HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ breput

tl;dw: Fran is a YouTube creator (mostly electronics and space videos) and has been having ongoing issues with illegitimate copyright claims made against her YouTube videos, including NASA public domain content and the sound of wind(!). She even has the physical copy of one Apollo 12 scene which she telecine'd to digital, uploaded, and then an unclear party made a claim against that video which is currently successful.

She also discusses "Visual Claim"[0] and how this will make things worse and how copyright trolls have nothing to lose with doubling down on illegitimate claims.

One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube. That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7037712?hl=en

⬐ CoastalCoder

Does a false copyright claim qualify as Tortuous [spelling correction: Tortious] Interference with a Business Relationship, or Slander of Title?

(IANAL, so I may be totally off base with those terms.)

⬐ pclmulqdq

I don't think you need a separate tort - filing a false DMCA claim is already actionable. I think it carries 3x damages too. However, very few youtubers understand that they have strong legal remedies against false DMCA claims, and they can file counter-notifications fairly easily too (these undo the effects of the DMCA claim).

⬐ Nursie

Are youtube copyright claims actually DMCA claims anyway? Or are they just a youtube claim, without the same legal standing?

⬐ mlyle

After 2 "appeals" adjudicated by the original claimant, YouTube requires the original claimant to file a DMCA claim. But before this, no.

⬐ jazzyjackson

No, they are "copyright takedown requests"

⬐ pclmulqdq

They don't say that they are DMCA claims, but they are DMCA claims.

⬐ phibz

I believe they are DMCA claims. The exist because it grants youtube imunity in the process. Youtube had no incentive to get involved except for pissing off their content creators. If you can't counter claim/sue then get loud. Let your viewers know.

Edit: reading in another thread that perhaps this is content ID. Not that, that is any better.

⬐ jazzyjackson

Can you say why you believe that?

⬐ breput

She discusses that a little, as well. YouTube often does not share the name of the copyright claimant, and even if they do, it is sometimes a 3rd party who is acting on behalf of the actual copyright "holder".

But the bottom line is that most individual creators could never justify the legal costs of fighting copyright claims.

⬐ rasz

Google will happily share full details of the claimant .. if requested by lawyer.

⬐ breput

Happily might be an overstatement. They will have to, obviously, but good luck getting it done easily ($$$) or quickly.

⬐ kfajdsl

But that takes $$$ and time and effort that just isn't worth it for small creators

⬐ gaius_baltar

And that's why it can work in countries with small claims, no lawyers or costs required to petition. Idea behind these courts is that people can represent themselves for a conciliatory session with a judge. The judge reach a verdict and, if a part does not accept, s/he can appeal (but now there are fees and lawyers required). Verdicts by default are possible if the part does not represent, however. This usually scales well because typical lawsuits are 1:1, and very uncommon for particular person.

However, if a few thousand people sue Google on a small amount, a simple demand to repair monetary damages (this seems to have a different name every country), or co-name Google with a John Doe because Google has the information on Doe or is the only presence on that particular country, they will need to represent or risk a default. And the process won't scale on their side only.

A legal and ethically correct DDoS on Google, but requires thousands of people motivated enough to navigate the bureaucratic depths.

And Fran's comment about lawyering up is probably valid on USA where, AFAIK, the procedure for small claims is different.

⬐ nightpool

Because copyright claims are exclusively under federal jurisdiction, rather then being a state-by-state matter, they are unfortunately out of the purview of small claims courts in the US, which are designed to hear state law claims only

⬐ CoastalCoder

> Because copyright claims are exclusively under federal jurisdiction, rather then being a state-by-state matter, they are unfortunately out of the purview of small claims courts in the US, which are designed to hear state law claims only

IIUC, the idea was to sue in small claims court not on DMCA grounds, but on whatever state laws might relate to tortious interference, slander of title, defamation, etc.

⬐ tadfisher

These aren't copyright claims, they're monetization attribution claims using the Content ID system. State tort law applies, as presumably you have a monetization contract with Google.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

Honest answer: it really just depends on how much money you can throw at the problem in a legal sense.

⬐ rolph

every court case requiring a copyright troll to defend itself, is one less case allowing a troll to attack someone unable to fend it off.

tortuous interference with a business is a good angle to start from.

malignant process or malfeasance may be possible as well.

⬐ anonymousiam

As I understand it (and please correct me if I'm wrong), there's a difference between a copyright claim and a "Content ID" claim. The former has an associated legal framework, but the latter was created through some agreement between Google and the media mob (MPAA, RIAA, etc.).

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6013276?hl=en

⬐ the_only_law

> Copyright owners are the ones who decide whether other people can reuse their copyrighted content.

I thought that was Copyright law?

⬐ madeofpalk

Copyright law is the _framework_ that sets out how Copyright owners can decide who gets to use their content.

⬐ Schroedingersat

Odysee/LBRY is just moving to a new lord's fort. If it's successful it will at best buy a year or two of good behavior before they do the same thing, or something worse.

I had high hopes for the nebula model, but the platform owners have already clearly telegraphed their intent with regard to harvesting user data, nickel and diming, and at some point inserting ads.

The only solution is a platform that respects everyone. peertube is a good contender, although curation and payment for content (which are separate problems to distribution and discovery) need work. Tilvids seems to be doing okay curation-wise (although adoption is low).

Perhaps for payment, a client that locally tracks your view count and then stochastically tells you to deliver your payment to a particular creator to avoid a middleman holding the tin and sticking their fingers in.

⬐ 4ad

LBRY is a distributed p2p platform. Nobody can censor anyone.

Odysee is just a website frontend for LBRY. Of course, Odysee operators can choose who to show on their website.

⬐ Schroedingersat

Odysee is a centralised service with centralised comments that makes centralised decisions about which videos to platform and how to rank them. Its relationship to LBRY is no different to uploading a youtube video and posting a magnet link to a torrent of the same video in the description except you have to pay their cryptocoin (which they've reserved about 50% of for their own purposes) to add the link. They could remove lbry at any time and most of their user base would not even notice.

Pretty good heuristic for these things is to assume cryptocoins are always at least one scam.

⬐ ge96

> will never have a chance against YouTube

I pay for a Vimeo account but almost no one watches my videos compared to YouTube.

⬐ NavinF

Right, and if Vimeo became popular they'll be subject the same lawsuits until they're forced to screw over uploaders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube_copyright_issues

>Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material.[8][9][10] Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works"

>Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over 12 terabytes of data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site

>In April 2012, a court in Hamburg ruled that YouTube could be held responsible for copyrighted material posted by its users. The performance rights organization GEMA argued that YouTube had not done enough to prevent the uploading of German copyrighted music

⬐ Asooka

We can keep creating new platforms longer than they can pay their lawyers.

⬐ NavinF

Can we? Sure KissAnime and 123movies clones will always pop up when one gets taken down, but that’s not a replacement for YouTube.

⬐ dylan604

>She even has the physical copy of one Apollo 12 scene which she telecine'd to digital,

Okay, so that's supposed to make a legitimacy claim. I've had arguments with the internet claiming that I made upres copies of digibetas when photographic evidence showing the 16mm prints on the telecine, but the internet still disagreed. So I KNOW the pain.

However, let's say that you, me, and Dupree all have a print of the Apollo 12 scene. We all pay to have the things done to have it available as a digital file, and eventually we all post our independent videos to YT. If we did some sort of perceptual hashing to each video, would it not be logical to assume we'd all be flagged? At that point, what's an algo to do?

⬐ cowtools

The solution is remove the middleman (and thus legal responsibility) as much as possible (e.g. peertube)

⬐ nybble41

> If we did some sort of perceptual hashing to each video, would it not be logical to assume we'd all be flagged?

Flagged for what, exactly? The perceptual hash would show that all three of you uploaded the same video, but not that any those uploads were infringing. Nothing should happen unless someone (either one of you, or another party) tries to claim that they're the copyright holder for that video. Which ought to require at least some hard evidence.

Ideally[0], if that were to happen, YouTube would manually investigate the claim to determine whether it was reasonable, and the parties accused of infringement would have a chance to challenge the claim or offer another reason why the uploads are not infringing, such as prior permission or fair use, before anything permanent was done. Since the video is in the public domain, the claim should be rejected and the video marked as public domain in the content database after the investigation to preempt any further false claims.

Of course investigations like this require actual work. It's always going to be easier to just take down the video—especially since they're hosting it for free. Ad revenues won't cover the cost of investigating claims, much less protracted legal fights.

