from the sometimes-automation-doesn't-work dept.
The latest episode of Family Guy featured footage from the NES game Double Dribble, showing a glitch that allows a player to easily make three-point shots. The video was apparently copied directly from YouTube. TorrentFreak reports that the over seven-year-old original video has either been blocked by Fox using the DMCA or automatically blocked by the ContentID system:
Interestingly the clip that was uploaded by sw1tched was the exact same clip that appeared in the Family Guy episode on Sunday. So, unless Fox managed to duplicate the gameplay precisely, Fox must've taken the clip from YouTube. Whether Fox can do that and legally show the clip in an episode is a matter for the experts to argue but what followed next was patently absurd. Shortly after the Family Guy episode aired, Fox filed a complaint with YouTube and took down the Double Dribble video game clip on copyright grounds. (mirror Daily Motion)
Faced with yet another example of a blatantly wrongful takedown, TorrentFreak spoke with Fight for the Future CTO Jeff Lyon. Coincidentally he'd just watched the episode in question. "It's most likely that this is just another example of YouTube's Content ID system automatically taking down a video without regard to actual copyright ownership and fair use. As soon as FOX broadcast that Family Guy episode, their robots started taking down any footage that appeared to be reposted from the show — and in this case they took down the footage they stole from an independent creator," Lyon says.
YouTube's troubles with overzealously removing fair use content are well documented. It seems now that even original content isn't safe once the media industry gets a hold of it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday May 21 2016, @05:03AM
I know the barrier to entry is higher, but there exists free software [mediagoblin.org] for all of your video hosting needs.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Saturday May 21 2016, @09:20AM
Then the ISP will disconnect and the copyright mafia will serve a Cease and Desist letter in the mailbox. Besides that, video serving takes a lot of transfer capacity.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday May 21 2016, @03:55PM
The MAFIAA won't be running content ID on your server (or should not be). So there would be no automated take-downs like this.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Saturday May 21 2016, @07:13PM
I think I see a P2P video service in my time machine.. ;)
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 21 2016, @10:02AM
Free software is good, but the more important thing YouTube & Co. offer is free and effort-free hosting of your videos. I would not know where I could set up a Goblin instance for free (well, I could install one at home, but I doubt my upload capacity is fit for video streaming or even just download), and I'm not entirely sure that I'd manage to setup a really secure server (the servers of the other providers may also not necessarily be sufficiently secured, but at least if their server is used in a DDoS attack, it's not my concern).
Also, the streaming platforms have some other features which I didn't notice for Mediagoblin. That includes the automatic display of similar videos (which does a lot to make your videos discoverable — what good is an online video if nobody knows about it?). Also, can you create playlists on Mediagoblin? Possibly consisting of videos on different Mediagoblin hosts (as being decentralized is one of the main selling points of the software)? Does it have an equivalent to channels?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Saturday May 21 2016, @03:51PM
To be honest, I haven't used it, so I don't know.
Finding appropriate hosting is a big barrier.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:33PM
Apart from needing to lease a VPS and your videos not appearing in related lists or subscriptions, I can see even more practical problems with starting your own site running GNU MediaGoblin.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Sunday May 22 2016, @09:04PM
Of course, freedom is something that you have to actively fight for.
>YouTube & Co. offer is free and effort-free hosting of your videos
Or you can sit back and let your freedom be taken away from you.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday May 23 2016, @06:23AM
Ah, so please show me your effort. Where is your successful video site using Mediagoblin? You know, talking is cheap. Put up or shut up.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday May 23 2016, @02:46PM
I have a personal website hosted with free software where I host the things I want to share (which includes no video content).
Also, you are using the logical fallacy called tu quoque, which doesn't not make for a good argument.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Monday June 06 2016, @03:51PM
I've posted some videos [pineight.com], but you can't watch them in Safari for iOS because of Apple's bullheaded opposition to royalty-free audio and video codecs.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday May 21 2016, @05:12AM
This (using someone elses content and then take it down with DMCA) is nothing new. Happened to Bjorn Lynne a while ago as well
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2016, @07:53AM
I was curious to find out what the final result of all the hoops he jumped through was. At the time I believe it had gotten reposted, but hadn't gotten an official reply back from the DMCAing party's lawyers.
