Lon Seidman gets YouTube takedown notice for public domain video from NASA

https://plus.google.com/103031681861783472058/posts/aQDqgTaHMFe

by codeka • 14 years ago

87 56 14 years ago

plus.google.com

ColinWright4• 14 years ago

Anyone care to provide a summary for those of us who prefer not to log in to Google+?

SteveMoody73• 14 years ago

Text from the post:

Wow now I'm really getting angry over this Content ID disaster from +YouTube regarding the Mars landing. On Sunday night I hosted a live broadcast with contributors from CTTechJunkie.com and NASASpaceflight.com to watch the landing live. We brought in footage provided by NASA, including their live feed of the landing. NASA footage is released into the public domain and can be freely used by anyone.

I just came home to my inbox filled with dispute claims from no less than FIVE news organizations claiming this footage as their own. BS. It's mine. And now Youtube says it might start running ads against content I created and handing that money over to these crooks who are essentially bigger players with the ability to claim rights to content they do not own.

The worst part is that Google clearly is not requiring these "rightsholders" prove they actually own the content. But it's somehow incumbent upon me to prove my innocence. This is outright theft of my content - plain and simple.

If anyone from YouTube is listening, this needs to stop. It's completely unfair that me as a small content producer gets screwed out of revenue like this.

You can watch the broadcast here: CTTechJunkie Mars Coverage - Live!

ColinWright4• 14 years ago

Thank you - appreciate it.

gitarr3• 14 years ago

You didn't even try the link and therefore misleading people into thinking that the post is in any way private, which it isn't.

You do NOT have to login into Google+ to read the post.

iaskwhy• 14 years ago

Some of us have no access to plus.google.com at work though.

DannoHung• 14 years ago

I'm being asked to login and I have a fucking G+ account.

ColinWright4• 14 years ago

In tones that are significantly milder than I feel ...

I did try the link, it did demand that I login. I did not login, and it did not show me the content.

I resent such accusations, and suggest you make sure you are in full possession of facts before you do so.

mikecane2• 14 years ago

WTF is wrong with Google? It'd be just as easy for them to run the NASA video through their Content ID system to flag all of that as SAFE.

Symmetry• 14 years ago

Under the DMCA they're not permitted to just ignore takedown requests. This is hardly the first time stuff like this has happened.

jasonlotito• 14 years ago

Content ID, unless I'm mistaken, is not a DMCA takedown request. It's is Google's own internal tool. It's their way of self-regulating.

You are correct though, this is not the first time this has happened. This is fairly common (or at least I hear about it often enough), and I assume that anyone who uploads a fair number of videos will eventually be hit with some Content ID complaint regardless of whether they infringed.

I think Google should explain itself, and introduce some measure of protection and repercussions against over-zealous media providers that provide Content ID with samples of media that they do not own. After all, if Google can be asked to moderate it's own site, I think it's fair that a media company can accurately mark the content that it does own.

jkn2• 14 years ago

No excuse for Google here. Even if these were DMCA take-down requests, AFAIK Google can ignore them if they are confident the requests are baseless. They simply lose the safe harbor protection in case the complaint is legitimate.

stephengillie• 14 years ago

Under the DMCA, is there any provision to say "no, you're wrong, that content isn't actually yours, so it can stay up.", is there?

Google doesn't seem to be using it. If this keeps up, we'll all gravitate away from Youtube and over to Vimeo and other competitors.

sp3325• 14 years ago

Content owners have to sign up to be part of the ContentID system. Since the NASA video is public domain, NASA does not own it and cannot enter it into the ContentID system.

Buzaga• 14 years ago

Youtube needs a takedown.

nicholassmith4• 14 years ago

I understand it's an automated system and so on, but given how often these stories bubble up (and to make it even more egregious http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/8/6/nasa-s-mars-rover-crash... it hit NASA themselves), you'd think that Google/Youtube would invest some developer hours into either acknowledging the issue and dealing with it, or saying "It's not working and we're disabling until we can get it done properly".

