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Fox 'Stole' a Game Clip, Used It In Family Guy and DMCA'd the Original (torrentfreak.com) 311

An anonymous reader shares a TorrentFreak report: This week's episode of Family Guy included a clip from 1980s Nintendo video game Double Dribble showing a glitch to get a free 3-point goal. Perhaps surprisingly the game glitch is absolutely genuine and was documented in a video that was uploaded to YouTube by a user called 'sw1tched' back in February 2009. 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. Perhaps YouTube should also be blamed for this.
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Fox 'Stole' a Game Clip, Used It In Family Guy and DMCA'd the Original

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  • Ok, why? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by drakaan ( 688386 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:04PM (#52149395) Homepage Journal
    Why should YouTube also be blamed for this? Why should they be blamed for following the takedown process that the MPAA/RIAA forced upon them?
    • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:21PM (#52149541)

      Why should they be blamed for following the takedown process that the MPAA/RIAA forced upon them?

      Did the MPAA/RIAA force Youtube to make it as easy as they did? Admittedly, I would probably just not care and give them an automated system as well, but I still think that deserves some blame.

      • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Informative)

        by drakaan ( 688386 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:40PM (#52149713) Homepage Journal
        See my reply to Stolpskott. It's not about caring, its about resources. There are a huge number of videos getting posted and a huge number of takedown requests.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          I never understood this argument. Google literally has TENS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CASH. They have plenty of resources. They just choose not to spend it. Ridiculous.
          • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Calydor ( 739835 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:07PM (#52149947)

            Do you know the real trick to getting rich and staying rich?

            It is not spending more money than you have to.

            In another article a few days ago I saw someone who did the math; apparently Google would have to employ 56,000 people JUST to monitor uploaded Youtube clips in real time. Let's say they get a pitiful 20,000 dollars a year each for staring non-stop at inane video clips (many of which would likely be trolling uploads of Tubgirl, Two Girls One Cup etc.), that amounts to approximately 1.1 BILLION dollars per year.

            Just to avoid something like this happening too often.

            • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

              by akpoff ( 683177 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:18PM (#52150043) Homepage
              Sure, but the algorithm could be a bit smarter. In this case, checking the post date of the alleged infringing video against the air date of the Family Guy episode would be enough to suspect it's not infringing.
              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                by Calydor ( 739835 )

                I'm not sure that's data that even gets sent in the DMCA notice or complaint or whatever it's called. I am pretty sure (though not from any kind of experience, so here's a grain of salt so you don't have to take your own) it just goes "We have determined this video infringes on our stuff. Get rid of it."

              • Re:Ok, why? (Score:4, Interesting)

                by mythosaz ( 572040 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:44PM (#52150287)

                Fox could easily air material owned by them produced well before the date of a YouTube video - something they purchased from the archives or another company, or featuring music recorded decades ago - thus rendering simple date checking useless.

              • Re:Ok, why? (Score:4, Interesting)

                by Travis Mansbridge ( 830557 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @03:36PM (#52151077)
                Actually, the way the DMCA is written, YouTube is supposed to follow the DMCA takedown request essentially blindly while any appeals are supposed to be filed by the user directly. I feel the same way as you, though, that the site hosting the material should have some responsibility. I'm sure the MPAA feels something similar about YouTube's responsibility for infringing content..
                • I'm sure the MPAA feels something similar about YouTube's responsibility for infringing content

                  Based on recent complaints from both the MPAA and RIAA, they want youtube and other similar sites to hold posted content until it's verified to be non-infringing.

              • You give big data waaaaaaaaaaay too much credit. Because ultimately that's what we're talking about, comparing a video in a DMCA request to a potential excerpt of something that needs to first be identified, then checked against potentially hundreds of databases to find the correct air-date.

                A much better example would be to actually take this into account in the DMCA laws in the first place. Require people submit all this information. Require all defendants to provide a reply within a reasonable time before

            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              by Lumpy ( 12016 )

              "Do you know the real trick to getting rich and staying rich?"

