I've said it before, and it bears repeating here: ContentID is not, has not been, and will never be the DMCA. It was developed by YouTube so Viacom would drop the suit that would likely have stripped YouTube's safe harbor protections under the DMCA.<p>ContentID takedowns are not DMCA takedowns. They operate on a different, much less strict standard. Anyone that works with YouTube can flag any video for any reason (see Scripps taking down a public-domain NASA video[0]), and the content is removed immediately without giving the initial uploader a right to contest it (it can be restored laterº. A YouTube user has way fewer rights under ContentID than they do under the DMCA. If you are found in violation of ContentID, you must fight both YouTube and the claimant to have your case heard under the DMCA.<p>[0] <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/nasa-s-mars-rover-crashed-into-a-dmca-takedown" rel="nofollow">http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/nasa-s-mars-rover-crashed-i...</a>
SmarterEveryDay told a story in one of his videos about slow-mo clip of tatoo machine in action being ripped from one of his movies by the large press publisher, Bauer, and reuploaded on Bauer's Facebook page. Then Bauer moved on to claim DMCA on his original uploaded by him on his Facebook page:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A1Lt0kvMA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6A1Lt0kvMA</a>
Until there is a financial penalty for wrongful use of the DMCA this type of thing will continue.<p>They use robots to create reports (maybe not in this case) because for them there is simply zero downside.<p>That downside needs to exist.
On a similar note a Game YouTuber, Jim Sterling (Jimquistion), was frustrated that when he put out videos with some clips of video games or other movies, companies would come in and claim ownership and monetize his videos. He didn't like that since he wanted to be ad-free and these companies would essentially force his viewers to watch ads that he wouldn't even get any money for. These large companies didn't care because it's free money for them.<p>So he figured out how to get around stupid contentID flags. He put in clips of videos from different companies and spliced them into his videos. This caused a couple of companies to claim copyright over his video, but when there are multiple claimants for one video, Google's system doesn't give any of them any ad money. So in effect he gets to continue to use clips while not having any companies monetize his viewers.
There is no reason this kind of glitch should even be happening. There should be some kind of date attribute that gets attached to the ContentID data that Fox submits, and YouTube should reject takedowns for which that date is later than the date the video in question was uploaded. This is just ridiculous.
The currently implemented ContentID system isn't really at fault here. It is being effective in protecting Family Guy content appearing on Youtube. It looks at the reference video, analyzes it, and flags every video that matches the reference video by a certain percentage, and deals with it.<p>The real problem here is that FOX copied the exact contents of an existing 7-year old youtube video in their Family Guy episode (maybe the creators tried to give a tribute). The ContentID rules state that you should have exclusive rights to the content in a specific region, which they don't.<p>Thinking about this again, the ContentID system is also at fault here: it is blatantly ignoring the upload date for video's on youtube. I don't know how the ContentID system works, but you should at least give the date on which the copyright of the reference content (=Family Guy episode) starts. If FOX would try to upload the Family Guy episode, the ContentID system should give a warning that it uses already existing, older content. Now Youtube/Google, that can't be so hard to implement, now can it?<p>Also, Youtube should handle complaints from incorrect takedowns a bit better. Like keep a reputation on parties using the ContentID system. Say you start at 100. If you do incorrect takedowns, your reputation decreases. If you do correct takedowns, it rises (come up with some statistical efficient tool)_. If it falls below 50, you are excluded from the ContentID system for breaking the rules, or somebody could sue the party or something. Make it transparent (yearly report) to the public, so they can judge.
Youtube really needs to find a proper solution to this problem. But at least they acknowledge it and and are taking steps to improve.<p><a href="http://youtubecreator.blogspot.co.at/2016/04/improving-content-id-for-creators.html" rel="nofollow">http://youtubecreator.blogspot.co.at/2016/04/improving-conte...</a>
I know that my argument would not stand in court, but when I read this, it makes it harder for me to be against illegal downloading.<p>Although I prefer buying content directly from the artist, like Louis CK does. As long as it seems "fair", I buy.<p>That where piracy comes from: a rational argument about a skewed market.
Wow, I never considered the combination of a large broadcasting company that produces original content using sampled material from the internet and then automatically sending ContentID takedowns for said sampled content. It's like a takedown feedback loop.