It's costing them a lot of face, I know people who perform who've had YouTube videos disabled due to background music being licensed off by one of the big studios and now refuse to use. It just isn't working. There's no understanding of context, no ability to detect what the usage is or whether the rights holder is the rights holder aside from 'they uploaded it as well'.

sp3325• 14 years ago

Identifying infringing content is not the point of ContentID. The point is to keep content companies from suing them for $1,000,000,000 (billions) the way Viacom did before this system was in place. It's a very expensive and effective CYA move to show courts that they are putting real resources into minimizing infringement. It doesn't have to actually "work".

nicholassmith4• 14 years ago

You make a convincing argument, but that still doesn't mean Google/YouTube shouldn't be pouring developer time in if they don't want the people who made YouTube to disappear to a rival content provider. People will get sick of the randomised takedowns, even if it's simple to resolve.

res0nat0r2• 14 years ago

ContentID a disaster? The number of misidentified takedown rants is extremely small vs. the number of videos processed on YouTube each minute, but this complaint will get blown into a fullscale meltdown of Googles ID system because it plays into the 'Hollywood is bad and ruining everything' mantra all over HN anymore.

According to the stats on Youtube ContentID is processing over 100 years of video every day.

I'd hold off on calling the system a disaster just yet.

cft• 14 years ago

Youtube certainly became less attractive for me after the content ID system was put in place. Studying Russian, I liked watching Soviet era films on YouTube. These films cannot be copyrighted by definition, since they were made in USSR. I needed to watch each movie several times. I discovered that often, after going back to a movie that I watched, the ENTIRE channel (account) of a user who uploaded it would be deleted for a copyright violation, together with my NON-COPYRIGHTABLE movie.

res0nat0r2• 14 years ago

The blame should be placed on the end user who is claiming content which they apparently shouldn't be. I'm not sure there is a technical solution around that which can determine if a certain video is inherently 'free' or not.

eschutte2• 14 years ago

Why do you say a movie made in the USSR is not copyrightable?

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

Google: Lobby for a framework/interpretation in which you can X strike these people. So many invalid takedown requests (under the auspices of the DMCA, even if content ID pre-empts a formal DMCA request), and you stop honoring their content ID and/or takedown requests. Or at least then make them go through formal channels consuming the maximum amount of time before response and doing the most to coerce them to prove the validity of the request.

These damned "strikes"... provisions are exactly what the "big media" providers have been asking for. Well, make them live by it, for a change.

Spend some hours and money sending that message.

Just an idea, from yet another pissed off Google customer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H product point.

quanticle2• 14 years ago

So many invalid takedown requests (under the auspices of the DMCA, even if content ID pre-empts a formal DMCA request), and you stop honoring their content ID and/or takedown requests.

The problem is that such a strategy won't hold up in court. If I'm a content producer, and I file a thousand invalid DMCA takedown requests, YouTube still has to treat request #1001 as a valid request. If they don't, they're liable for contributory infringement, and on a site of the scale of YouTube, that can be a billion dollar liability.

Or at least then make them go through formal channels consuming the maximum amount of time before response and doing the most to coerce them to prove the validity of the request.

A DMCA takedown request is the formal channel. The only more formal channel than that is a lawsuit.

nucleardog2• 14 years ago

I'm pretty sure the content ID stuff is self-regulation - not a formal DMCA request. After the set number of strikes, stop allowing them access to the content ID 'convenience' tool and require them to mail in a formal DMCA takedown notice.

If someone had to fill in a DMCA takedown notice, print it out, stuff an envelope, put a stamp on it and then drop it in the mail I imagine there would be a few less "Oops, we didn't own the copyright on that." incidents versus clicking a button, ignoring the entire "penalty of perjury" agreement and just hitting "agree" and having their video taken offline.

You're still following the law, you're just not providing tools to make it easier for scumbags and idiots to wreak havoc.