[0] Ideally ideally, copyright would simply be repealed and we'd all be much better off. But short of that…

⬐ Grollicus

> One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube

Youtube is free to do whatever they want on their own platform, within the law. Arguing that they dominate the market brings antitrust laws into play here. On these grounds their TOS about ContentID (basically we'll decide whatever we want and you'll take it) can be evaded.

⬐ squarefoot

> One issue I have with her is her insistence that alternative video platforms, such as Odysee/LBRY, will never have a chance against YouTube. That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.

What if every time a creator receives a bogus claim+demonetization he/she immediately deletes the content from YouTube and moves it to a different platform, making sure there is a link somewhere to reach it without breaking YT rules? The troll won't get the money as well and some users could still watch the content. Yes, other platforms aren't comparable wrt the user base, and that would also defeat the initial purpose, but once the video is demonetized the creator wouldn't get the money anyway, so it could be a way to hurt the trolls where it matters most.

⬐ mulmen

Dave Jones of EEVBlog fame frequently encourages his YouTube viewers to follow him on alternate platforms. I believe this is in preparation for when he finally runs afoul of the algorithm and his YouTube presence is no longer viable. If a creator waits until that inevitable moment they don't have much recourse. I'm not sure how a link to an alternate platform can be placed on YouTube with any kind of reach. The best way as far as I can tell is proactively moving the audience to alternate platforms.

⬐ squarefoot

> I'm not sure how a link to an alternate platform can be placed on YouTube with any kind of reach.

Assuming explicit links are disallowed (didn't check) the link could be exported as a torrent hash; it's not a link per se but search engines would find it, and they usually have a pretty long lifetime.

As an example, the following hash: 2E28D47963BF639EDAADCA33583546B39156D62D

Brings a 10+ years old Debian Linux image. The file would probably be dead now, also younger hashes are a lot easier to find, but all we need is the hash leading somewhere.

There are other ways to embed links in a video; for example either a barcode-like pattern on video, or short fsk sequence embedded in audio, that could be translated on the fly by a browser extension into ad address and lead there without any user intervention.

⬐ mulmen

The problem is doing this after YouTube deranks you or deletes your account. Nobody will ever see it.

⬐ ChrisRR

It's a shame that Fran just can never seem to catch a break. She's such a lovely woman with a genuine passion for her work, but she always seems to be fighting one battle after another.

⬐ roenxi

> That's definitely true today but anti-trust or other government action could eventually shake that up.

Why would the government do that though? The main complaint in this instance is that YouTube is attempting to enforce the government's rules. As far as I've seen, major complaints against YouTube when they act in the interests of a government (or political party in some instances).

⬐ civilized

tl;dw. Gonna hold onto that. I hate being told to watch a video longer than 30 seconds. People are so agonizingly slow at getting to their point. I'd rather read the Unabomber Manifesto.

⬐ judge2020

Sorry but what's being described is not related to DMCA or copyright. If I make coolvideos.com I can say "if you upload NASA footage I will show ads on it and give that money to a random third party company" and that's not copyright infringement; public domain is inherently 'anyone can show it for any reason, even commercially'. These "copyright" claims are just Content ID where YouTube allows media rights holders to control what content shows up on YouTube - YT says 'you can only enroll videos that you own into Content ID', however, the enforcement there relies on Google only approving appropriate rights holders/production studios for Content ID. If a rights holder either has their account hacked, or they batch enroll tons of videos they haven't verified that they own the copyright to, then it'll start enforcing Content ID on those videos - and while this is bad for YouTube and its creators, it's definitely not illegal whatsoever since it isn't invoking the DMCA or any other legal action regarding copyright.

Note that, for actual DMCA claims, YouTube WILL go to bat for their creators, especially if it's an obvious case of videos falling under fair use, eg https://youtu.be/aY1CYF3MKec?t=27

In general, Content ID was created in response to Viacom dragging YouTube through court for not preemptively stopping people from uploading episodes of Spongebob. Viacom was planning to take it further up the appeal process until a settlement was reached which lead to the creation of Content ID, eg "viacom will upload copyrighted material to YouTube and YouTube will automatically scan every video to check if it violates viacom's rights". After this happened, of course, other copyright holders like AT&T (WarnerMedia)/NBC/etc and small international rights-holders weren't going to let themselves miss out on this revenue stream, so YT expanded the system to allow any rights management firm or copyright holder to use the system if they were big enough or powerful enough in their region.

⬐ tomrod

The latter portion sounds a lot like Amazon's warehousing issues.

⬐ masswerk

I think, what could be called illegal is Content ID being used to actually block public domain content from being used on such terms. Restricting monitarization of said content to the point of becoming exclusive to a single party pretty much comes down to granting copyright. Especially, if this includes monetarization of unique work and effort that has gone into providing the publication of said content (e.g., digitizing from original material, editorial work, etc.)

⬐ tadfisher

YouTube is free to set terms for monetization contracts, including granting attribution to third parties under their system. It is not fair, but it is not illegal under any stretch of the imagination. Public domain works have zero copyright protection by definition; there is not a legal status assigned like with copyrighted works.

That said, third party Content ID claims for works not exclusively owned by the claimant are against YouTube's partner terms. The enforcement is just lacking.

⬐ masswerk

> YouTube is free to set terms for monetization contracts, including granting attribution to third parties under their system.

This is obviously not the case. This is really the entire point of having Content ID in the first place: Had YT been free to monetize under their own contracts whoever uploaded an episode of Sponge Bob, Viacom wouldn't have had a case.

⬐ Double_a_92

I think the argument was about things that are in the public domain. It's not illegal for Youtube to give the revenue from those contents to some random 3rd party.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

Every time I feel myself wanting to make content, I see stuff like this and I nope out of it. Why put so much effort into sharing your passion with the world only to be frozen out by some morons that are enabled by a billion-dollar company that doesn't care about you?

Copyright strikes are such a blatant example of the legal system being bought and paid for by the wealthy, it's not even funny.

⬐ Silhouette

Copyright strikes are such a blatant example of the legal system being bought and paid for by the wealthy, it's not even funny.

From personal experience I can't say the system works any better if you're a creator whose content is getting ripped from other sources and put onto YouTube either. I've had people ripping numerous videos and it apparently takes longer to complete YouTube's takedown form than it takes for the ripper to upload the exact same video to their channel again. I thought there was supposed to be some provision in the safe harbor laws that YouTube hides behind to deal with repeat offenders but apparently it doesn't carry any practical weight if there is.

I'd be the first to agree that copyright protection has been expanded too far and the mechanisms for enforcing it are often used unfairly and in a heavy-handed way. Reform is well overdue. I'd have slightly more understanding if those methods did at least work in cases of flagrant infringement that are exactly what copyright law was always supposed to prohibit but it seems they don't. Not for the little creator at least.

⬐ woojoo666

Post on decentralized platforms. Peertube, Odysee, etc. They are still small for now but they need to start somewhere. You can even set it up so any video you post to youtube gets automatically mirrored to the other platforms

⬐ geoffeg

Fran covers that in the video.

⬐ PragmaticPulp

Realistically, any popular creator is producing hundreds or eventually thousands of videos. If some of them get locked out, it's still a smart portion of their overall channel.

It is a problem, but it's not genuinely an obstacle for creators finding audiences. Making good content that people like and getting enough traction to have a userbase is orders of magnitude more of a risk than getting a copyright strike.

⬐ brightball

I wonder if this happens with podcasts?

⬐ birdyrooster

bUt WiThOuT cApItAlIsM pEoPlE wOuLdNt Be MoTiVaTeD tO wOrK

⬐ armchairhacker

Even without demonetization, just getting views as a content creator is really hard. You only see those who succeed.

Nothing against creating content for yourself, or your friends, or future people though. Just don't expect fame or money.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

Absolutely, which must make this all the more frustrating. If you're one of the lucky few to build a large audience and you draw the attention of the trolls, that would drive me insane.

⬐ Pyrodogg

The Lofi Girl streams were recently taken down by a false DMCA claim. https://twitter.com/lofigirl/status/1546601374527508480

After public outcry, YouTube issued an apology and banned the claimant.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/phoebeliu/2022/07/12/lofi-girl-...

While I'm an occasional stream listener, I've been mostly away from tech for a month and only noticed the coverage in this video from TAETRO.

"a big problem for music producers on youtube" - TAETRO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A49EKpd5rrE

They talk about the Lofi Girl situation and also describe the same issue Fran describes but with sample-based music production (as opposed to sample-based video production). Even if you're using non-exclusive, royalty free samples, you can get screwed by another producer using the same samples.

