NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] It's Time to Fix YouTube's Biased Copyright System!
It's Time to Fix YouTube's Biased Copyright System!
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000997.html
To rather badly paraphrase the opening lines of Charles Dickens'
"A Christmas Carol" ...
I vastly enjoy and appreciate YouTube. This must be distinctly
understood, or nothing meaningful can come of the story I am going to
relate ...
I've written a lot about YouTube issues. Looking back just at my
relatively recent blog entries, it appears that YouTube has had quite
a starring role:
"Turkey vs. YouTube" (3 October 2012) - http://j.mp/O4jtMb
"How to Destroy YouTube" (23 September 2012) - http://j.mp/RSUhok
"Saving YouTube from the Choking Web of Rights" (8 September 2012)
- http://j.mp/Qv7iqY
"Mars vs. Copyright vs. YouTube" (8 August 2012) - http://j.mp/NdE1k4
A perusal of those essays, and my various earlier missives on the
topic, will reveal that I am extremely sympathetic to the dilemma that
Google faces in operating YouTube, both legally and logistically, and
I certainly recognize their moves to make incremental improvements to
the Content ID and Copyright Strike notification and associated
counter-notification mechanisms.
And I certainly understand that the utterly, totally, pervasively and
perversely screwed up state of copyright law, both in the U.S. and
globally, makes dealing with this entire area like walking a tightrope
over the mouth of a very active volcano. And I know that Google has
an extremely capable and skilled legal team that does their best to do
the right thing in any given case. They're really good people.
Having said all that, it's also true that complaints and concerns
about YouTube copyright-related actions figure prominently in my
inbox, from folks who have found my previous writings and hope
(usually to their ultimate disappointment) that I can somehow help
untangle their situations.
As you might guess, there are some specific recent events that have
caused me to, uh, boil over on this today -- but we'll get back to
those shortly.
Let's cut to the chase. YouTube's current copyright enforcement
regime has become a horrendously biased nightmare.
There is a vast bias in favor of any entity who makes a YouTube
copyright claim, whether it triggers a Content ID match (relatively
innocuous) or a Copyright Strike (potentially devastating) on users'
uploaded materials.
As YouTube has vastly expanded the scope of their video matching and
analyzing system and an ever larger number of "partners" have joined
the system, this bias has created a tightening net that is
increasingly snagging "innocent infringement" or totally
non-infringing materials (see my links above for some examples of how
this occurs).
Perhaps worse, any material can be targeted at any time, even months
or years after being uploaded. Copyright claims often come from
entities that practically nobody has ever heard of, sometimes
involving clips that at one time had fallen into the public domain --
or at least were widely reported as having done so.
There is little practical recourse for most users. The claim comes
in, the user can counter-claim that the original claim is invalid, the
original claimant confirms the original claim ... and the user loses.
There's usually nowhere else to go, unless you're ready to hire a
lawyer yourself and spend a bundle.
It's essentially a "guilty until proven innocent" system -- and for
most people it's literally impossible to prove their innocence with
available resources.
This is a situation that not only encourages what we might call
copyright bullies, but also an expansive view of copyright claims that
can easily push beyond the bounds of legitimacy. After all, there
appear to be few if any meaningful penalties for claims that are
successfully rejected, and since most accused users can't afford to
fight back, it's like a football game where only one team is ever
allowed to actually possess the ball. It's ripe for massive abuse by
copyright claimants.
And the YouTube copyright penalty structure is decidedly inflexible
and we could even say regressive in nature.
Content ID hits can result in someone else's ads displaying with the
video, or the video might be blocked in some countries, or blocked
globally. And this can all change at any time. At any moment, the
status could change again, totally at the whim of the claimant.
Copyright Strikes are much worse. Three of those can kill your
YouTube account without recourse, including all your videos, your
associated community of users and comments, and all the rest.
I should also add at this point that this is all irrespective of how
long videos have been present on YouTube, whether or not the user has
tried to monetize them with ads, how many views they've ever
obtained -- or pretty much anything else.