              Yes I do, you lie cheat and steal it from poor people. Yes that is EXACTLY what all these companies do. Workers are exploited at unfair wages and work hours, pricing set to the MAXIMUM that people will pay, etc...

              You get really rich by being an asshole, or winning the lottery with blind luck. Those are the only TWO ways of doing it. Nobody ever got rich by working hard and saving money.

              • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Interesting)

                by Onuma ( 947856 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @03:35PM (#52151059)
                Nearly half of all lottery winners go bust within 5 years of receiving their winnings. They might be rich, but it is only in a very transient sense; it's not wealth.

                You're basically inserting your "fairness" bullshit into an economic argument. It's sanctimonious, and reeks of someone who has no idea about economics, business, or capitalism.

                What is fair? Who determines the price of a product or service? Who determines wages?

                You can find many examples of extraordinarily wealthy entrepreneurs who began with little or nothing, worked diligently, saved money, and started their businesses leading to [eventual] success. The fact that you have not done so belies your entire, weak argument.
          • by Altrag ( 195300 )

            Try this: Pull out a $100 bill. Place it in front of your computer. Go to sleep.

            How much code was written when you wake up the next day? Dollars aren't "resources." They can be used to pay for resources, but in and of themselves, dollars are pretty useless things.

            Secondly, assets aren't cash. Google might be worth 10s of billions of dollars on paper, but unless they're willing to sell all of their IP, all of their buildings, fire all of their employees, etc, I'd be willing to bet the amount in the bac

      • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Informative)

        by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:20PM (#52150067) Homepage

        If it wasn't Youtube's own Content ID system, FOX could probably be sued for issuing a false takedown notice. Maybe they still could. Hiring a hit man makes you no less guilty of murder.

    • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Stolpskott ( 2422670 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:23PM (#52149565)

      Mainly for failing to perform any checks to see if the party filing the DMCA notice actually has the authority (i.e. copyright ownership) to be able to enforce the notice.
      However, such checks would go a long way toward invalidating the defense used by media companies who abuse the DMCA provisions when faced with such patently absurd filings - that they filed this specific request in error as a result of a failure of an automated reporting system, and that nobody at the media company making the filing was aware that the filing was incorrect. In the meantime, sanctions related to the number of DMCA notices received against content uploaded by specific accounts remains triggered even when many/most of the notices are shown to be bogus/in error, meaning that there is no incentive for the media companies to change and there are no satisfactory mechanisms in place for small uploaders to recover their content/challenge the behaviour.

      • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drakaan ( 688386 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:32PM (#52149649) Homepage Journal
        Which is a great idea, if you can afford to employ enough people to do that. The rightsholders should be responsible for screening their takedown requests. The problem is that there's no limit placed on the supposed rightsholders to prevent them from abusing the system for automated takedowns without reviewing them first. Again, that was forced on YouTube by the rights agencies. Again, why blame YouTube?
        • I am not really impacted by DMCA, so I don't know the details, but does DMCA explicitly state that the ISP/hosting company may not charge any fees for handling DMCA requests? If not, Google should just work out what it would cost to have some manual verification of eqch request, and make that the fee.

          But, I guess this is probably not an option because the mafia would have claimed that there are so many more infringers than content owners that they would go bankrupt if they had to pay a nominal (e.g. $5 fee)

          • The only problem is that the system would favor people who can afford to pay, and those who can't end up not reporting their stolen content.

        • In this particular case, it /could/ be automated if Google simply required the DMCA filer to provide the date of the copyright they say is being violated. In this case, this weekend > 2009, so clearly the claim is false. Could they not refuse on those grounds?

          Additionally, can this guy not file a DMCA notice with Fox itself, forcing them to take that episode of Family Guy off any of their streaming services until it went to court?

      • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:46PM (#52149765)
        The DMCA doesn't require the party filing the DMCA notice to provide YouTube a copy of the original so they can compare. All it requires is that they claim they own the legal copyright that the other work is infringing.

