I do admire just how perverse YouTube's solution for copyright law is. If they were accepting DMCA notices, they'd have the obligation to take note of counter-notices. If they were giving <i>control</i> of claimed videos to the claimants, then if someone filed a false claim against you, taking control of your video, <i>you</i> could then file a DMCA notice against the claimaint. But YouTube does neither of these things. Instead, they leave the video in your ostensible control, and just decide to give advertising revenue to someone who isn't you – which, as far as I can tell, doesn't mean that either YouTube or the claimant is technically infringing your copyright. It's brilliant bastardy.
YouTube's approach to takedowns is, simply put, appalling. I'm not just referring to the automated Content ID system, which has a vast catalog of false identification, but am talking about the manual, human confirmation of takedowns.<p>My 'favourite' (in the sense of most egregious) example of what I am talking about is the case where YouTube's Content ID flagged the sound of birds in someone's garden as being copyright infringing [1]. So far, par the course for a mistaken automatic identification. But the outrage comes after that: the copyright claimant (the notorious Rumblefish) reviewed the claim and confirmed that it was valid! In other words an actual human being looked at the video of someone in their garden, and confirmed the claim that the sound of the birds in the background was copyrighted. Actions like this are indefensible and highlight the outrageous monstrosity of YouTube's takedown system - -beyond Kafkaesque in its total disenfranchisement of users.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120227/00152917884/guy-gets-bogus-youtube-copyright-claim-birds-singing-background.shtml" rel="nofollow">https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120227/00152917884/guy-g...</a>
I filed a likeness claim where Youtube created a profile with a picture of me somehow and there was no way to delete it. The takedown request was rejected because they said the video was invalid, despite it not being a video and it being explained that it was a profile and Youtube itself had taken property that wasn't theirs. Eventually I found some email address I could file a complaint against with a picture of my DL and they took it down.<p>It seems like companies have their 99% cases that their systems are optimized for, but within the remaining 1% where they themselves are causing the problem or have a bug etc. the humans they hire can't understand simple things if they deviate an iota from what they're used to.
I absolutely love the level-headedness and honesty of this person. If I were in his shoes, I can only imagine how furious I would be at YouTube.<p>I hope this system can be fixed... At least, we need a more balanced playing field. Making it so easy and yet having practically no consequences to abuse the system is absurd. But, what can really be done? This is the system that various industries have been pushing super hard to get. I think DMCA also doesn't do nearly enough to dissuade abuse. Can we try to fix DMCA, too? Where do we begin?
It's great that YT did the right thing by giving him ownership back on their platform. The next thing would be to give him any money earned during the time it was wrongfully taken away and in dispute. That should not be dependent on having the asshats paying it back first. YT messed up, so they need to make it right all the way.
Moderation is really the ultimate scalability problem. I have some level of sympathy for the predicament YouTube is in, but I really hope the system can be redesigned.<p>I've never seen (keyword: seen) a press release or article about how an individual / group of DMCA abusers of this sort was arrested. Why can't this be taken more seriously as a form of fraud, and why can't these people be gone after? Sure, you can obfuscate your real IP when making a takedown request, but they have to receive the money somewhere.
It’s unfortunate but that’s the reality of centralized content and product platforms (YouTube, Amazon, AppStore etc) - they are often used to squiz out competition using bogus claims, as much as allow for distribution channels.<p>Better strategy is to continue supporting open web and host content or products you care about on your own.
Just asking, but didn't the company falsely accusing him of copyright infringement slander him? The damage can be shown in the money he lost out on, but I mean I guess his reputation is also damaged with Google by the accusation. It was definitely a realistic accusation that someone might believe as Google evidently believed it.
Does anyone think ramjets is going around doing this with multiple videos and making thousands of dollars as a result?<p>Could be the new scam. I bet people out there are going to be doing this to make tons of money until youtube smartens up.
So what's stopping this guy from making a new account and claiming the video back? Should creators claim their own videos so they can't be claimed by others?