservatives, Labour didn't require internet archivists to remove stored versions, leaving pages dating back to July 2002 in the database.

Archives for both are still available elsewhere, but the public-facing sites themselves are now willfully incomplete. The digital age may have promised a future of transparency and openness, but both parties have chosen to use these tools to craft flattering narratives and spirit away inconsistencies.

Filed Under: conservatives, david cameron, memory hole, speeches, uk, videos, youtube

Facebook Re-Opens The Door To Videos Featuring Beheadings; Breasts? Not So Much

from the no-joke dept

Perhaps like me, while you read all of our posts the past six months that had anything to do with Facebook, you missed the news that the social media site had instituted a policy specifically against sharing videos that featured human beings beheading other human beings. Granted, like for me, this may have fallen under your "I can't believe we need that, but okay" category, but indulge me for a moment as I ride the rollercoaster of oscilating views on the news that Facebook has recently rescinded this policy and will once again allow videos of beheadings to be shared, with only a few caveats.

The social network had introduced a temporary ban in May following complaints that the clips could cause long-term psychological damage. The US firm confirmed it now believed its users should be free to watch and condemn such videos. It added it was, however, considering adding warnings.

Reaction Stage 1: Emotional Outrage -- You evil Facebook bastards! How simple is it to understand that you shouldn't allow people to show decapa-frigging-tations. The very idea of large swaths of people watching that kind of thing is sickening. And to hell with your caveats; there is no discussion worth having about vile acts of violence and death beyond the complete rebuke of them. What good could this possibly serve?

"Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they're connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events," said a spokeswoman.

Reaction Stage 2: The Skeptical Deep Breath -- Okay, fine, that's a fair point. If social media sites are the water-cooler or social chamber of our time, then it makes sense that those discussions should be open to topics of controversey. After all, how do you discuss a beheading if you don't at least have the option to see what occurred. Still, this all sounds too close to people watching snuff films. Surely someone is going to have a problem with all this, right?

"It only takes seconds of exposure to such graphic material to leave a permanent trace - particularly in a young person's mind," said Dr Arthur Cassidy, a former psychologist who runs a branch of the Yellow Ribbon Program in Northern Ireland. "The more graphic and colourful the material is, the more psychologically destructive it becomes."

Facebook allows anyone aged 13 and above to be a member.

Reaction Stage 3: Think Of The Damned Children -- Screw the fair points. How the hell could this possibly be deemed responsible when Facebook allows newly-proclaimed teenagers to view this kind of material? Nobody is really in favor of teens watching people get their melons chopped off, are they? And is anyone really going to argue that there won't be some damage to some children if this kind of thing is allowed to propagate? What's supposed to keep kids from seeing this kind of violence?

The idea of Facebook issuing a blanket ban had, however, concerned some freedom-of-speech campaigners who had suggested it was the responsibility of parents - not the company - to protect children on the internet.

Reaction Stage 4: Oh, Yeah, The Stupid Parents -- Damn, I had forgotten about them. I guess it is up to parents to police their children's internet use and any unwillingness to do so shouldn't stifle the free speech of others. It's just that, well, so many parents suck at this part of their job. Still, that isn't the fault of people who are legitimately interested in these kinds of stories.

French digital rights group La Quadrature du Net said it was still concerned that Facebook was reserving the right to take down the videos if it took issue with the way they were presented.

"It shows how much Facebook is in power to decide whatever will or will not be expressed through its network," said the organisation's co-founder Jeremie Zimmermann. "It plays a profoundly anti-democratic role when it makes any such choice, whatever the limits are and whatever the good reasons it uses to make the decision. Only a judicial authority should be able to restrict fundamental freedoms according to the rule of law."

Reaction Stage 5: Reluctant Admission That Horrible Things Are The Reason Free Expression Is Important -- Yes, beheadings are terrible. As are violent attacks, terrorist attacks, bombings, war-crimes, and every other horrible action that we human beings commit against one another. But that is the reality of the world we live in. And if I'm confident about anything at all in this occasionally horrible world, it's that reacting to horror by placing your head in the sand doesn't work. There are those on this planet that believe in civil discourse, in peace, and in the possibility of harmony with our fellow human beings, and we deserve to know exactly how terrible the enemies of our cause are and to discuss their actions openly and honestly. A huge part of that means being able to see what we're dealing with. As I mentioned before, social media sites are our gathering places to discuss ideas, philosophies, and events. To stifle any part of that because the material at hand is uncomfortable to some would be a disservice. I don't even need to give examples of prior acts of violence that, thanks to their being on film, opened a larger number of people's eyes to important dangers than would have been otherwise.