        The problem is that the DMCA (being written by the copyright industry for the copyright industry) provides no punishment, no discouragement for invalid claims. The only punishment is if the filing party knows they don't own the copyright but files the claim anyway. That is, the filing party can always say "I thought I owned the copyright, but I guess I was wrong" and get away with it without even having to say "I'm sorry." That's what's led to the copyright industry filing DMCA claims willy nilly with little regard for accuracy.
        • Re:Ok, why? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by amicusNYCL ( 1538833 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:06PM (#52149943)

          The problem is that the DMCA (being written by the copyright industry for the copyright industry) provides no punishment, no discouragement for invalid claims.

          That's true, that's the problem. There's a solution, though. Google has a net income of over $16 billion and a market cap of almost $500 billion. I would love for them to put up an 8 figure bounty to a lobbying firm that can get sane copyright laws pushed through Congress.

          The current situation is a great example. Any human at Fox, when faced with this case, would admit that they do not own the copyright. But they're using software which doesn't know the difference. The software is sure that they own the copyright, because it was programmed like that, so why shouldn't Fox get hit with a penalty if they're using that software knowingly? If they don't want a penalty, then they need smarter software. They need a way of identifying their own source material with a series of flags which says which sections they do and do not own the copyright on, and smarter software to look at those and skip the sections where they can't enforce copyright. Otherwise, there needs to be a penalty in the DMCA for people or companies submitting repeated false positives. One penalty could be that section about the penalties for not immediately removing the material are waived for all complaints submitted by the party in question, pending a formal review of the submitted complaint. Maybe a year to respond to the initial complaint would be a good starting point.

          • The software is sure that they own the copyright, because it was programmed like that, so why shouldn't Fox get hit with a penalty if they're using that software knowingly?

            It's called plausible deniability. If they don't verify it before filing, they can legally claim ignorance. That's what needs to be fixed in the law. If you use an automated tool, you should be required to make an attempt at due diligence before you can come back later and claim ignorance.

            • The law should just be structured so that any submission needs to be done with a "good faith" understanding that you own the copyright. It then moves the burden of determining that to the people filing the complaints. Any complaint received will be assumed to be a good faith complaint. If the people filing the complaints are using substandard software to identify content and file complaints without human intervention, then that's their problem and they should get penalized for filing invalid complaints.

      • by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:55PM (#52149825) Journal

        > [Youtube should be blamed] mainly for failing to perform any checks to see if the party filing the DMCA notice actually has the authority

        That's not the way the law works. Under DMCA, Youtube isn't the judge and jury, they don't have any subjective decisions they are allowed to make. Youtube has little to no choice here. Here's the process that the DMCA law specifies:

        1. Complainant notifies hoster (youtube) that they claim infringement.
        2. Youtube may immediately contact respondent (uploader).
        3. Youtube temporarily disables the content.
        4. Respondent may send Youtube a counter-notice, saying that they dispute the original DMCA notice.
        5. Upon receiving counter-notice, Youtube re-enables the content.
        6. Complainant may file suit in federal court (expensive).

        The process is pretty well set in stone by law. The one place where Youtube has some choice to make is that they have to disable/remove the content "quickly", but how quickly? A host can choose to contact the uploader and give them 24 hours to counter-notice before removal, or they can remove it right away and put it back when they get a counter-notice.

        I wish more people understood the counter-notice part, meaning the content goes right back up if you dispute the notice. You just reply saying "this notice must have been sent by mistake" and sign it (forms are available online). If more people understood about counter-notices and an amendment to the law added statutory damages for reckless filing of improper notices, the system would probably work pretty well. As it is, reckless notices aren't penalized enough to matter, and most people seem to think that there's nothing they can do if they are on the wrong end of an erroneous notice. Just send back a counter-notice. You don't have to argue your case, just state that you think the notice is wrong and leave it at that.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I wish more people understood the counter-notice part, meaning the content goes right back up if you dispute the notice. You just reply saying "this notice must have been sent by mistake" and sign it (forms are available online). If more people understood about counter-notices and an amendment to the law added statutory damages for reckless filing of improper notices, the system would probably work pretty well.

