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Accused public records terrorist, Carl Malamud recently suffered a "copyright strike" by WGBH of Boston for a public domain, government produced video he had posted to Youtube. Youtube's policy is that if a user gets a copyright strike, his account is crippled and if he gets more than a handful, his account is disabled.
Malamud thinks that what's good for the goose should be good for the gander and that any account filing erroneous copyright strikes, aka copyright fouls, should have reciprocal consequences. Since these copyright strikes are Youtube policy, not legal requirements, Youtube would be completely within their rights to implement a system of copyright fouls too.
Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, "I got mugged by a bunch of Boston hooligans. Readers of Boing Boing may be familiar with my FedFlix project which has resulted in 6,000 government videos getting posted to YouTube and the Internet Archive."
One of the films the government sent me to post is Energy - The American Experience, a 1976 film created by the Department of Energy (YouTube, the Internet Archive).
Well, somebody at WGBH saw the words "American Experience" in the title and went through the laborous process of issuing a formal Copyright Strike on YouTube. This is no casual process, they had to swear on a stack of affidavits that this really, really is their video. As a result, my account got a strike, I had to endure the humiliation that is "copyright school," and my account has many features disabled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2015, @09:13AM
Broke the law? Are we going to pretend that copyright is a criminal matter, now? No Copyright Intended.
If the videos are posted on both YouTube and the Internet Archive, why does it matter so much whether YouTube hosts them? No Copyright Intended.
Is this Carl fellow some kind of egotist who needs to be seen by the young hip trendy kids who think YouTube is the hot hangout and the Internet Archive is the dull boring library? No Copyright Intended.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nollij on Sunday August 23 2015, @01:45PM
The DMCA is law, and I'm sure it was a DMCA notice.
Those notices require the complainant to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are acting in good faith, and authorized to take this action.
Perjury is also a criminal offense.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday August 23 2015, @04:50PM
No, the DMCA doesn't require this. Take a look at the actual text of the DMCA some time.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2015, @06:07PM
No, what's required under penalty of perjury is that you don't pretend to be Disney when you're not. Pretending to own copy protection privileges that you don't own is no big deal, especially when compared to the punishment of infringement or a service provider not responding to a DMCA notice. This is why Youtube has a three strikes program but not a foul system for false takedowns. Under the current legal environment it's cheaper to ban repeat infringers than to keep policing their content and taking them down repeatedly but to ignore a takedown request could be disastrous for Youtube. This is why it's not YouTube's fault and simply going to another provider is not the solution. This is a problem with our legal system that applies to all service providers. While a three strikes system maybe optional it is encouraged by our legal system because our legal system makes alternatives much more expensive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:32AM
> The DMCA is law, and I'm sure it was a DMCA notice.
You are probably wrong.
Youtube has implemented its own takedown system that doesn't involve DMCA. Its like they tried to make it even easier for large media organizations - they get an account with a special reporting system that lets them report videos without even having to do a DMCA form letter.