At Universal's Request, YouTube Yanks News Podcast Over Music Snippet

Snaller writes "Tech News Today does what the name says — it's a podcast reporting on Tech news, Monday to Friday. They, like Slashdot, reported on the Megaupload vs. Universal copyright dispute. But during their coverage, they played a snippet of the music video and immediately Universal Music Group had the news podcast yanked from YouTube. Tech News Today has outlets other than YouTube, but should a music company have the right to have a news podcast removed on copyright grounds, when it's not even clear that said company has had any copyrights violated?"

Punish unjust copyright claims

[ZorroXXX]

The only way to make these kinds of problems go away is to make it illegal and punishable to claim copyright on something that you do not own the copyright for.

No

[klingens]

It obviously doesn't have the right. It's fair use for the purpose of reporting news.

This is simple collateral damage when you use software to automatically flag copyright violations and then act on that software's flagging automatically too cause humans are simply too expensive to police it all manually. Happens all the time. All the usual slashdot tropes of printers which do torrents, grandmas that get notices, openoffice that gets removed from ftp servers, etc.

Youtube and your mail client's spamfilter have the same problem: false positives. Both use an automated system to flag violations of policy and in both cases it mostly works but never 100%. You cannot demand from youtube or the RIAA to flag it all manually, just like you can't really flag all your spam manually: if you do, either Youtube goes out of business cause their business model does not allow that many employees and still serve you videos for "free". Or the major labels go out of business since they have to hire people to police youtube and demand even more per song. I'm sure many /.ers would like this 2nd outcome but it's not really realistic or actually desirable either.

So Tech News should alert youtube to unblock their video and move on. Oh I forgot: better to post it to slashdot frontpage so Tech News can get a few thousand more hits! Genius! The RIAA is evil after all.

Music Video Irrelevant

[Vegemeister]

The copyright status of the clip used is irrelevant. The situation is this: Media conglomerates have been given editorial control of Youtube, subject only to the ability of posters to retain high-priced legal counsel. They can and do use these powers to further their own agenda.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[jythie]

*nods* that is the major flaw.. there are no consequences for fraudulent takedowns.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[BigSlowTarget]

Civil: Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Incorporated - Diebold sued for false DMCA and paid $125k.

Even if it were more possible, do you really think anyone would criminally prosecute a large company for just a false DMCA? Prosecutors gain nothing from that and just waste their resources for a minor offense against a company's major legal team. The end result would just end up being angering potential donors to political campaigns except when those donors encouraged prosecution of small copyright holders too poor to afford good lawyers.

Re:No

[SoTerrified]

cause humans are simply too expensive to police it all manually.

This is ridiculous. That's like saying everyone arrested should just be considered guilty and sentenced because it's simply too expensive to have trials for everyone. Yes, our courts are jammed and yes, trials are a burden, but the alternative is simply unacceptable.

So why is this any different?

Re:And this is why SOPA is so terrifying

[VanGarrett]

Indeed, because I know so many people that use podcasts on YouTube as alternatives to buying CDs. Doesn't everyone?

Re:No

[cheekyjohnson]

If they don't want to do it manually, then too bad for them. I'd rather let real violations go than allow them to send take down notices at random.

Re:DMCA Gives the Right

[Rob the Bold]

I have often wondered what would happen if people started filing DMCA takedown notices by the millions on major websites against the big content producers. There doesn't seem to be any penalty for filing bogus notices.

If individuals started doing this, I assure you there would be consequences for them. The feds, the MPAAs and RIAAs and their members, and even YouTube itself understands that this law can be abused, but that privilege is for the modern nobility, not the masses.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[SuricouRaven]

Fair use is a defence: The burden is on the defendant to prove fair use.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[heathen_01]

Why the fuck do you allow corporates to donate to political parties?

Re:Fair Use?

[SuricouRaven]

Same as always. Fair use is a perfectly valid defence, providing you are willing to spend a huge pile of money hireing lawyers and going to court over it. That's just how it usually works with the legal system: People have as many rights as they can afford to defend, and no more.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[malilo]

Well "we" didn't allow it, the assholes on the supreme court did. Unfortunate, to say the least.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[Lumpy]

Because rich assholes like to support other rich assholes at the cost of freedom for the poor schleps.

It's been this way for centuries here.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair Use is not merely a defense. That is the copyright maximalist spin. The law (remember it?) specifically states that Fair Use is a limitation on the scope of the copyright; that is, if something is Fair Use, the artificial monopoly recipient never had a monopoly over that use in the first place.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[David Chappell]

In this case, they did ask that something they have the copyright to be taken down.

Actually, Universal only claims to have copyright to the first video. This seems unlikely since the video is a criticism of Universal. Now they have taken down a video that is a news report on their disputed claim to the first video. Use of short clips to illustrate a news report is such a classic case of fair use that no rights holder can claim to be unaware that the use is lawful. A takedown request is either grossly incompetent or malicious.

What Megaupload has done here is brilliant. They have baited Universal into conducting a dramatic live demonstration of the dangers of giving copyright holder unilateral takedown powers.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[Grishnakh]

George Bush was voted IN, not out. He served two terms, the maximum allowed by law, and then someone else was voted in because Bush wasn't allowed to run any more, by law.

He's talking about Obama, who in practice isn't any different from Bush in most ways, and is even more in the pocket of Hollywood and the copyright cartels, along with his buddy Biden.

Re:And this is why SOPA is so terrifying

[L4t3r4lu5]

Find the lyrics, sing them yourself, and auto-tune it.

It's what Big Media is doing nowadays anyway.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[Dog-Cow]

It's been this way forever

FTFY.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[Asmodae]

Sure there's a reasonable alternative. Nobody is allowed to donate. Campaign sizes are fixed, and provided for. Fixed and equal amounts of airtime/debate time for everyone who gets enough signatures. Equating monetary donations to speech is where the problem starts. I don't necessarily think that's wrong, but it opens too many floodgates that you can't really close in an equitable manner.

Re:Punish unjust copyright claims

[jahudabudy]

I would. It's clear that any group whose primary purpose is to advance the financial well-being of it's members is going to participate in the political process only where there is a perceived financial benefit to doing so. This perverts the political process. Ban it all.