Film Distributor, Copyright Enforcement Company Join Forces To Kick Creative Commons-Licensed Film Off YouTube

from the would-rather-be-fast-than-be-correct dept

Infringement takedown notices: can't live with them, rights holders won't let your service live without them. YouTube once again is the flashpoint, with a Creative Commons-licensed film being taken down in response to a takedown notice. The Aaron Swartz documentary, "The Internet's Own Boy," was briefly knocked offline by a bogus copyright claim (that it was likely an error doesn't make it any less bogus) filed by Remove Your Media, LLC.

Brian Knappenberger, the director and producer of the film (which is also available through paid streaming services, along with other non-paid outlets like the Internet Archive), confirmed that no one on his side of the film had anything to do with it.

"It wasn't done by us," Knappenberger told the Daily Dot. "I'm trying to figure out [who issued the claim]."

The Daily Dot contacted Remove Your Media, which refused to offer any insight on this bogus copyright claim.

A representative for Remove Your Media, Eric Greene, refused to name the client who hired him for the takedown, though he noted it was "a distributor outside the U.S."

Greene then deployed the most unfortunate excuse anyone can offer post-World War II.

"We were just following orders," Greene said.

Apparently, the documentary's foreign distributor confused CC-licensing with regular old copyright, if it even bothered to check on the film's US distribution rights before it issued the notice. (The Internet Archive's upload is one of the few places foreign viewers won't run into a "Sorry, but this content is not available in your country" message.)

A representative for one of the film's U.S. distributors attributed the takedown to "miscommunication," and expressed confidence it would be resolved soon.

And, what do you know, it actually was. As of this point, the film has already been restored to its fully playable glory, something of an anomaly in an era when even clearly erroneous takedowns take hours or days to be reinstated -- if they ever are.

On one hand, with a platform of YouTube's size, mistakes are inevitable. On the other hand, if the DMCA provided for a notice-and-notice system, minor debacles like this could be easily averted. Instead, it's a notice-and-takedown system that makes it all too easy to pull the trigger and let those at the other end deal with the damage. Companies attempting to protect their content are all too willing to move quickly, rather than move carefully, resulting in a lot of collateral damage -- sometimes including to their own assets.

Fortunately, this was fixed quickly, and even if it wasn't, several viewing options remain. But this is yet another indication that the ease of YouTube's takedown system is only making things progressively worse, rather than reaching some sort of balance between YouTube users and rights holders.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, brian knappenberger, censorship, copyright, creative commons, dmca, internet's own boy, takedown
Companies: remove your media

Don't Miss The Powerful Trailer For The Aaron Swartz Documentary: The Internet's Own Boy

from the wish-aaron-could-see-this dept

A year ago, we wrote about filmmaker Brian Knappenberger's efforts to put together a documentary about Aaron Swartz. It wasn't going to be a "memorial," but rather an "investigative documentary" into Swartz's story and the lawsuit against him. Earlier this year, a very rough cut of the film made it to Sundance, where it received a tremendous reaction. In January, Knappenberger also put together some clips for a short trailer including some of Swartz's comments about the NSA, to help highlight "The Day We Fight Back." Now the film is finally getting close to an actual release, and a very powerful trailer has been released. With so much going on in the world on a variety of issues that Aaron cared so deeply about, just this trailer should remind everyone how much the world has lost, and how much we're missing without Aaron around to help on these issues any more. Though, with that sadness, hopefully it also inspires more people to step up and help out -- whether it's copyright, corruption, surveillance, access to knowledge, net neutrality or anything else, the world needs the kind of help that Aaron provided for years. But now people have to figure out how to do it without him.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, brian knappenberger, documentary, internet's own boy

Aaron Swartz Explains Why The NSA Needs To Be Stopped

from the from-beyond-the-grave dept

Last week, when we wrote about the big "day of action" against the NSA in memory of Aaron Swartz, to be held February 11th, a few folks questioned whether this was an appropriate issue, since they were unaware of Aaron being all that concerned about the NSA. Obviously, Aaron died months before the Snowden leaks, but as many folks who knew Aaron knew, the NSA was absolutely an issue he was quite concerned about even prior to the Snowden leaks. Brian Knappenberger, who has been working to put the finishing touches on his new documentary about Aaron, The Internet's Own Boy, in order to debut it at Sundance, has released an astounding trailer of the film (which looks amazing). Included in it, are multiple clips of Aaron actually speaking out about the NSA and surveillance, mainly focused on the NSA saying it can't possibly calculate how many Americans it's spying on, because to do so, would be either (a) impossible or (b) would violate their privacy (yes, at one point, they actually said figuring out how many people are being spied on would violate their privacy). So, yes, Aaron was quite concerned about the NSA, and it makes you wonder just how much we all lost in his death, because you have to expect that, as with SOPA, Aaron would have been an instrumental force in fighting back against the NSA as its overreach and abuses have been exposed. If you haven't yet, please go check out TheDayWeFightBack.org to learn more about the day of action.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, brian knappenberger, nsa, privacy, surveillance

If You Don't Care About The NSA Because You 'Haven't Done Anything Wrong,' You're Wrong

from the you-have-done-many-things-wrong dept

Cardinal Richelieu's famous line is:

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

It's easy to twist almost anything to be used against you if someone cares enough. And with a legal code that means people are committing, on average, three felonies a day (at least according to one estimate), it can be even worse.

That's worth keeping in mind any time someone writes off the NSA as not being an issue for them because they've "done nothing wrong." Driving home that point is an excellent short "Op-Doc" in the NY Times by filmmaker Brian Knappenberger, which has brief interviews with a bunch of great people (many of whom you'll hopefully recognize) explaining in very clear terms why you should absolutely care about the NSA. There are many reasons discussed, but a simple one, highlighted by David Sirota, goes back to that quote above. You can claim that you've done nothing wrong all you want. However, if someone really powerful decides they want to railroad you, you'd be surprised at how much it can be made to look like you've "done wrong." And when the NSA (or the FBI) can readily access all sorts of data about your life, their ability to build such a story increases tremendously. The video has people answering a few different questions, beyond just why the "I haven't done anything wrong" mindset is a mistake. It also discusses how corporations tracking individuals is quite different from the government doing so and a variety of other issues. The short film is actually from outtakes that Knappenberger put together from the documentary he's been working on about Aaron Swartz. It just so happened that he's obviously interviewing a ton of people who were familiar with both Aaron's work and the NSA stuff (the Venn diagram of people knowledgeable about both would include quite a lot of overlap), and so he asked some NSA questions, leading to this video. Check it out.

Filed Under: brian knappenberger, haven't done anything wrong, nsa, privacy, surveillance