In the end, I come back to the resting place that seems so familiar to me: more discussion, more access to information, more freedom of speech is always better in the end. Of course, now having ridden this roller coaster ride up and down the emotions, there is one other issue. How is it that beheadings are considered important to free speech, but breasts are such a problem that even breastfeeding is (at times) banned?

Where did your rollercoaster take you?

Update: Oh, and just as we post this, it comes out that Facebook has removed a beheading video. The roller coaster ride begins again.

Filed Under: beheading, breasts, free speech, social media, videos
Companies: facebook

Dumb Speeding Criminal Decides To Post Manhattan Speed Run Video Online

from the not-going-to-end-well dept

Ray Kelly is the NYPD Commissioner with a heart of gold and a severe case of the flip-flops when it comes to how security technology in his city is used. The potential DHS chief candidate is a huge fan of the complete failure known as "stop and frisk", as well as all the cameras and license plate readers the city has at its disposal, except when that technology is turned towards his officers. It's classic Orwellian thinking, in which LEOs and the government get all the toys while you have to find the blind spots in all the cameras just to write in your journal. That journal these days meaning the internet, which of course doesn't really offer any blind spots.

And that's how we get headlines today about Ray Kelly apparently declaring war on someone going by the handle AfroDuck, which is exactly the comic relief the world needs right now. Who is AfroDuck, you ask? Well, he or she is an idiot who decided to circumnavigate Manhattan, a twenty-six-plus mile trip, in just twenty-four minutes. Then, because idiocy and internet-braggery go hand in hand like spaghetti and meatballs, AfroDuck uploaded a dash-cam video of the feat to the internet.

The anonymous speed demon averaged about 66 mph during the late-night circuit, which was captured on a dramatic dashboard-cam video and posted to YouTube under the username AfroDuckProduction. The drive breaks the previous mark of 26 minutes set in 2010. In both runs, the drivers cut out the top of Manhattan above the Cross Bronx Expressway.

So, let's make this clear up front: this was a stupid thing to do. And, no, I'm not going to listen to anyone tell me about how a good driver can do this safely, or how over-protective we've become as a society. Shut up, you're wrong. This is Manhattan and you shouldn't be making speed runs, period, paragraph, full stop. And, while AfroDuck is getting the headlines for this, it should be noted that this isn't a particularly new concept. A few years ago, Wired covered a driver who was trying to break the cross-country driving record, noting that earlier on, he'd been focused on doing a similar speed shot around Manhattan.

Having said that, AfroDuck may have a serious problem.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly promised to hunt down the dangerous driver, saying, “We now have license-plate readers in the city that will assist in this type of investigation.”

Other reports have officers stating that Ray Kelly has "declared war on AfroDuck" and plans on using all of that shiny awesome tech at his disposal to go after the speed demon. And, if their willingness to use stop and frisk as a law enforcement technique is any indication, I doubt the NYPD will mind terribly utilizing all of those license plate cameras to build at least a reckless driving case against him.

“You frankly can’t identify who I am by just looking at the video,” AfroDuck boasted to the car-geek Web site Jalopnik about his Aug. 26 ride, “and records were meant to be broken.” AfroDuck used a 2006 BMW Z4 for the breakneck drive.

That may be, but the NYPD likely can review all the cameras they have to find the license plate of the Z4 that was barreling through Manhattan sometime in the past few weeks and that plate will point them back to AfroDuck. As I said, this driver is an idiot, but it might be new territory to have the chief of police going after an individual simply for bragging online about a speed run and then using all kinds of new technology to do it. It's a brave new surveillance state world, friends, which means you just can't brag about your dumb crimes online anymore.

Filed Under: afroduck, manhattan, nyc, ray kelly, speeding, videos, youtube

Dear Rotolight: The Internet Never Forgets Your Censorious Past, Even If You Deny It

from the look-at-that... dept

So, you may have heard the story this week about Rotolight forcing down a video review they didn't like of one of their lights -- and then admitting publicly that they did it because they thought the review wasn't fair (and also claiming that they thought it violated their trademark, even though the DMCA doesn't cover trademark). That story got quite a lot of attention, and quite a bit late, Rotolight posted its official statement in response, in which the company sought to both apologize... but also defend the initial actions. There is also the odd statement that the video wasn't taken down for copyright reasons, even though the creator of the video, Den Lennie, clearly received a copyright takedown notice.