"My Video Was Demonetized by 16 Record Labels...I'm Pissed" - Rick Beato https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3NnrWrkKZM

This is another take on the broader issue of hyper aggressive algorithms being poor judges of Fair Use. Rick has a few great videos on the subject (any many more on making music).

⬐ WebbWeaver

Yes the free internet is dead and the implications are bad. You can win a battle but not the war so we have to deal with this shit.

I don't know why we keep re-hashing how the internet is dead to knowledgable people who 'are not supposed to be there' or are not being financially supported from someplace. It is just true.

These days it is VERY hard for a "consumer" wait sorry a "human product" to curate and share their own interests. Most popular internet platforms and forums are toxic to independents or people without money. While I'm sad that we're enabling content demolishing trolls but everyone around this topic is exhausted.

I'm probably going to delete this but damn can we not. This conversation isnt productive and people who can make this outrage productive are too expensive. Every time I see something like this I do a spit take and water my plants with Brawndo cause Brawndo's got electrolytes because thats what plants crave.

As an aside, I used to really love how cable tv attracted all of the advertising idiots while the internet wasn't pummeled to death with money and influencers. Cable and the internet had their own place. Now we see web destruction on a scale we cant replace or re-create a space for what the internet used to mean. There is no 'side stream' to filter out non consumer traffic.

⬐ todorus

Internet is bigger than the mainstream. It's not just YouTube and Facebook. If you really wish to have a side stream, maybe go on 4Chan or visit the dark web.

Because let's not pretend that the internet was easy to navigate back in the day. You wanted the alternative nichy stuff, you needed to work for that. That never changed, neither online nor offline.

⬐ WebbWeaver

>4Chan or visit the dark web

Wow thanks for the advice. I cant believe I didn't know those existed.

⬐ 93po

Judging by the green name, you're new here. You might want to read the community guidelines. Snark doesn't add anything to a conversation and it's boring to read.

⬐ WebbWeaver

>Because let's not pretend that the internet was easy to navigate back in the day. You wanted the alternative nichy stuff, you needed to work for that. That never changed, neither online nor offline.

straw man, presupposition of knowledge, blah blah blah.

Particularly the "you wanted" and "you needed to work for that" is somewhat assuming and in my mind does not contribute to conversation nor follows community guidelines.

⬐ andrewstuart

YouTube seems like one of the most easily disrupted services - not by small fry, but by the big guys.

If Apple made a YouTube-alike or Microsoft, they would likely find the YT creators are champing at the bit to get onto their platform.

Has there ever been a real go at YouTube by a company with significant resources?

Yes I am aware of Nebula but it is not a serious competitor to YouTube. I say that because I tried to use it on PlayStation - which is where I watch all my YouTube and couldn't, which means Nebula is not a serious competitor. Any serious competitor must be available on all the most popular media consumption platforms, and it must not require signup/signin to start watching - that's the baseline set by YouTube.

Even NetFlix - why have they not created a new service for user created content?

⬐ psyc

First mover. No other service will ever get the opportunity to amass an 87-quadrillion-video catalog to compete with YouTube's.

⬐ andrewstuart

They don't need the entire catalogue.

They just need to promise to fix the problems that content creators like Fran are unhappy about. Alot of YouTube content creators are very unhappy but they have no choices offered to them.

Bring over some of the biggest YouTubers by buying them - such as Linus Tech Tips.

Offer better terms than YouTube does for monetization to the long tail of content creators.

Money talks, and those big companies have more money than you can fit in a phonebooth.

Spotify did something similar when it paid big money for the Joe Rogan podcast.

⬐ dkarbayev

LTT tried to launch their own video hosting platform called Floatplane, doesn’t seem to have taken off so far.

⬐ xtat

Please not apple, netflix - cant trust bay area tech with important things anymore

⬐ xhxhskrry

It's called rumble.

⬐ jazzyjackson

Probably because they would have to navigate the same lawsuits and agree to the same kind of automated take-down system to the satisfaction of the largest rights-holders (Sony, Warner Bros, Disney etc)

See this comment [0] in this thread, the current incarnation of youtube is the result of millions spent in legal fees. What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success? IIRC YouTube wasn't profitable until very recently.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32160488

⬐ GuB-42

In fact, pre-Google YouTube has very loose standards with regard to copyright. Most of the content was blatant piracy, a bit like "tube" porn sites today (YouTube also had porn btw). But it was a small company, and rightsholders didn't really care.

The minute it was bought by Google and their deep pockets, it was lawsuit after lawsuit.

⬐ andrewstuart

I don't agree that the big companies would be deterred by that.

The CEO's of those huge companies aren't likely to be even interested in legal matters unless it's the DOJ calling about anti monopoly practices - that's what they pay their legal counsel for.

I don't think they'd give the slightest rats about fighting out the content ownership issues, especially since YouTube has already shown that it can be done.

>> What's the incentive to do it all over again with little hope of success?

Why "little hope of success"? No-one at that level has even tried.

It's completely different from trying to take on facebook, in which you need to build the network before the whole thing works. With user created content they can start at any size.

⬐ PostOnce

If 1000 big youtubers put $100/month toward an association or union of some kind, they could afford a $100,000/month legal team to combat this.

Obviously, there are more than 1000 big youtubers. The fee could be reduced and the budget increased by growing the union.

⬐ qbasic_forever

Or Youtube could front this money. They have a requirement from the DMCA safe harbor to allow people to make these copyright claims. But that doesn't mean they have to make them easy or cost effective for trolls to abuse the system. Youtube could have a legal fund for creators to get assistance with unfair claims, and not be violating anything in the DMCA safe harbor.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

All it would take is Youtube randomly banning a few of said big Youtubers to really cut morale into an organized effort like this. That's precisely what makes them so powerful, they can cut you off at any moment without a legitimate excuse.

⬐ drdrey

How is that in Youtube’s interest?

⬐ thr0wawayf00

Preventing their talent from organizing? Squashing unions and labor movements is as old as labor itself. Think about it: does Amazon really stand to lose everything if a warehouse full of minimum wage workers demand healthcare? No. Then why does Amazon fight it? For control, plain and simple.

⬐ ALittleLight

But YouTube is actually just hurt by the copyright trolls. YouTube's best interest would be for the trolls to be excised so real creators wouldn't get burned out and driven off.

⬐ leksak

Yes, but if they organize around this issue they might organize around others which is easier if they're already organized.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

If this were true, they would do something about the trolls. But they're not.

⬐ krapp

The only "real creators" Youtube cares about are big media companies that provide licensed first-party content and high-value professional accounts. Everyone else is at best inconsequential and at worst net negatives to the platform, as far as Google is concerned.

⬐ rolph

could 100k a month be better spent on the infrastructure and tech stacking for a videohosting site?

⬐ majormajor

Your new site would get hit with the same sort of claims. You're still gonna need the lawyers.

⬐ amalcon

A few versions of that exist; Nebula is probably the biggest. There's a reason you may not have heard of it, though.

⬐ nomel

> infrastructure and tech stacking for a videohosting site?

Absolutely not.

⬐ nomel

Absolutely not. You should be aware that youtube wasn't profitable for over a decade.

Content creators don't use youtube for its video hosting. There are dozens of video hosting sites, many objectively better. Content creators use youtube because that's where the eyeballs and advertisers are, which also means that's where the money is.

And, 100k won't be enough to pay for one developer, let alone a herd of reviewers/lawyers to handle all of the DMCA noticed that will flood in, regardless.

I don't see how this doesn't get solved without amendments to the DMCA, which is probably where the money should be put.

⬐ mlyle

> And, 100k won't be enough to pay for one developer,

I mostly agree with you. But $100k/month will definitely pay for a developer.

⬐ nomel

Oh, my bad. I misread that as year. But still, competing with youtube would require much more than $1.2 million/year.

⬐ brigandish

Unions are always going to be the answer to this sort of problem. Sadly, they get a bad press because of the (seemingly) inevitable takeover by socialists. If there was some way to inoculate a collective against dogmatic collectivism, that would be great, but I'm not sure it's possible.

⬐ Ansil849

> If 1000 big youtubers put $100/month toward an association or union of some kind, they could afford a $100,000/month legal team to combat this.

Millionaire youtubers can already afford high-priced lawyers if they want to, I'm not worried about that.

Who I am worried about are regular people who create content but don't have large followers and don't make to it to the frontpage of HN, but still get hit by copyright trolls.

⬐ masswerk

I think, Fran has been quite public regarding her economic struggles. While maybe popular to some audiences, she is certainly not a millionaire. On the other hand, cases like this provide publicity to the very problem that is haunting many and provide a broader perceptible platform for these concerns.