Make smart things easier, make stupid things harder.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

"And now Youtube says it might start running ads against content I created and handing that money over to these crooks"

Bingo. If you ever wondered "What are these people trying to achieve?" this is it. By abusing the YouTube infrastructure and content systems they can get Google to collect money from other peoples content and give it to them. Unless Google can get out ahead of this problem they may find themselves fighting yet another class action Youtube lawsuit. I am sure they would rather spend that money on improving the YouTube experience than on lining lawyers pockets.

antihero• 14 years ago

If it's public domain they are totally allowed to do that, however they shouldn't be taking the original down, hell no.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

What 'they' are 'doing' in this case is telling YouTube they have rights to stuff that someone else has posted, one of the 'remedies' available to the rights holder is that YouTube will put advertisements into that other person's video and then send the person who made the complaint any money that is generated.

So I disagree with your assessment that 'they' (various news agencies) are 'allowed' to demand advertising revenue from another user's YouTube video when that video contains no video to which they have any claim. But I may be mis-construing your comment.

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

Seeing as how there is no penalty whatsoever for misidentifying a video and taking it down(1), I'm wondering if its a feature and not a bug. Remember back in the bad old days of youtube, when everyone thought that Google was crazy for acquiring them because there just seemed to be no way to get around the billions demanded in lawsuits (I wish that were hyperbole)?

This is the way. Just let the system run amok and get everyone talking about how they just ban everything at the drop of a hat. No one can argue that they're "not doing enough" when the idea is always percolating in the public conscious that videos get banned all the time, even when they shouldn't be.

(1) And there really should be a small one, paid by the "owner" of the material. You should have to think carefully about how much it might cost you to turn on content protection for your material.

smashing• 14 years ago

Are you suggesting licensing penalties for content owners?

noonespecial2• 14 years ago

No, penalties for issuing a false takedown. If it actually cost something (even a little something) to claim you own something and try to have it removed, but then it turns out you were in the wrong, it would be taken more seriously.

ktizo• 14 years ago

Get a good legal team and do them all for fraud.

If you can show potential losses of over $5000 in a year, then you might even be able to leverage the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act

... Knowingly causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command that causes damage or intentionally accessing a computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, causes damage that results in:

Loss to one or more persons during any one-year period aggregating at least $5,000 in value. ...

Otherwise, it is still an attempt to misappropriate money by deception, and is plainly both unlawful and illegal.

bartl• 14 years ago

It's high time that unjustified (unjustifable) takedown notices induce a high penalty on the people who submitted it.

Excuses like "oops sorry that takedown notice was a mistake" just won't cut it. Every mistake should cost them dearly. That's the only way they'd ever try to fix their system.

c3d• 14 years ago

Many here wrote it's "big corporation vs. the little guy". The truth is different. It's really YouTube implementing an automated system that is good at identifying small fragments of contents, but totally lacks common sense regarding attributions, fair use and such.

Here is what happened to me to prove my point. On the http://www.taodyne.com web site, there's a small video. If you switch the sound on, you'll hear a music I quickly put together in a few minutes using GarageBand. Despite this being my own (not very good) creation, the YouTube system kicked in and told me I was infringing on some other guy's rights. Why? Because that other guy happens to have used the same loops I used for his own commercial music.

So there's no evil intent here, but a nasty side effects of YouTube's automated content detection system. In my opinion, it is nobody's fault but Google's: the corporations don't really have lawyers bent on claiming your stuff, they just happen to take advantage of Google's offer to monetize on what they do, and then they happen to have entered something in YouTube that YouTube identified as similar to yours.

It's important to point out that there's no evil intent on Google's part either. What they did is a great way to grant us the ability to use musics in videos we post, compensating the artists with ad revenues. But given the volume of data that enters YouTube every day, it has to be automated. And right now, the automat is good at picking similarities, bad at analyzing whether it's infringing or not.

Lon Seidman gets YouTube takedown notice for public domain video from NASA

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