In this specific case, the video was not removed for copyright infringement reasons as has been widely reported. Rotolight received external advice with respect to this particular video that it was potentially misleading and unrepresentative. This advice resulted in the only request the company has made to have a video removed from any video sharing website in the last 3 years.

As Popehat notes, either Rotolight or Vimeo is lying here, and it's hard to believe that it's Vimeo. If they didn't send a copyright takedown, then why don't they say what they actually sent? Clearly, Vimeo received some sort of notification.

However, two more tidbits have popped up since then, thanks to the lovely internet. First, we have Jeepers Media pointing out to us that Rotolight's claim above that this is the "only request the company has made to have a video removed from any video sharing website in the last 3 years" does not appear to be true. CheesyCam has the story of how it had posted a YouTube video... and Rotolight had (you guessed it) taken it down:

That’s total bull, because this has actually been a practice of RotoLight for at least the last two years. Two years ago, I posted up a video about one user and a UFO camping light who may have mentioned he was making his own DIY RotoLight. Obviously it was a UFO camping LED light, and because of the camparisons, RotoLight commented on this blog and admitted to taking down the users YouTube video:

“FYI, the YouTube Video on which your article relates has been removed due its to defamtory nature, breach of our Registered Trademark and misleading information”.

Whoa wait a minute! The DMCA cannot be used for Trademark claims. That was two years ago, and who knows how many other YouTube or Vimeo videos were taken down in that time frame, but I can tell you the recent Den Lennie attempt was not the first. The fact that they are now playing dumb and backtracking as if this was the only DMCA they filed is a load of crap.

While CheesyCam doesn't link to the original post, it appears to be here. Oops. So, clearly not the first. Also, a commenter on Popehat points out that it's highly unlikely that Rotolight did not understand copyright or the nature of DMCA notices (or the difference between copyright and trademark), in part because the founder/president of Rotolight also runs one of the largest music publishing/producing businesses in the UK -- and his wife is an entertainment lawyer who wrote a book about copyright that was published not too long ago.

So, um, that's nice that you're a small business and you want to rehabilitate your reputation and all... but it might help to start out by not lying about the claim that this was the first such video you've taken down -- or about the nature of the takedown. As they say, it's often not the original bad deed that gets you in the end... but the attempted coverup.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, history, reviews, takedowns, trademark, videos
Companies: rotolight

Cops And Union Rep Lie About What Video Shows Because Judge Never Allowed Recording As Evidence

from the sometimes-evidence-isn't-evidence dept

The video recording of St. Louis police officer Rory Bruce's unprovoked attack on a handcuffed suspect speaks for itself. Within the first 15 seconds of the video captured by the police van's camera, Officer Bruce slams a forearm across the face of his arrestee. The attack was "unprovoked" in any legal sense of the word. The audio quality is negligible but it appears to be a response to the handcuffed teen's contemptuous (of cop) laughter.

For this action, Officer Bruce lost his job. Not only was Bruce fired by the St. Louis PD, but he was charged with assault, something rather uncommon in the police world. Of course, Bruce was still in his probationary period, something that made his firing much easier.

What's captured on the video doesn't mesh with statements made by Bruce's lawyer.

Bruce's attorney, Joseph Hogan, said his client was squatting down, performing a search, when the "guy makes a move," and Bruce jumped up and hit him with a forearm.

This clearly isn't true. The suspect makes no move and neither officer is squatting at any point before Bruce struck the handcuffed teen. Hogan also suggested police officers shouldn't be held accountable for actions performed under the influence of "adrenaline."

Hogan complained that police and prosecutors didn't take into account the shooting before the teen's arrest, saying that adrenaline must have been pumping for both officers.

This shooting involved Bruce's partner Jacob Fowler (another rookie who was fired for this incident) firing his weapon at the suspect after the teen pointed a gun at him.

While this video clearly shows an attack on a handcuffed suspect, this recording was never viewed by the presiding judge, Theresa Counts, who found Rory Bruce "not guilty" of assault. Plenty of outrage has bubbled up over this fact, but Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice details the events that led to a crucial piece of evidence being ignored.