          Except that's not how it actually works. YouTube received a bogus takedown notice for a video I posted (someone decided they didn't like me and just wanted to be a prick). I filed a counter-claim and it was ignored and there was no response to the e-mails I sent asking about it.

      • Mainly for failing to perform any checks to see if the party filing the DMCA notice actually has the authority (i.e. copyright ownership) to be able to enforce the notice.
        However, such checks would go a long way toward invalidating the defense used by media companies who abuse the DMCA provisions when faced with such patently absurd filings - that they filed this specific request in error as a result of a failure of an automated reporting system, and that nobody at the media company making the filing was aware that the filing was incorrect. In the meantime, sanctions related to the number of DMCA notices received against content uploaded by specific accounts remains triggered even when many/most of the notices are shown to be bogus/in error, meaning that there is no incentive for the media companies to change and there are no satisfactory mechanisms in place for small uploaders to recover their content/challenge the behaviour.

        This is probably the worst part. Automated tools are fine, but you need to pass it by real humans for review before submitting claims.

        In this case, the automated tool should have raised a red flag that the violation was uploaded years before the work in question even existed, which is impossible...unless the work is the scammer!

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Mainly for failing to perform any checks to see if the party filing the DMCA notice actually has the authority

        Stop.
        If you host content for other people, are an ISP, etc. then you are required to comply with the initial take-down notice unless you want to become liable.
        Then the uploader can file a counter-claim, and get the content reinstated.
        Then the original filer can pursue further action if they want.

        The problem with youtube, is that as soon as you receive a DMCA notice you get a 'strike' against you.
        What should happen is you should receive no penalty until the period for contesting the DMCA order passes.
        If you

        • > "Your video has been subject to a DMCA claim, filed by someone who has been identified as submitting excessive numbers of fraudulent or unproven claims. Contact our legal department at xxx for assistance."

          Or better yet "click here to automatically file a counter-claim using our one-click-counter-claim feature". Of course, Amazon them would probable sue Google because Jeff Bozos thinks he owns anything "one click".

    • Re:Ok, why? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:27PM (#52149595) Homepage

      Youtube makes takedowns exceptionally easy, but the process of getting a video put back up can take months and there are no repercussions for a bad takedown.

      Remember the other part of the DMCA safe harbor bits -- you need to take the video down immediately, but if the person says to put it back up, it becomes squarely that person's legal issue, not Youtube's. Youtube is not adequately capturing this workflow.

      Then again, it's not clear if these takedowns are actual DMCA requests or if it's just an agreement Youtube has. I know that Youtube supports both.

    • by c ( 8461 )

      Why should YouTube also be blamed for this?

      There's enough history to suggest that DMCA complaints from these idiots should go directly into the "known abusers, extra scrutiny required" pile.

      • They could retaliate by turning off Fox's or $OtherDMCAAbusers' official feeds, and be well within their rights claiming acceptable use policy violations.

    • What I really wanna see is Nintendo sue Fox for copyright violation. Let them pick on someone their own size.

    • My understanding is that they didn't even get a DMCA notice from Fox. Content ID is to blame IIUC. I haven't been able to find anything definite but this quote seems to suggest that and I've seen other comments about this story that seem to back that up...

      "It's most likely that this is just another example of YouTubeâ(TM)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 â" and in this case they took down the footage they stole from an independent creator," Lyon says.

      Lyon referring to Jeff Lyon, the CTO of Fight for the Future [fightforthefuture.org].

      Is anyone really sure that Fox issued a notice and that this isn't just another example of Content ID failing miserably?