Edit: Maybe I've misinterpreted your comment, but I stand to the importance of publicity that may be lent by such cases.

⬐ thr0wawayf00

Seriously, how many versions of this very video get made that don't ever reach a broad audience? That is truly some Black Mirror s*** right there.

⬐ majormajor

You could set up a union that would represent even those who couldn't pay in as much. After all, they might be the big money-makers in the future.

(Though in practice, it probably wouldn't be everyone - see the differences in how well-protected major- vs minor-league baseball players are.)

⬐ PostOnce

Stronger men can carrier bigger guns, but no one man is stronger than an army.

The rich still benefit from organization.

Also, an organization may have legal standing where an individual does not, and can then deploy their lawyer-army. Where an individual has to wait for an issue to personally affect them, the organization will almost always have at least one affected member and can therefore keep up the pressure constantly, and eventually perhaps make the internet a better place.

⬐ xwdv

Guerrilla viet congs obliterated the powerful United States Army so never underestimate small arms.

⬐ brigandish

Surely that was implied already.

⬐ pc86

What is your point?

They're saying that individual, successful/rich/"powerful" YouTubers can defend themselves against these spurious claims already, but that by organizing they would be even more well equipped, at less personal cost, and also make it possible for smaller creators to also defend themselves (with even less cost).

None of that has anything to do with any Vietcong analogy I can think of.

⬐ Beegle

I am super naive when it comes to just about everything and especially this. I never comment on HN because of this and because I know I’ll get flamed by the people on HN (but here goes this one time).

I was curious though how easy it is to make a claim on a video and started the process on a video from one of my favorite creators. I did NOT finish but found that it is surprisingly easy just to start a claim.

I (kind of) understand why Google/YT has created such an easy arbitration process once a claim has been made because they don’t want to deal with the legal headache, and the associated costs, with having to get in the middle if everything.

What I don’t understand, and am hoping someone can explain to me without flaming me, is why they don’t make the process to START a claim a little more complicated.

The way it is setup now, I could create a fairly anonymous (yeah, I know) Google account and then make a claim on just about any random YT content. There is no process at all to identify ME.

As an example, if I want to market a mobile app in an app store, I have to provide proof of my business name, tax status, business license (if applicable in my local jurisdiction), etc.

As another example, if I want to start a retail store that sells the Nintendo Switch, in order to buy the units at the “wholesale” price, I have to provide documentation of much of the same for marketing a mobile app plus I have to sign agreements that I won’t sell the units for a price outside the range dictated by the manufacturer.

Lots of process involved in these two examples.

Why does Google not require verification of at least being some sort of a real entity? Is it again just too much headache (i.e. work) to do so? Is it because that would be too exclusive and on this end of the spectrum they are actually defending the little guy by allowing anyone to lay claim to something?

Thank you, btw, to the OP for introducing me to this channel. She has a very ‘interesting’ personality and some intriguing content.

⬐ sneak

Because big pipes are biased toward big content because they know where the money is.

It's basically a pro-censorship-by-default position at the behest of the big rightsholder cartels.

⬐ whyenot

In YouTube world, you are guilty until proven innocent, and if you get too many "strikes" you get shut down and lose your voice on one of the biggest platforms for creators. The sad thing is TikTok and FB/Meta are even worse. We live in a world now where large corporations get to decide who can speak and who ceases to exist online. How sad, and how far we've strayed from the early dreams for the open internet.

⬐ jazzyjackson

I appreciate that Fran has an example of monetizing content without claiming copyright (she digitizes public domain footage and is free to run ads on her channel, the money comes from an agreement with the broadcaster to advertise to her audience, nothing to do with the ownership of the content)

People assume that without copyright there would be no way for artists to make an income, but the two aren't really related. It's actual purpose is to prevent art from being made unless it is sufficiently "original"

⬐ vivegi

Would a class-action lawsuit brought by content creators/owners who have been unfairly impacted by YT's poor enforcement of copyright strikes have a chance against the Alphabet/Google rent-seeking advertising juggernaut?

It is quite sad and irritating that unencumbered content is under attack by IP trolls who raised dubious claims and are prevailing under YT's flawed system.

⬐ j-bos

I've noticed many infotainment youtubers joining Curiosity Stream to avoid this and the demonitization policies. Still curious how well it can hold against the eyeballs on youtube.

⬐ WesBrownSQL

Until it is litigated or you are charged and convicted it isn't against the law. YouTube and the entertainment industry have zero interest in your rights. Media companies make agreements between themselves. They make agreements with YouTube to avoid litigation. Larger YouTubers who make a living via YouTube don't have the motivation to band together, biting the hand that feeds you and all.

"Because copyright protection happens so easily, and lasts so long, you should assume that any work you want to use is copyrighted, unless it is very old or produced by the U.S. government." https://www.baylor.edu/copyright/index.php?id=56543 The U.S. government would have to go to YouTube and assert they produced the work in question and then sue YouTube. It doesn't help there is no clear definition how much of a work you can use before it is considered infringement. This means each claim that is made and disputed could end up in court to be decided. I don't have the solution to this. Until new laws are passed to change the situation people without the means to challenge lose.

⬐ pasdechance

I have watched a small number of videos about this topic. All of the videos make it seem like this is something easy to do:

* create account

* find victim

* make claim

* earn money

I watched this one and thought to myself that it almost seemed like an ad for recruiting trolls.

One of these content creators should create a second account and file claims against themselves, and perhaps other willing victims. Then produce a video about how easy it was to show the flaw in the system.

⬐ cthor

The self-claiming thing has at least been done already (through the use of online music labels): <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz14Ul-r63w> and <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieErnZAN5Eo>

YouTube doesn't let just anyone make ContentID claims and start trolling. You do need to jump through a few hoops to get an air of legitimacy first.

⬐ unityByFreedom

Imagine you're the copyright adjudicator for this claim at YouTube. You don't know if the claim is accurate. If it is and you leave the content up, your employer might be fined, and you get a write-up from your boss. If you take the content down, no fine, no write-up.

What would you do? Even if you try to side with creators, you might eventually be let go for making too many mistakes.

I understand that YouTube doesn't adjudicate claims themselves, but I think this may explain why they don't. Their adjudicators are heavily incentivized to take everything down. As a result, YouTube is hands off.

If this is an accurate framing of the situation, then incentives may not be properly aligned. Alternatively, YouTube (and others) simply have a monopoly position that needs to be out-competed.

⬐ rasz

>Imagine you're the copyright adjudicator for this claim at YouTube.

there is no such thing. All YT is obligated to do is give you and claimant a place to voice your opinions, and if you still insist to own rights to a piece of content then claimant can file DMCA, if you counter DMCA then they are free to sue.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> I understand that YouTube doesn't adjudicate claims themselves, but I think this may explain why they don't. Their adjudicators are heavily incentivized to take everything down. As a result, YouTube is hands off.

⬐ 29athrowaway

It's so ridiculous that if you generate completely pseudorandom white noise and upload it, there will be copyright claims on it.

⬐ rasz

Its ridiculous that after someone claims your noise you just lie down and take it.

⬐ 29athrowaway

The copyright fraud is so vast that there are fake artists with fake albums, fake songs and fake compilations of those.

They take a song, rename it under a fake name, and then when you upload the actual song you get a copyright claim from the fake song.

They especially do this with small and traditional record labels that do not have an online presence.

⬐ jazzyjackson

Content ID automatically finds a copyright holder to pay with ads on your video of white noise. It's an automated system that Google built, and it's ridiculous.

This is not about one creator vs another and filing counter-claims via DMCA, this is about extra-judicial automated bureaucracies designed by Google.

⬐ stock_toaster

I wonder how many of the ContentID claims are actually even real. With so little transparency, maybe the system just generates fake ones to pad earnings?

⬐ andrewstuart

It should cost a small amount of money to lodge a copyright complaint, to deter drive-bys.

⬐ exabrial

All of your YouTube creators are begging you to go to Nebula... probably time to listen

⬐ latch

Off topic, but I never heard of nebula (don't watch much videos). It's amazing how slow that site loads for me. Their /videos takes around 10s to load. I need to wait almost 3 seconds for _something_ to show up on the page.

https://cloud.typography.com/6361472/632446/css/fonts.css takes ~700ms

https://standard-fonts.s3.amazonaws.com/789323/56D15C61E7EF4... takes 2.1 seconds.

Even once cached, the entire site (e.g. search), is slow enough to be noticeable.

About 9 years ago I worked for a fairly large (20+ million users) video platform. These numbers on catalog pages would have been barely accepted for an entire page load, let alone a couple CSS file.