There was nothing life or death about the decision Rory Bruce made to pound this cuffed teenager in custody. Yet, he was acquitted by Associate Circuit Court Judge Theresa Counts Burke. Not because she found this conduct acceptable, but because she never watched the video.

"Prosecutors had also tried, but failed, to get the teenager on the stand. First they couldn’t find him, then when they did, he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

But the video never made it into evidence because the law required prosecutors to authenticate it with someone who had personal knowledge of the events. Bruce refused to testify against himself, on the same constitutional grounds as the teen."

The teenager involved was never charged, leaving the prosecution with nothing to trade off for his testimony. As for doing the right thing against Bruce, well, the right thing on the street can sometimes be a bit different than what some of us might hope for.

But what of the other officer present, Bruce's partner, Jacob Fowler?

"That left Fowler, who claimed the same but was forced to testify after prosecutors granted him immunity from charges and obtained a last minute order from another judge.

When Fowler viewed the footage, he testified it differed from his recollection of events."

Maybe he recalled rainbows and unicorns. Who knows? What he clearly didn't recall was anything that could be used against his partner. What a surprise.

"Burke ruled she thus couldn’t authenticate it. That left only the testimony of a few police employees, who couldn’t say much because of hearsay rules."

So, now we know, if we weren't clear before, a recording of an event sometimes just isn't enough evidence. It may be crystal clear in the court of public opinion (and it certainly seemed "authentic" to the St. Louis PD, which fired Bruce and his partner) but can turn absolutely useless when it catches in the gears of the justice system.

But the most troubling (read: repulsive) aspect of this whole debacle isn't the fact that Bruce wasn't charged, or that Judge Theresa Burke didn't watch the video. It's the words of Jeff Roorda, the business manager of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, who not only flat out lies about the events clearly captured by the camera, but claims this sort of footage is being used the wrong way.

Words are exchanged and then; “It’s one forearm blow as he’s trained to do,” said Jeff Roorda with the St. Louis Police Officer’s Association.

Roorda says he can see Bruce crouched down and the suspect moving forward. He says Bruce was only defending himself.

Again, at no point before Bruce hits the suspect are either of the officers "crouched down." Both are completely upright for the entire 15 seconds before Bruce's attack.

Roorda says the judge did right—he told News 4, police videos like these should be used to protect police. "Now, it’s become a “gotcha-head hunter” tool that we’ve seen internal affairs go over-board with."

That's the most disgusting sentiment. Roorda feels video captured by police cameras should only be used when what's recorded justifies police actions. If St. Louis cops can't behave themselves, despite knowing they're on camera and despite believing internal affairs is prone to "going overboard," the problem isn't with the cameras or internal affairs. Roorda wants these two officers reinstated, even though the St. Louis PD itself doesn't want them around. After all, they've been exonerated by the court, so in Roorda's mind, there's no reason to keep two bad cops off the street any longer.

Filed Under: evidence, judge, police, police brutality, videos

Fair Use For Me, But Not For Thee

from the funny-how-that-works dept

Here's a wacky one. Blogger Mark Reinhardt, who blogs about Idaho, had written a blog post critical of local TV station KTVB and its news reporting. With it, he included a YouTube clip of the reporting in question, along with some of his own commentary about why the reporting was "one sided journalism." While the disclaimer he posted with it, which implied that he believed the use was fair use, was legally meaningless (and slightly incorrect), using a news clip and commenting on it is still a classic form of fair use. Either way, KTVB claimed the video and had YouTube take it down, saying it was infringing. Whether or not it was actually infringing is actually not a huge part of the issue, because what happened next was interesting.

Mark Reinhardt remembered that, last year, KTVB had used one of his videos to illustrate a story. Amazingly, they didn't even credit it to him, but generally to "YouTube." So, he went tit for tat, and sent KTVB an email demanding that they remove his video (or, that they properly credit him). There are, of course, a number of legal problems with his particular notice. It does not meet the requirements of a proper DMCA takedown notice (not even close). Also, while he's emailing KTVB, he only provides them with a YouTube link, rather than the link of the story. If he wants the video taken down from YouTube (unlikely, since it's his video), then he needs to alert YouTube. If he wants it off of KTVB's site, then he needs to file a compliant DMCA notice pointing to the KTVB story. Of course, KTVB would have a number of reasonable defenses (including fair use and implied license, given that the video was on YouTube with embedding enabled).