    • YouTube is setup to be nearly one sided towards the takedown requests. There are many fair use usage where they are taken down. Where the poster is unable to operate their business. Such as Movie reviewers.
      As far as I see it, they are making you guilty until you can prove you innocence.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      The problem is that often these false takedown notices are made against people who are using youtube as a legitimate source of invome. Youtube will redirect all monetisation from your video with the fake takedown notice into the pockets of the person who made the fake takedown notice. There are other issue with these trikes blocking content creators from posting videos. Youtube are also impossible to contact and never respond to any inquiries about a false takedown notice. The whole system effectively just
  • Payback (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tnk1 ( 899206 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:05PM (#52149407)

    The only right and proper response is, when the original video returns to YouTube, to DMCA the Fox video. It will likely last a microsecond due to Fox lawyers being all over it, but they deserve to have to deal with that shit.

    • Re:Payback (Score:4, Funny)

      by wardrich86 ( 4092007 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:08PM (#52149433)
      Is the original video monetized? He should sue them for $5.5 million dollars, since he lost out on potential views and revenue.
      • Re:Payback (Score:4, Interesting)

        by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:40PM (#52150249) Homepage

        Nintendo has been stealing/claiming ad revenue for recently made gameplay videos. I wouldn't draw any attention to myself if I was hosting a Nintendo gameplay video.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          The trick is to add some infringing content from a company that doesn't allow monetization. For example, Blizzard allows infringing videos but doesn't allow you to turn on the monetization (adverts). So stick 30 seconds of WoW on the end of the video, to ensure that their robots flag your video as "no monetization".

          That way even when Nintendo claims your video they won't be able to turn on the ads. The video stays up, ad free.

    • The owner of the video (i.e. the guy that posted it to Youtube) can and hopefully will file a counter-notice. Youtube is then obliged by law to reinstate the deleted material in a reasonable time frame. The ball is then in Fox' court; their recourse is to file a copyright infringement suit. In reality, the threat of being suid in court by Fox is enough to deter the owner of the video to file a counter-notice... if it was me, I would think long and hard before entering into such a battle (in the US anyway
      • Not only would I do the counter-notice here in the US, I would self-represent in court if they were stupid enough to take it that far. Most judges would kick it out just after looking at the file dates. But it's doubtful that their lawyers would be stupid enough to let it get to court.

        • I wouldn't just file counter notice, I'd file a counter-suit saying that they infringed on MY copyright.

      • Re:Payback (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Sloppy ( 14984 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:27PM (#52150135) Homepage Journal

        The owner of the video (i.e. the guy that posted it to Youtube) can and hopefully will file a counter-notice. Youtube is then obliged by law to reinstate the deleted material in a reasonable time frame.

        That is incorrect (in US; I don't know about NL).

        After the counter-notice, Youtube can reinstate the material and they'll be free of liability to Fox. But that's all. DMCA [cornell.edu] does not contain anything requiring service providers to provide services to users. Youtube wasn't even required to provide hosting to sw1tched before the fraudulent notice, and the notice didn't magically give sw1tched new rights to hosting services.

        A big part of the point of the notice/counternotice stuff is to give companies like Youtube a way out of being too involved in the battle between Fox and sw1tched. They want to be "just the messenger" and their concerns are primarily what this part of the law was intended to address.

    • Youtube should recognise that Fox is not exercising due diligence before making use of its automated take down system. Thus Fox should no longer be allowed to use automatic take down. I believe that the DMCA process involves some statement of truth; Fox is abusing the courts should take note.

  • Release the hounds (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:07PM (#52149419)

    Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a kickstarter to fund legal action against Fox.

    If the video owner can catch them for the copyright infringement they can hammer them for Perjury for the DMCA notice.

    • by Halo1 ( 136547 )

      Sounds like a perfect opportunity for a kickstarter to fund legal action against Fox.

      If the video owner can catch them for the copyright infringement they can hammer them for Perjury for the DMCA notice.

      The problem is that they did not commit perjury regarding the DMCA notice. In the context of a DMCA notice, the only thing that must be true is that you own the copyright to the material you claim that is being infringed. Whether or not the allegedly infringing material actually infringes (and whether you could/should have known this), is irrelevant as far as the DMCA perjury clause is concerned.

