"Internet's Own Boy" Briefly Knocked Off YouTube With Bogus DMCA Claim 157
An anonymous reader writes "In a bitter irony, a documentary celebrating Aaron Swartz, the late Internet activist who helped create the Creative Commons, has been taken down from YouTube by a misguided copyright claim." From the article: [O]ne of the dark sides of how copyright is enforced on the Internet is that sites that don't actually infringe are sometimes mistakenly swept up in rightsholders' takedown notices, which are frequently automated. Visitors who tried to watch The Internet's Own Boy on YouTube Friday were greeted by the message, "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Remove Your Media LLC," a reference to a company that specializes in sending copyright takedowns in accordance with the law that governs them, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). It's not clear who made the claim, but that's not the point—as activists are all too aware, false copyright claims can can knock legitimate content offline.
Re:and... (Score:5, Informative)
Read a DMCA claim wording _carefully_.
What is sworn under penalty of perjury is that you are, or are authorised to act for, the copyright owner of the allegedly infringed work, and that the other info in the notice is correct (which is I believe merely the location of infringed and allegedly infringing works, and your contact details). The notice is also an allegation of infringement hence you are swearing that you have made an allegation.
What you are not doing is swearing that the allegation of infringement is in any way correct - that can only properly be decided by a court anyway.
Or to put it another way:
1. I allege the moon is made of jelly
2. I swear under penalty of perjury that I have alleged that the moon is made of jelly
1 + 2 = No perjury committed - even though everyone _knows_ that the moon is in fact made of cheese...
Re:Requirements for a DMCA takedown. (Score:5, Informative)
What's really needed (short of scrapping the whole thing) is to change the law so that DMCA takedowns must be of the form "I declare under penalty of perjury that I am the owner of this copyrighted material, and it is being used here in violation of my copyright." And start putting some of these bastards in jail for perjury if they keep this crap up.
That's how the DMCA is already written. The problem is the lack of enforcement, not the law.
Refresh my memory... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Requirements for a DMCA takedown. (Score:4, Informative)
Except the DMCA is *NOT* written like that.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc... [cornell.edu]
The relevant portion:
(3) ELEMENTS OF NOTIFICATION
(A) To be effective under this subsection, a notification of claimed infringement must be a written communication provided to the designated agent of a service provider that includes substantially the following:
(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site.
(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material.
(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted.
(v) A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Notice the wording of section VI: A Statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY, THAT THE COMPLAINING PARTY IS AUTHORIZED TO ACT...
The only part of any of that in a DMCA takedown is a statement under penalty of perjury that you are actually authorized to send DMCA by the owner of the material you are saying this infringes against. There is no perjury on any other portion of it, including the good faith, or accuracy notification.
This law was written specifically this way to protect any agent of copyright holders from mistakes and/or malice.
Re:Pick up that can (Score:4, Informative)
But Youtube was supposed to change the world! Time magazine said it did! Instead, it and all other things like it are just another channel by which the major content providers are allowed to provide you with content. Consume, citizen!
The DMCA requirements for good-faith are too lenient, clearly, if this many false-positives are allowed to continue. Google won't push back, it's not good business. And we won't stop using Youtube, ever.
The Internet was allowed to be free only until there was money to be made.