Either way, it does seem rather interesting that the news channel issued a takedown on his use of their video, when it had no problems running one of his videos without credit.

Filed Under: copyright, embedding, fair use, idaho, ktvb, mark reinhardt, videos

Judge Rejects Lawsuit Against YouTube As 'Frankenstein Monster Posing As A Class Action'

from the good-ruling dept

You may recall that soon after Viacom sued YouTube, the Premier League football association (which is notorious for aggressively seeking to enforce its copyrights) sued as well, and sought to turn its case into a class action lawsuit for basically anyone who might have had their copyright-covered works uploaded to YouTube. The court has now eloquently smacked that attempt down, pointing out that the issues for different individuals and organizations would be totally different, making it inappropriate to lump them all together.

Forty five years ago Judge Lumbard of the United States Court of Appeals for this circuit called a case a "Frankenstein monster posing as a class action." ... The description fits the class aspects of this case.

The putative class consists every person and entity in the world who own infringed copyrighted works, who have or will register them with U.S. Copyright Office as required, whose works fall into either two categories: they were subject of infringement which was blocked by YouTube after notice, but suffered additional infringement through subsequent uploads (the "repeat infringement class"), or are musical compositions which defendants tracked, monetized or identified and allowed to be used without proper authorization (the "music publisher class"). Plaintiffs assert that there are "at least thousands of class members" the Repeat Infringement Class, and "hundreds" in the Music Publisher Class...

It then goes on to point out that YouTube is just the platform, and just because infringing content is uploaded to YouTube, it doesn't automatically make YouTube liable. It notes that "YouTube does not generate infringing material." And, given that, the situations of various potential class members is quite different. Then there's a strong point related to all of this: because there are all sorts of different issues related to copyright, "copyright claims are poor candidates for class-action treatment." Specifically, there would need to be specific evidence relating to each individual infringement, and that makes it silly to do this as a class action.

Here to make resolutions which advance the litigation will require the court to determine, for each copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, whether a copyright holder gave notices containing sufficient information to permit the service provider to identify and locate the infringing material so that it could be taken down. That requires individualized evidence. Further, the analysis required to determine "fair use," and other defenses, is necessarily specific to the individual case.

The court points out that the benefit of a class action is that there's "an issue that is central to the validity of each of the claims in one stroke" but that's clearly not true with mass copyright claims. Given all that, the class certification (for both classes) was denied.

Filed Under: class action, copyright, infringement, videos
Companies: google, premier league, youtube

YouTube Once Again Building A Paywall On Which Old Media Can Hang Itself

from the haven't-we-done-this-before dept

People seem really good at forgetting history. While most people realize that Google bought YouTube early on in that company's existence, they tend to forget that this was, in part, because YouTube was beating the pants off of Google's own online service called Google Video. The big difference? Google Video's launch focused very much on selling videos and using annoying DRM that had to check in with a server any time you wanted to watch. It was a complete and total failure, which probably cost an even larger amount when you realize it made Google more desperate to buy YouTube.

A few years later, Google tried again, playing up the ability to pay for videos... and once again it flopped pitifully. A 10 day test brought in just a little bit over $10,000 -- which is hardly worth the effort involved.

Perhaps the third time's the charm? People are reporting that YouTube is getting ready to launch a paywall feature, which may have 50 "channels" locked up behind the wall. The idea is to be more of a Hulu or Netflix-type competitor, though rather than a flat fee for access to all locked up content, YouTube thinks people will pay $1.99/month per channel. That seems... pretty high. Perhaps they're hoping that times have changed and what failed in the past is now okay because people are accustomed to paying for this kind of thing. However, I still have trouble seeing how this succeeds. If anything, this just seems like a tool with which Hollywood can hang itself. It may jump on this thinking that it's a great new way to build an online revenue stream, without realizing all the potential hazards.

Cable and satellite channels, which traditionally rely on a dual revenue stream model, are eyeing YouTube’s subscription service to generate revenue from older shows and new programming, according to another person familiar with the project.

I'm sure plenty of old school execs are thrilled about this idea... until they see the actual numbers. This isn't about helping the old industry adapt, but giving them the tools to see how unlikely they are to succeed with a paywall.

Filed Under: overhype, paywall, subscriptions, videos, youtube
Companies: google