The whole thing sounds offensive, IMHO.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jelizondo on Saturday May 21 2016, @05:34AM
Copyright needs fixin' soon or it will come to the point when even your own name, isn't really yours because some asshat coopyrighted it before you!
Case in point: a town in Greenville (Michigan) was sued because it had a "little mermaid" statue built on the banks of the Flats river, as reported by various sources the WSJ [wsj.com] one of them. A celebration of the Danish heritage of many of the residentes but not an exact copy or replica of the original, so if derivative works are not allowed under international copyright treaties, why Disney can get away with it?
I could not find out what happened in the end, but if a statue "inspired" on another work can get a town sued, one can imagine a time in the future when you have to pay royalties to keep your name.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 21 2016, @06:47AM
Hey, let's completely ignore the tales that Disney got famous for, such as Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid, are all folklore which shouldn't be copyright-able... And the damn statues are culturally worthless if they weren't borrowing heavily from the same well of cultural wealth.
The rich bastards take from the public domain, but fight so that nothing is ever payed back to it. They don't deserve the protections we pay for in terms of our courts and legislation. Copyrights are anti-Capitalism. You only own your actual work, not the likeness of its output. Want to make more money? Do more work. Hint: You can't "pirate" what work isn't done. Get payment up front, like a good art concession should, and we eliminate "piracy" and the need for copyright as well.
Fuck 'em all. Down with all copyright!
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Saturday May 21 2016, @09:23AM
What you describe is the behavior of criminals and crooks. Gives a new insight into the state of affairs.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday May 21 2016, @07:30PM
Actually, while that's a bit problem, the answer isn't simple. There was a lot of original creative work in those Disney creations, and that should have been copyrightable for a reasonable period of time. Say 15-20 years. The problem is that with extended copyrights they have swamped the originals rather in the manner that Joan Baez swamped many traditional folksongs. You can't find the originals anymore without a LOT of effort, and if you were to make a work derivative of the originals, the holder of the copyright on the well-known work would sue you for infringement (well, takedown anyway). So no matter how good your new derivative work it, you can't compete.
The real answer is to limit copyright to 15-20 years, and to be VERY strict about claims that works are derivative. But no jury and most judges won't understand what derivative from the original means when they have the popular work floating in their mind.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Sunday May 22 2016, @03:36PM
You can't find the originals anymore without a LOT of effort
Usually Gutenberg.org or Wikisource.org will have the pre-1923 version of a fairy tale. How is typing little mermaid or pinocchio into one of these sites' search engines "a LOT of effort"?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday May 22 2016, @06:43PM
If you want to read the story to your kids, you need a book. Maybe an e-book could be made to work, but I have my doubts. It's much better if it's something that you could trust your kids to hold, and most e-books are considerably more fragile than a book. And it's really much better if you can both see it at the same time. Which means a larger format that most e-books.
We're talking here about literature directed at kids, but which must be read by grown-ups. And attractive visuals *are* important. They shouldn't need to be particular visuals, in fact needing to be particular visuals is limiting, and artificially constraining the concepts of beauty, hansome, etc. in a way that I feel is harmful. But bright colors and clear lines are extremely useful.
So Gutenberg is not ideal for this audience. Not unless you can print, bind, and clean-up illustrations yourself. For adults it's quite good, and the only problem I have with it is the limited subject matter, which isn't their fault...and which they are remedying as fast as they can. (Well, not the only problem. Even for adults I find e-books to be far inferior to print. They're generally even inferior to static html pages, which you can also get from Gutenberg, but which don't approach printed books in utility and reading pleasure.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday May 21 2016, @08:38AM
The copyright owner of that YouTube video should sue Fox to stop distributing that Family Guy episode which obviously pirated his video. And of course sue for damages (which, given the wide distribution of Family Guy, should be quite high).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday May 21 2016, @11:38AM
Nintendo would probably have something to say about it being "his" video if he takes it to court.
What he should do first is dispute the claim. It takes 30 seconds and the video'll get put back up right away. Then Fox have 28 days to respond.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 21 2016, @04:02PM
If Nintendo get into the fight, they would probably contest Fox's claim to have copyright on the clip.