⬐ IncRnd

While I respect Fran's work, this video says in a million words what could be said in 20. I suspect that her reply to youtube was made in this fashion.

When a company attempts to claim a NASA video that is on her channel, Fran needs to show that the contents of the video are NASA footage, then show the NASA policy that allows commercial use on web pages. [1]

Nothing else is relevant for this.

[1] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines/index.html

⬐ sizzle

Seems simple to kill this broken DMCA system as it is currently implemented…?

Let’s say you create a program that people all around the world can run that uses random t0r exit nodes to submit GPT-3 filled DMCA take-down form submissions programmatically and varies it in a way that it can’t be profiled by anomaly detection systems related to submission characteristics, etc.

Thoughts? Or how would you hypothetically improve the design of this theoretical thought-experiment?

⬐ aasasd

I would be angry and irritated about this kind of shenanigans, if I didn't think that with this YouTube are slowly taking a shotgun and shooting right up their nose from both barrels. And I lately come to enjoy some nice corporate mess in slo-mo, in the spirit of J.G. Ballard's ‘Crash’.

YouTube are a monopoly on public web tv. That needs to change, and YouTube are the ones who are gonna bring on that change.

⬐ ilaksh

What are some alternatives to YouTube? That's the fundamental problem, is centralizing everything like this.

There should be some decentralized platforms.

⬐ woojoo666

Odysee and Peertube are both decentralized. Still relatively small, but are the biggest I know of

⬐ RL_Quine

Odyswe is cryptocurrency garbage. Their “decentralized” system is just videos hosted on OVH.

⬐ woojoo666

What's OVH? Don't they use LBRY? And it's honestly hard to avoid cryptocurrency for a decentralized platform. There needs to be incentive to host

⬐ ehnto

The trouble is that YouTube is more of a social phenomenon than a technical platform. There's been countless technical recreations of YouTube, but people don't want to be there, they want to be part of the YouTube movement so to speak. They want to be YouTubers, they want to talk to YouTubers, watch YouTubers and so on. No one wants to be a Vimeoer.

Videographers want to upload their videos to Vimeo, and it's just as good of a video platform as YouTube (better in some ways). But there's no social movement around it, or many other video platforms, and that's what people actually congregate to.

⬐ Asooka

Copyright and its consequences have been a disaster for human culture.

We should just have author's rights, which must be non transferable. Non profit file sharing should be allowed in all cases. I say this because we effectively live in that scenario, except sometimes, very rarely, someone is sued if they get big enough.

⬐ phtrivier

I would love to see an experiment where various HN users create bogus - yet original - content (say, a single person saying "Hi mom", or something), then other HN users file copyright claims claiming they own "Hi" and / or "Mom". I'd grab my popcorn watching the results.

⬐ solar-mariner

So what if you posted content to Youtube, and then soon afterwards, issued a DMCA complaint against your own content, using another account / identity that you own? What effect would that have on other subsequent DMCA complaints?

⬐ hoistbypetard

That's outrageous.

Also, in her rant about people who tell her to lawyer up, she referred to her hypothetical interlocutor as "colonel trucknutz." I plan to steal that and use it in conversation to address people when they disagree with me.

⬐ a123b456c

Can you file a copyright claim against yourself, before anyone else does?

And then accept your own appeal?

⬐ ben0x539

It sounds like there can be multiple independent claims on the same video. I guess in theory they could be claiming content at different timestamps.

⬐ smrtinsert

I disagree we shouldn't just jump in the dinghy. How else will Youtube get the message? Unfortunately we're part of the generation that has to learn the hard way again that digital monopolies are not tenable.

⬐ memorable

Alternative front-end version:

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=1qCM9L_FaFU

⬐ masswerk

> "The media could not be loaded, either because the server or network failed or because the format is not supported." – Hum…

⬐ memorable

Doesn't seem to happen to me on Firefox (Librewolf). What are you using?

⬐ masswerk

Safari 15.5 and Firefox 102.0.1 (64-bit, current) on macOS 11 (Big Sur) / M1.

(May be a network issue. I'm located in Europe.)

⬐ toto444

YT could charge people who make claims and pay people to investigate them. Wouldn't that solve the problem ?

You make a claim ? That costs $50.

You win : we refund you

You lose : we make $50

And here you go

⬐ tjpnz

Sounds good on the surface but the DMCA doesn't afford YouTube much leeway in being able to make such decisions.

⬐ Danborg

Seems like NASA should step in and help with this.

⬐ amatecha

This kind of bullshit is why I don't post anything to YouTube anymore. I only view YouTube content via Invidious, as well.

⬐ hellisothers

Several complaints here (including Fran’s) come from religious organizations, what is the connection there?

⬐ dqpb

Google - ok with being evil since 2015

⬐ hjkl0

Me: this is a bad title. And the video description doesn’t add anything either.

⬐ birdyrooster

I would donate $50k for lawyer fees if other people would too

⬐ nvahalik

So the system is rigged?

Why are people still on YouTube?

⬐ masswerk

Personally, I don't think that the system being rigged is the problem, but the path to justice being obstructed. Thus, there is no correction and no remedy.

And, why are people still on YT? Well, because it's where everybody is. I.e., critical accumulation, out ruling any other considerations. It may turn out that having a viable path to justice on such a system of critical mass may be as important as having anti-trust clauses.

⬐ phibz

Not allowing the alleging party to judge the response to the claim would cut down on this sort of thing. But that's not part of the DMCA so YT won't do it. They just care about avoiding liability.

⬐ danielheath

Creators are there because it pays them (until it doesn't). YT have the largest viewing audience and the most advertising spend.

⬐ qbasic_forever

You have to go where the audience is at, and Youtube is a huge audience.

⬐ worthless-trash

Same reason people still make IOS apps.

⬐ iancmceachern

There isn't a real alternative. Many content creators have created their own sites (like corridor crew), and there are theme specific sites like nebula or masterclass, but nothing with the broad appeal and audience of youtube

⬐ jay_kyburz

Somebody with deep pockets could have a crack at it. You could pay the top YouTubers to host content on both platforms, then add some special bonuses for exclusive content.

I really think Netflix should have a crack at it. (But clearly labeled as a different kind of thing. )

⬐ imran-iq

Microsoft already tried with mixer against twitch, its really hard to get users to move to a new platform when they are used to the old one

⬐ qbrass

I don't use Twitch because I'm not in the Twitch demographic, but I refuse to use Mixer because of how Microsoft was trying to push it on me.

⬐ paulpauper

because none of the alternatives even come close in terms of viewers, virality, monetization

15 years later and still nothing even close to a viable YouTube alternative.

⬐ anigbrowl

Look up 'preferential attachment'.

⬐ rexreed

Video consumers / watchers >>>> Video / content creators. YouTube makes money monetizing eyeballs. There are a LOT of eyeballs, much more so than content creators. Every time one content creator gets smashed, another one pops up. So who does YouTube care about? The creators? No way. They want the eyeballs that they sell the advertisers. The content creators are the inconvenient intermediary. If Google / YouTube could realize their fantasy, they'd automatically create all the content themselves with ML or some super amazing generator and get rid of the content creators altogether.

⬐ quickthrower2

Not your platform, not your business.

She doesn’t want solutions and instead will just give up and go back to work.

But for anyone else: your own domain, videos on s3, sponsors instead of ads.

Pay a techie to set it up if you are not techie.

Use YouTube too but just for traffic into the site. Shorter/lower quality video there with link to site for better videos.

Your site will have the better UX! You can get them on a mail list. Get closer to the audience. See if they want to pay for a premium membership.

⬐ SnowHill9902

Isn’t S3 or AWS for that matter also subject to DMCA takedowns?

⬐ quickthrower2

This is the beauty of using RESTful hypermedia! You can change video host without changing the URL your fans have bookmarked. Maybe use some Switzerland based host!

In terms of the domain name system and takedowns: You are subject to the law still but I believe that it will be the law itself rather than a Go program in a google server saying “tough shit”

Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._MikeRoweSoft

⬐ tjpnz

Yes they are which is why you would need to operate your own infra, ideally within your own DC for this scheme to work. You'll still receive takedown notices but in practice the overwhelming majority would go directly to trash.

⬐ racingmars

Yes, but actual DMCA process, not YouTube's process that isn't really based on DMCA at all.

The process DMCA uses is: 1) person claiming their copyright is being infringed sends a DMCA takedown notice to the platform. 2) Platform takes down the content (doesn't "keep it up and redirect revenue" like YouTube does) and notified the person who posted the content. 3) The person who posted the content can submit a counterclaim, at which point platform provider reinstates the content.

