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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: 5, Interesting) by jmorris on Sunday August 23 2015, @09:39AM
No human saw that and though it was WGBH property. They have a company looking for 'infringing' material by keyword and filing complaints by bot. That is the root of the problem and the place to strike. Bots should have no standing to file legal complaints, period. YouTube should be harassed until they adopt a strict no-bots policy and require any legally binding complaint to be made by an actual human. Then if a user objects, YouTube ALSO tasks a human to look and if it is an obvious case of a bot generated complaint or a human just rubber stamping one, both of which wastes the time of both YouTube and their legitimate users, then ban that account from complaining again by email, perhaps for a year. Any further complaints will have to be served by registered mail as a formal legally actionable document and any bot generated material sent that way, well sue the living fudge outta them and pass copies to the falsely accused user so they too can get in line to sue the living fudge out of them.
This problem is one of incentives. Filing thousands of questionable content objections carries about as close to zero cost as spamming, so just like people loosely attached to moral values and no vast IP portfolio will send SPAM about rich NIgerian princes, those with a portfolio and no moral code to say no will keep on using bots to 'protect' their precious IP. Change the incentives, change the bad behavior.
Lawyers are an evil but with creativity they can be put to respectable uses.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nollij on Sunday August 23 2015, @01:48PM
The problem is that the DMCA, which YouTube is REQUIRED to follow, does not grant them the right to dismiss claims by people who continuously file bogus claims.
There is little recourse aside from a civil suit.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday August 23 2015, @04:46PM
Perhaps they could. From the DMCA:
How can a bot make a statement under penalty of perjury? Surely only humans can do this. Perhaps DMCA notices are not valid unless a human has been involved?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2015, @06:03PM
I wonder if the dude really wanted to be an ass he could take the company that issued the notice to small claims?
It cost him time money and reputation...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 23 2015, @05:21PM
No, but currently youtube's current "policy" is that if you're a big name company then they'll believe you. If you aren't, then you get mostly ignored. Particularly when submitting counter-claims, which youtube is also suppose to honor. They could set it up so that if people are submitting false claims repeeatly, then they get flagged such that people submitting counter-claims are automatically accepted (which they should be anyway, because once you counter-claim you're basically telling them that the people complaining are wrong and the next step in the process is for the claimers to take you to court if they truly believe they are correct.
At which point the fuckers might actually look at what they're claiming is theirs because they'll get laughed out of court otherwise.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday August 23 2015, @09:08PM
I wouldn't exactly call WGBH a big company as it is a NPR station. They do produce a show called "American Experience". Beyond that all the arguments against the use of bots and term hunter companies are valid and WGBH should have to at the least not only remove the takedown but also broadcast a public apology. If they are like the Public broadcast stations around here (left coast) they should have enough volunteers to actually check any hits the bots return.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 2) by albert on Sunday August 23 2015, @07:00PM
They have an automated system currently. They don't need to provide that to everybody.
I don't know how cruel they could be... maybe just a registered letter. Still, that's something.
(Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Sunday August 23 2015, @10:29PM
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday August 23 2015, @10:34PM
No human saw that and though it was WGBH property.
It's not "property" in any valid sense.