Finally, RIAA Front Group Admits That Forcing YouTube To Police Site Doesn't Work Well

from the wasn't-expecting-that dept

Here's one I certainly didn't expect. A group known for spreading a bunch of bogus RIAA talking points about the evils of YouTube seems to be admitting two odd things: (1) that it's impossible to expect YouTube to accurately police all the content on its site and (2) that sharing entire published news articles is clearly not copyright infringement. The group in question is the "Content Creators Coalition" -- last seen around these parts whining about the DMCA's safe harbors on a site that only exists because of them. And it seems that bizarre and self-contradictory publicity stunts are basically the norm for this group. They've specifically been whining about how one of their videos got taken down on YouTube over an apparent terms of service violation. They complained, and YouTube reviewed it, and put the video back up. But, the Content Creators Coalition is using this to argue... something about how YouTube is trying to censor criticism?

It really doesn't make much sense, because it actually seems to be a pretty blatant admission by the Content Creators Coalition that their other bugaboo -- about how YouTube doesn't take down infringing content fast enough -- is completely silly as well. Proactively policing the millions upon millions of videos uploaded to the site (for free, mind you) is nearly impossible to do correctly. The article itself (published by the Google-hating News Corp.-owned NY Post) tries to attack YouTube's moderation features, but actually makes the perfect argument for why it's silly to expect an open platform like YouTube to police everything:

While videos of ISIS beheadings somehow slipped past YouTube censors, the video streaming site didn’t have any problems finding a playful ad campaign by some indie musicians — and promptly pulling the plug on it.

Right. Which is why it's great that we can now add the Content Creators Coalition to those who think that forcing YouTube to police and filter content on its platform is silly and will lead to unnecessary and misguided takedowns. Glad to have them on board.

Now, the only reason I even know about this article is that it was sent to me by Eric Jotkoff at Law Media Group. If you don't remember Law Media Group, they're the secretive lobbying PR shop that seems to specialize in attacking Google with really sketchy practices, such as insisting that corn farmers will be hurt by Google partnering with Yahoo, or by publishing faked op-eds, such as one about how awful net neutrality was -- but "written" by a guy who actually was in favor of net neutrality.

And when I say that Jotkoff and Law Media Group sent me that NY Post article, I do mean sent it to me. He sent me the entire article in an email. So that appears to be Law Media Group, on behalf of the Content Creators Coalition, admitting that sending around entire news articles is not infringing. Now, I'd argue that there's a good fair use case to be made for sharing full articles via email in such situations. But I wouldn't really expect a group like Law Media Group, which regularly sends me emails about the importance of stronger copyright on behalf of a whole bunch of groups that all seem to parrot the RIAA's talking points (coincidence, I'm sure?), to basically admit that reposting full articles from companies like News Corp. is fair use.

I've asked Eric to confirm that this is the official stance of the organization, but, perhaps not too surprisingly, I have not heard back at the time of publication.

Filed Under: content moderation, fair use, filters, full articles, moderation, takedowns
Companies: content creators coalition, law media group, riaa

Big, Big Loss For Righthaven: Reposting Full Article Found To Be Fair Use

from the vegas-smackdown dept

While Righthaven had previously lost one lawsuit on a fair use claim, that one involved only a partial reposting of an article. Righthaven is still appealing that ruling, but it might have a bigger problem on its hands. On Friday, a judge ruled that even reposting an entire article can be fair use, and that he planned to dismiss a case on those grounds. That spells trouble for Righthaven, which would lose the entire basis for its legal campaign and business model for the vast majority of its cases. In this case, the judge clearly understood what's going on. Last year, we had noted that the judge had raised the fair use issue first, even though the defendant, the non-profit Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO), hadn't raised it.

Apparently, the judge was not satisfied with Righthaven's attempts to explain why this wasn't fair use. The judge, James Mahan, said both that he found the use to be fair, but also that there was simply no harm in having CIO repost the article, claiming that the market is not the same one. On top of that, the judge also pointed out that Righthaven is in an even weaker position on such cases, because it's not actually using the copyrighted content itself. In other words, if the Las Vegas Review-Journal had sued, it might have a stronger argument. In fact, the judge pointed out that Righthaven seems to be trying to abuse copyright law to stifle free speech:

"Righthaven is not using the copyright the same way the R-J used it. Righthaven is using it to support a lawsuit," Mahan said.

This type of copyright use has a chilling effect on free speech and doesn't advance a purpose of the federal Copyright Act, which is to encourage and protect creativity, Mahan said.

Can't wait to see how some of the Righthaven defenders in our comments -- the same people who have been insisting that there simply is no First Amendment issue in enforcing copyright law -- will respond to that.

Of course, the judge wasn't done there either. He also noted that Righthaven's position was made even weaker by its own failure to mitigate the problem by issuing any sort of takedown, but instead going straight to court.

Basically, this is a near complete smackdown of Righthaven on a variety of points raised by others. It's not binding on other judges, but hopefully they will pay attention. Not surprisingly, Righthaven indicated that it plans to appeal this ruling. If it does so, this one should be interesting to watch. A ruling that supports the district court here could be precedent setting, and could be a very important fair use/copyright ruling that protects some basic free speech rights. Definitely one to watch.

Filed Under: copyright, fair use, full articles
Companies: center for intercultural organizing, las vegas review journal, righthaven, stephens media