Then the person claiming their copyright is being violated disagrees, they have to sue the person in federal court for copyright infringement at that point.

Also there are penalties for making false DMCA claims. There don't appear to be ANY penalties for repeated, egregious violations of YouTube's own claim system.

What YouTube is doing isn't DMCA enforcement AT ALL.

⬐ dusted

As far as I understand, youtube is a private company, I don't see how their users could claim to have any rights at all on their platform ?

Even if the copyright claims are illegal, youtube can still chose to do whatever they want in regard to blocking or removing content on their platform with no regard to anything or anybody.

(I believe we need Internet access, e-mail and hosting of various types of media to be public infrastructure rather than spurious privately owned services)

[edit] Of course this was downvoted, and that's fine, but tell me how I'm wrong, or what you disagree with..

⬐ II2II

I am a bit saddened that Fran Blanche produced this video in the way she did. Fran is clearly, and justifiably, frustrated by the circumstances. She has every right to be. Yet claims like she owns the copyright if anybody since she owns an original reel is poorly articulated. I think Fran meant to say she may own the copyright to her transfer of the reel and she has the right to make a copy of the reel since the film is in the public domain.

The copyright situation is a mess though. Another poster said that they nope out of the idea of creating content due to stuff like this. I understand that feeling. On the other hand, their content would simply be ripped and reposted on somewhere else without some sort of technical means to enforce copyright. Either way, people who know how to abuse the system are going to abuse the system to their own benefit. There is no effective means to combat that abuse. The courts are out of reach to most people. Even a company as big as Google would have trouble handling and verifying claims. Even if they could dedicate the resources, it would probably expose them to being successfully sued in borderline cases. (Fran can point to her original reel, not everyone can do the same.)

EDIT: for those who are insisting that I am twisting Fran's words, I made it perfectly clear that she said if anybody. If you disagree with what I am saying, fine, but please don't claim that I am saying she said something she didn't because I am not.

⬐ prepend

She said multiple times that she does not own the copyright. And she explains that’s because the video is a government product in the public domain.

What she says that if it was possible to have a copyright claim it should be her because she owns the reel. But not that she has copyright.

⬐ jazzyjackson

> Yet claims like she owns the copyright if anybody since she owns an original reel is poorly articulated.

I interpreted this as having a laugh at how ridiculous it is for someone else to claim it's their footage, "I have the original right here!"

⬐ II2II

Different people are going to interpret what she said in different was. In my case it was Fran venting her frustration. In my case, I realize she wasn't making a copyright claim, but it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine somebody out there would interpret Fran's words in that manner.

⬐ exhilaration

I'm guessing you're not a native English speaker because this: Yet claims like she owns the copyright if anybody since she owns an original reel is poorly articulated isn't at all how I interpreted what she said.

⬐ masswerk

Regarding "if anybody", mind that this is about a given technical resolution of the media, comparing a low-resolution, multiple generation copy to a fresh copy from the original that she physically owns. There is unique work involved in this.

⬐ bloudermilk

Fran was unequivocal in her belief that no one can claim copyright on the content. If you’re referring to the quip she made along the lines of “if anyone” I think you’re missing the point of her video

⬐ cato_the_elder

She keeps saying "everybody's going to tell me I'm a whiner" with a ridiculous tone. She is indeed a whiner.

Not because of protesting YouTube's ridiculous copyright system, but because she uses that smug tone to talk to people who owe her nothing, and are making reasonable suggestions (like syncing with alternative platforms) for mitigating the problem.

⬐ mlyle

Having other people seizing the fruits of your work is upsetting. Syncing to other platforms is just more work and doesn't prevent the primary problem.

Calling her a whiner is unnecessary abuse.

⬐ cowtools

The immediate problem is that her video got flagged, but the "real" problem is being over-reliant on youtube without having any leverage against censorship and racketeering.

Even if the immediate problem were fixed, it would ultimately not change anything in the long run because it would only motivate uploaders to continue entrenching themselves on the website. You cannot have real change without competition.

Being called a whiner is not "abusive".

She complains about the website, yet she goes on to unfairly disparage the alternatives. By the end of the video she is patting herself on the back for being a "youtuber" and staying loyal to the website.

⬐ quickthrower2

> Syncing to other platforms is just more work

Welcome to adulthood.

She wants a full time income doing something fun, using a free platform that does the marketing for her at no cost and complains when the rug gets pulled. This is business. Even in a job you can be replaced, fired or your skills go out of date. Life is a constant fight, everyone has to be up for that.

⬐ mlyle

> Life is a constant fight, everyone has to be up for that.

Sorry, "being up for" being the target of racketeering and fraud-- I expect better than that.

⬐ quickthrower2

The only other option is to shrug though.

⬐ mlyle

There's a lot of ways to fight. "Whining" about YouTube in a way that stokes the outrage over current practices is also one.

Indeed, one might say it's the only fight that matters, as other options just lead to unabated extortion.

⬐ rasz

but calling someone tractor hitch rubber scrotum (or whatever that was) is a ok? :)

The facts are she is whining while not willing to do anything about it (lawyer/contesting)

⬐ cato_the_elder

> Syncing to other platforms is just more work and doesn't prevent the primary problem.

Maybe, but my objection isn't to the fact that she doesn't want to use alternative platforms. That's understandable. It's to how she looks down on people who dare to make that suggestion.

⬐ sen

I have private access to some pretty cool motorsports/boat-racing/etc stuff that a majority of people don't get to see (prototype/development vehicle testing, etc). I thought it might be fun for me to make some videos of these and share them, with the full support of the owners/teams behind this stuff. They gave me extra access, let me film everything over 2 days (3 full days of work considering the remote location in another state etc), and I put my first video up on YouTube showing off a prototype vehicle that was going for a world record.

The video went pretty viral... 8 digit views, got me 5 digit subscriber count, was posted on dozens and dozens of news sites and blogs and shared widely. I was excited, off to a great start with this whole YouTube thing.

No music, no audio other than the engine sounds, absolutely zero reason anyone could possibly do a copyright strike... right?

Nope, some church minister in some tiny country did a copyright strike saying they own the rights to the word "spirit" in my video title (it was part of the name of the vehicle itself)... so they got all the money I earned from that video + I got a strike on my channel and a scary warning from YouTube saying my entire Google account could get banned including my Gmail. I disputed it with a very clear explanation of the situation, and they quickly reply saying they sided with the complainant and they'll be ignoring all future disputes.

Fuck YouTube/Google.

Edit: I went back to find the emails from Google and realised the story is even crazier than I remember. YouTube never reviewed the dispute, they let the person making the claim review their own dispute!!

> Hi [Name],

> After reviewing your dispute, [Dodgy Fuck's Name] has decided that their copyright claim is still valid.

> Copyrighted content: Spirit

> Claimed by: [Dodgy Fuck's Name]

⬐ jazzyjackson

> so they got all the money I earned from that video

Makes me wonder if anyone at Google is aware of the term "perverse incentive"

⬐ acomjean

I wonder why its "all the money" not some portion of it. I mean if you make a documentary with historic footage, you have to clear (pay to use) each piece of footage you use. If you use a clip it doesn't mean they own your documentary.

⬐ recursive

Apparently, you can use the same scheme to get half your money back.

1. Commission some original background music on fiverr with copyright attribution. 2. Put it in a video. Post on youtube. 3. Copyright claim your own video from a different channel. 4. Show your copyright info if necessary.

This way, you still get a fraction of your own video revenue by playing both sides.

⬐ marcosdumay

Or "collaboration to defraud".

⬐ nikanj

Or ”fuck you, we still made money”

⬐ jjoonathan

I feel like I've been hearing this same story every few months for a decade. Despicable.

⬐ b0afc375b5

Interesting. Does this mean that anyone can claim any content from any YouTube content creator?

I'm curious why this isn't being done more frequently, but if it is, what recourse do YouTube content creators have to still make it profitable for themselves.

⬐ kevingadd

Yes, anyone can claim your content. The only solutions are to be big and rich enough to throw your legal weight around or to exploit the same broken system to claim your own content (naturally this means paying extra fees to gatekeepers and potentially still splitting revenue with scammers)

⬐ madeofpalk

Video game developer Bungie's had a blow a few months back where a disgruntled player started 'impersonating' (in quotes - they just created a gmail account) Bungie's IP lawyers to issue fake DCMA takedowns for popular youtubers videos.

Bungie is now suing them. I'm surprised they didn't go harder after Youtube, but I guess that's a lot more difficult in court. https://torrentfreak.com/bungie-files-lawsuit-to-punish-send...