I have a large collection of historical videos related to computers
and other technology topics. It is my pleasure to share some of them
with the community. I do not monetize my YouTube videos -- I don't
run ads with or on any of them.
Before I put materials online that I have not produced entirely
myself, I practice "due diligence" to try ascertain that they were
either always public domain, fell out of copyright, or are eligible
for statutory copyright exemptions.
This is almost never easy. There is no central database that can be
referenced for such determinations, and the provenance of such items
can be complex, especially for older clips.
But you do your best, because many of these items are otherwise lost
to time if nobody can see them.
Since I started on YouTube five or so years ago, I've gotten
occasional Content ID hits. Mostly these seemed to be the result of
claimants including the same public domain clips in their productions
that I used, and then firing off a complaint because my public domain
clip matched the segment of their production that used the same clip.
Sometimes there are shady claims from various music publishing
companies, claiming rights to classical works that are definitely
public domain performances.
In dealing with these cases, I've sometimes just said "to hell with
it" and deleted the videos, and in some instances filed
counter-claims, with varying degrees of success.
But I'm not a lawyer, my resources are very limited -- like I said, I
don't even try to make any money from this stuff -- and it's not worth
the time and hassle for me to pursue most of these. I'm in the same
boat as pretty much everyone else.
Now things have gotten worse. Right now I'm looking at two new
Content ID hits and a Copyright Strike.
The CID hits are for a 2.5 minute and 1.25 minute pair of clips, one
uploaded approaching two years ago, and the other uploaded almost
three years ago. One of those creepy music publishing entities is
after one of them, dating back to the 50s and in many public domain
collections. The Copyright Strike is also from 50s material, was
uploaded over a year ago, and was represented to me multiple times as
having lost copyright protection.
And because something like this happened to me just a few days under
six months ago (Copyright Strikes can expire after six months in the
absence of additional strikes), I now have two Strikes on my account,
and am threatened with total deletion of my account if a third should
appear for any reason.
Remember, since as a practical matter it's virtually impossible for
average users (that definitely includes me!) to fight back against
such claims effectively, it instantly becomes very much a Sword of
Damocles scenario. The basket ready to collect the bloody heads is
apparently already in position.
It is certainly possible to argue the copyright status of any given
video. And copyright abuse is a real problem, in need of practical --
but also fair -- solutions.
Yet the current YouTube copyright structure is not only enormously
biased toward assumed guilt without truly meaningful recourse for most
accused parties, but implements what amounts to a "one size fits all"
penalty regime that in significant ways is like the now widely
discredited three-strikes sentencing laws, that have filled our
prisons with non-violent inmates whose most recent infraction was
shoplifting a candy bar.
YouTube's bias toward claimants; the lack of practical means for
ordinary users to fight back realistically against false claims; the
tightening of automatic detection systems with an attendant increase
in false positives; the lack of meaningful appeal and escalation
mechanisms; and the failure to incorporate a sufficient range of
signals, extenuating circumstances, and associated proportionality
into penalties, are rapidly turning YouTube into a very unfriendly
place for anyone but the media elite.
I am sorely tempted to simply delete my videos and close my YouTube
account myself, say "Thanks, but no thanks YouTube" -- and stop
sharing. Period.
I'm frankly weary of explaining to people that not only don't I have
the power to help them with their YouTube conflicts, but that I don't
even have useful suggestions of how they can proceed that are likely
to do anything but waste their time and money.
But even while stipulating the legal minefields that exist in this
area, I am totally convinced that Google is capable of vastly
improving this currently rapidly deteriorating situation, if they
choose to apply sufficient resources to the admittedly complex
problems and issues involved.
So, I'm not clicking Delete. At least not right now, not this hour,
not tonight.
We'll see how I feel on the morrow.
And we'll see if Google steps up to the plate for the benefit of the
entire YouTube user community.
Take care, all.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
- Data Wisdom Explorers League: http://www.dwel.org
- Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance: http://www.gctip.org
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://vortex.com/g+lauren / Twitter: http://vortex.com/t-lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
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