⬐ acomjean

>Does this mean that anyone can claim any content from any YouTube content creator?

According to the article "yes", but google working on it. I'm surprised Bungie didn't go after google. They clearly talked to them, but Google's has a lot of money, as opposed to random disgruntled player.

⬐ jv22222

Class action lawsuit anyone?

It seems like this would be a perfect target for class action lawyers who go after very large targets (ie Google) for causing distress en-mass.

⬐ simonh

Who are you going to sue? You have no contract with Youtube requiring them to host and monetize your videos for you. You can't class action every single last dog and pony trollster one by one.

The flip side of Youtube being a free hosting service is that they have no obligation to host anyone's content. We think of Youtube as being a commons or community resource, but it's not, it's privately owned. You have no more right to put a video on Youtube than you have to put an advert on the side of Google HQ, it's their choice to make and they set the terms. It sucks, but that's the way it is.

⬐ account42

You can sue them for monetizing your content and giving someone else the money. Even if their ToC says they can do whatever they want doesn't mean they actually can.

⬐ ajdegol

You could argue they’re a monopoly

⬐ simonh

Ok, then what?

⬐ TruePath

The government can invoke the Sherman antitrust act and other laws. YOU can't (at least not generally).

⬐ pjc50

Terms of service work both ways. You do have a contract with them. Especially if they agreed to pay you money.

⬐ simonh

They don't have to agree to pay you money though, or offer you service. What in the terms of service are you referring to?

⬐ ta988

If you find a lawyers firm that want to help start that, it will be a really successful one. I know dozens of people that have been impacted (and just these together is likely close to a million revenue)

⬐ amelius

Except the original poster doesn't own the content either. They said:

> I have private access to some pretty cool motorsports/boat-racing/etc stuff

⬐ detaro

You misunderstand the paragraph you quote from.

⬐ amelius

Ok. But now I can't delete my comment :(

⬐ jv22222

I have not personally been affected by this, but these lawyers have won a class action law suit against Google in the past.

https://www.lieffcabraser.com/contact/

You could try contacting them.

⬐ masswerk

This is pretty unbelievable! Not that I would doubt your account, but rather the world, actually…

⬐ mlyle

The workflow Youtube has is pretty bizarre.

Step 1 is dispute claim.

Step 1A is the claimant choosing to release or reinstate the claim.

Step 2, if they reinstate the claim, you can "appeal".

Step 2A, the claimant can either release the claim, or file a formal DMCA notice.

Step 3, if they file a formal DMCA notice-- you can file a DMCA counter-notification.

Step 3A, if they disagree, they can sue.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/12104471#zippy=%2C...

⬐ gamblor956

No, Step 3A, is "if they disagree, they must sue."

If they don't sue the purported infringer, Google treats the original copyright complaint as invalid and releases the strike.

⬐ mlyle

Each of the A steps is discretionary and optional. They can abandon the process at any time-- in which case Google shrugs and moves on with life after a timeout expires.

⬐ unityByFreedom

> The workflow Youtube has is pretty bizarre.

Is it? If it's more expensive for them to get it right, then maybe not getting involved in the adjudication makes sense.

It does seem like a great reason for creators to not publish on YouTube, however.

Once there is sufficient competition I would expect them to start adjudicating.

And before someone jumps in and blames the money train, capitalism, etc. Please let me know how you would run a business that is not profitable. The money to pay salaries has to come from somewhere.

⬐ masswerk

The problem being, there must be at least one, unique competitor of critical mass. Otherwise, YT will be always the dominant platform.

⬐ unityByFreedom

I agree that the FTC should be looking at tech.

Personally I'd like to see them aimed at regional broadband ISP monopolies first, since that is an underlying infrastructure for the services we use.

I'm not sure where the FTC is on this, but I know the focus in media has shifted in recent years from Comcast etc. to FAANG. Perhaps that's because the problems from the platform-based monopolies enabled by ISPs are closer and thus more apparent to us. Or, maybe it's a campaign propped up by ISPs to take the focus off of them.

⬐ masswerk

As a European, I have a hard time understanding what the US is doing and not doing regarding broadband regulations. As I do understand it from a distance, the ISPs had always argued and broadened their claims with regard to data that is accessible to the big platforms. There seems to be some "natural anti-alliance", with the parties involved seeking political alliances, which in turn provide the public attention or – more importantly – the lack thereof. (The idea of free businesses and public services being mutual exclusive, certainly doesn't help either.)

⬐ unityByFreedom

I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the argument has been that broadband is expensive to roll out to non-urban areas. So they'll make exclusive agreements with municipalities, and/or take government money to complete the work.

From a customer's perspective, it seems they take the money and run to the bank. Where competition is low, and that's a lot of places, so is the quality of customer service and the provided speeds. Fees can be high, and for the last 20 years they've been trying to figure out how to get even more money by gutting net neutrality. They can be very aggressive on this [1], and there aren't really any significant repercussions. You probably don't want to fine a company out of existence, and any fine you do apply doesn't mean much if they get to keep their customers.

These ISP and content conglomerates have just gotten too big, and I think it's biting us in the form of tech monopolies that sit atop them.

The FCC is trying to redefine broadband to be 100 Mbps [2]. Almost certainly, the 2 republican commissioners will vote against that, and the democratic commissioners will vote for it. So it won't pass until the final FCC chair is filled, which Manchin is stalling in the senate [3].

Chances are it comes down to midterms. It's an important issue, the challenge is making it relatable to the public amidst other issues.

[1] https://youtu.be/BEXuK073bkE?t=749

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/07/19/fcc-bro...

[3] https://www.axios.com/2022/06/03/biden-fcc-nominee-gigi-sohn...

⬐ taneq

> If it's more expensive for them to get it right, then maybe not getting involved in the adjudication makes sense.

Cynical hat firmly in place, you could go a step further and just say that if it's more expensive for them to do it fairly then this is actually "right" from their point of view...

⬐ birdyrooster

If you don’t publish on YouTube someone else will come in and do it for you

⬐ mlyle

The big reason for the complexity is contractual arrangements/agreements with large copyright holders.

Else, we could skip straight to 3A (which is still them not being involved, and it is their legal obligation to maintain safe harbor under DMCA).

⬐ unityByFreedom

So, root cause is media conglomerates again. That just underscores my belief we should be tackling broadband ISP monopolies, and that midterms are important to secure the final FCC seat. Then we can reclassify broadband to 100 Mbps instead of the miniscule 25 Mbps that we have now. The types of service customers are actually getting will become more clear, and that should foster competition.

⬐ rasz

So just like in Fran story you decided to lie down and take it? 8 digit views equals ~$30-60K payout, plenty to pay for a lawyer and keep fighting.

⬐ pjc50

The more serious problem is that during that process they'd be banned from Google. Bus I suppose that might be worth the weeks of work to migrate all the accounts that use it as an email address.

⬐ 2muchcoffeeman

All the money goes to the person making the infringement claim.

⬐ rasz

YT claims they will reverse the transfer if its counter claimed.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/4/28/11532734/youtube-complain...

"When both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, we will continue to run ads on that video and hold the resulting revenue separately," the company said. "Once the Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, we'll pay out that revenue to the appropriate party."

⬐ geoffeg

But you didn't get the 30-60k payout to pay the lawyer.

⬐ rasz

Is it really that hard to find a lawyer willing to write couple of letters for 50% of ~$50K windfall?

⬐ gamblor956

I've dealt with Youtube's copyright resolution process and I don't believe this story at all.

You're either leaving out material facts that completely change the story or making the story up.

For starters...Youtube's copyright strikes are geographical...IOW, you can't assert a copyright against a video posted by a user in another country.

Second, Google doesn't let you file a copyright strike on the basis of a single word in the title. Words, by themselves, are not copyrightable. Especially not when they deal with trademarks...

Third, after you file a counter notification, the claimant must prove that they've taken legal action against the purported infringer by providing evidence of such action. Generally, this means a copy of a complaint, or at the bare minimum a letter from your lawyer asserting your ownership and offering terms for a settlement. If they don't, Google treats the infringement claim as invalid and removes the strike.

Fourth, if you dispute the strike (by filing the counter notification), Google doesn't pay anybody for the video until they receive proof of the legal resolution of the dispute, because if they pay the wrong party they'll end up having to pay the rightful copyright owner.

⬐ bjelkeman-again

> IOW, you can't assert a copyright against a video posted by a user in another country.

How does that work? So anyone in Norway can copy anything produced in the US and not be taken down on a copyright claim?

⬐ gamblor956

While we have tax treaties that afford some protections to copyright owners for cross-border violations, the processes outlined in those treaties aren't built into in Youtube's automated copyright claim process.

For cross-border violations you need to reach out to Google Legal.

⬐ ben0x539

I've not had a lot of luck finding reports of successful actual-legal-DMCA counter notifications after copyright/content id claims, so I'm really glad to read your comment confirming that it basically works as advertised. Which side of those disputes were you on?

Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification? I mentioned this in another comment, but I found this article (which is somewhat old, and from a random website I'd never heard of) where apparently Google acknowledged the counter notification but chose not to restore the video out of contractual obligations to the claimant: https://www.newmediarights.org/copyright/DMCA/youtube_refusi...

⬐ gamblor956

Both, the side asserting copyright and the side fighting the claim (for separate videos).

Would you happen to have any experience with cases where Google doesn't restore the video/monetization after a counter notification?

Yes, we contacted Google Legal with a letter from our General Counsel after the claimant failed to file a lawsuit asserting its ownership of the disputed content, and the matter was resolved within about a month. Google restored our ability to monetize videos and paid us for the amount held in escrow during the dispute.

Note that, as with all things Google, if you let the customer support system handle your complaint, nothing gets done because the CS dept in India doesn't have the power to do anything. You have to go around the CS system and talk to a person in the department that's actually responsible for your issue. For a legal issue like this, that means reaching out to their Legal department directly.

⬐ admax88qqq

There should be an option to appeal after this step. Did you ever do that?

⬐ ncmncm

Take the video down so the complainant does not get the cash, anyway...

⬐ sen

I did, and deleted my channel, but the damage is done.

⬐ prpl

maybe you could put it back up, then preemptively file a copyright claim against yourself.

⬐ Akronymus

Reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPIC2A_YeI0

⬐ xhxhskrry

Post it on rumble. Not so you get money. Simply so one more good peice of content goes to the competition.

⬐ googlryas

Don't you just deny it, and it is up to them to actually file a full DMCA complaint?

⬐ IncRnd

You don't understand your rights under the law. Google never needs to become involved as the arbiter of truth in this sort of dispute. A knowingly false DMCA takedown notice means the company who falsely claimed infringement, not youtube, is liable for damages to you. If youtube hasn't followed the law in their decision making process then youtube is liable.

⬐ amelius

Is this how the Nigerian princes of old times make money nowadays?

⬐ jbay808

> word "spirit" in my video title (it was part of the name of the vehicle itself)

Just going to guess... Was this vehicle the Spirit of Australia II?

⬐ websap

Is it possible to claim copyright on videos uploaded by Alphabet and all it's subsidiaries - Google, Youtube, Waymo, etc?

⬐ jjoonathan

Given how many of these claims are A. scripted and B. bullshit, I'm sure that they have exempted themselves from their own shitty rules.

⬐ pmarreck

you should "out" the account that essentially stole all the views

⬐ sudosysgen

You need to sue them. It's not about YouTube, the way it's working is how the law is written.

⬐ phibz

The DMCA does not require YouTube to be involved in any part of the judgement. By just being the messenger YT is granted legal immunity for their part in spreading the alleged infringing work. The complaintent is the judge _by design_!

The law is broken and needs to change.

⬐ jjoonathan

Is it? I thought that once the situation was contested by both sides, youtube had the option to default either way, and it was simply their deci$ion to side with claimants because the traditional claimants held a ton of media licenses while individual creators held few.

⬐ underwater

The YouTube copyright claim process isn't DMCA.

⬐ tssva

The initial copyright claim process isn't DMCA, but if you dispute a copyright claim and lose you can then appeal that decision. The DMCA process then takes over. YouTube requires the claimant to file a DMCA take down notice to continue the process. If they do not then the claim is removed. If they do then you can follow the DMCA counter notice process.

⬐ kmeisthax

Early on YouTube didn't even treat disputes as on the same track as DMCA - if your appeal got rejected they'd just side with the claimant and you had no further recourse. It's possible that this happened that long ago.

Of course, even being able to DMCA counter-notice isn't really a help, because you're just telling the claimnant to sue. You even have to dox yourself. What people want is to just not have to deal with copyright in these specific cases where there is no element of copyright being infringed.

⬐ candiodari

Unfortunately both lawmakers and judges take a somewhat dim view of the whole "I shouldn't have to deal with the law" attitude.

⬐ kmeisthax

They take a dim view of this attitude when it's a transparent attempt at dodging liability.

The relative success of anti-SLAPP statues and motions would indicate that there is at least some empathy for "not forcing people who have not committed a crime to prove that they haven't committed a crime".

⬐ gpm

My understanding of the DMCA is that the person receiving the complaint is the judge by design of the law.

The complainant submits a complaint, the receiver submits a counter notice, youtube is granted immunity to put the content back up after 14 days (unless the complainant initiates a lawsuit within that timeframe) and the complainant has no recourse but to take the alleged-infringer to court.

⬐ bushbaba

If it is this easy. Why hasn't someone decided to DDOS hostage all the major Youtubers?

⬐ randomswede

Is't this basically what happened with Destiny 2 channels earlier this year? Someone faked DMCA claims from Bungie across a wide swathe of Destiny 2 channels, possibly as retribution for having "music archiving" (which probably technically is a copyright violation) copyright-struck.

⬐ powerhour

Is there room in the market for a Takedown as a Service vendor?

⬐ ciguy

Oh you sweet child. This is already a thing and has been for a decade at least. Anyone with enough money can hire a firm based out of a dodgy country that will abuse the DMCA, Content Reporting mechanisms and insider contacts to get whatever you want taken down from pretty much anywhere. I know because I've seen a couple rich fucks do it with things they didn't want online about them or a family member of theirs.

⬐ Schroedingersat

Because they get special treatment.

⬐ faeriechangling

If you’re a Mr. Beast level big deal I’m sure somebody from YouTube will actually look into the matter.

This is of most impact to channels big enough for somebody to treat it as a full time job, but not so big that it will ever be worth YouTube’s time to provide them any level of service.

⬐ ben0x539

Sounds like youtube doesn't feel obligated to restore content after a valid counter notification: https://www.newmediarights.org/copyright/DMCA/youtube_refusi...

I guess, as long as they comply with the takedown, they feel sufficiently safely harboured, and don't feel compelled to implement the other part of the process since like what are you going to do, sue youtube to force them to host your video and run ads on it?

⬐ account42

Typically youtube copyright strikes aren't even from DMCA notices at all but from their own system they designed so they don't have to spend as much on processing DMCA notices and to make the record industry happy.

⬐ ben0x539

From reading through their stuff a bit, it sounds like you can get fake/internal non-DMCA strikes first, and then, usually, you can choose to escalate to require them to do an actual DMCA thing if you disagree hard enough, which seems sort of reasonable.

⬐ roenxi

Wealthy entities are somewhat vulnerable to lawsuits. It would be prudent of YouTube to take the a very paranoid view of the law from a respectable lawyer - which is likely what they've done.

Judges sometimes take pride in interpreting a law to mean something other than what the words say. Let alone the risks of interactions with other parts of the law. Amateur understanding doesn't count for much.

⬐ cmeacham98

Ultimately, you are correct, but the problem here is that 14 days. Effectively anyone can DoS your content for 14 days just by submitting a form online.

Technically, submitting a copyright claim with blatantly false information is perjury, but your only recourse as the victim is to beg a prosecutor to take the perpetrator to court over it. There is no civil remedy for false DMCA takedowns.

As far as I am aware, not a single person has ever been convicted of perjury because of information supplied in a DMCA takedown.

⬐ gpm

This is all a bit besides my point, which is that youtube's system is not just the system required by law, but much friendlier to the accuser.

That said, there are also civil penalties for false takedown notices under 512(f), which I believe have been successfully litigated. Still, the effort vs reward in litigating them is almost never worth it.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512

⬐ cmeacham98

My limited understanding is that 512(f) claims are almost impossible to win because you have to prove the claimant acted in bad faith, which is very difficult. My comment should have said something like "no effective civil remedy" rather than "no civil remedy".

⬐ pseudo0

Foreign entities abusing the DMCA system also adds another layer of impossibility to the system. Good luck pursuing recourse against someone in North Korea or wherever, even if the DMCA claims are in blatantly bad faith.

The claimant should require some skin in the game to prevent this sort of nonsense, maybe a bond or surety of some kind held in the US?

⬐ account42

Better would be to scrap the whole thing and make the claimant convince a court before getting an injunction like for pretty much any other kind of dispute. If the costs to the cours for that are too high then add a copyright holder tax.