      It does make me wonder why there haven't been any public DMCA take down campaigns aimed against big companies yet

      • by tepples ( 727027 )

        Copyright in the clip likely belongs to Konami, the developer of Double Dribble. But don't break out your #FUCKONAMI just yet, as we don't know the terms of any agreement that may exist between Fox and Konami.

  • This Often Happens (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cyriustek ( 851451 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:10PM (#52149451)

    DMCA is used far too often for things that do not make sense. The only people that really profit from it all is the lawyers, especially in a case like this where there is evidence of prior art.

    Shame on Fox. Shame on MPAA. Shame on RIAA. Shame on all of the Congress critters for creating this legal pile of excrement.

    • by jeti ( 105266 )
      Most often, it makes perfect sense. It's not that the DMCA is carelessly used against all works with a similar title. It's abused to clear the search results of other works.
  • These can be fought. (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I upload for preservation. Some Italian music group filed a DMCA against it. Turns out some duo had lifted a major section of the intro (all of one video file on the psx) for their mix.

    I disputed in a rant and they rescinded the notice.

  • by pr0t0 ( 216378 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:11PM (#52149461)

    This shit is getting out of hand. Someone has to stop this, and as I'm typing this rant, I feel YouTube has capability and responsibility to do so.

  • by H3lldr0p ( 40304 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:13PM (#52149473) Homepage

    If I were to download a song and listen to it in the privacy of my own home/car/phone at work, I would be liable for a lot of money damages. But Fox gets to take a clip from YouTube, put it into a very successful commercial show and then turn around and claim that it came from them in the first place AND suffer no financial damage.

    Interesting. It's like the law has been twisted so that it only benefits the wealthy and well-to-do.

  • by QuietLagoon ( 813062 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:20PM (#52149537)
    Congress. Because it was Congress that was purchased by the media industry, and told by their media industry overlords to pass over-reaching digital restriction laws.
  • Not only can robots not detect fair use, nor they cannot detect when the work is used with the permission of the copyright owner neither where the company running the robot does not own the copyright but is using it with permission nor where the work is being used with the permission of the robot's owners.

  • No need for quotes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:45PM (#52149751) Homepage Journal

    There is no need to quote stole here. Fox has not only copied the video (which would justify the quotes), they have asserted ownership of the work (actual theft).

    It's funny how it's primarily the entities that whine about infringement and call it theft that commit the actual thefts.

    • Because in their mind they own anything anyway. What's mine is mine, and what's yours is mine, and if you complain here's 10 lawyers that blanket you with lawsuits 'til you cry uncle.

      Fuck them. If terrorists cared for good PR, they'd pick different targets.

  • Where is the doubt?

  • Then Fox is guilty of perjury as they do not have the rights to that clip regardless of whether they used it in their show. Nintendo is the only party that could legally issue the takedown.
  • Host your own shit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @12:59PM (#52149867)

    If everyone hosted their own content from their own systems we wouldn't have these problems. If the demand existed we would trivially have the capability to publish easily. Sane naming and caching architectures either P2P and or hosted by ISPs that don't discriminate and play favorites like current CDNs would be widely deployed to facilitate distribution.

    The more everyone sucks on the teet of big content to do EVERYTHING for them the more the Internet becomes Cable TV. The more capabilities are not exercised the more impossible and outlandish it seems to do anything for yourself.

    While youtube is convenient the opportunity costs in allowing a handful of companies to own a majority of eyeballs and bandwidth are enormous.

    The very premise of the Internet is that it is a network of PEERS not a network of SPECTATORS.

    • I wish I had mod points, because WaffleMonster speaks the truth! The buttery, sticky truth!

      Everyone needs to go back to Internet 1.5, where we hosted our own sites..Bring back Webrings! lol

    • If everyone hosted their own content from their own systems we wouldn't have these problems

      Yes and no. They'll either issue the DMCA notice to the hosting company or your ISP if you run your server directly. And then your whole web site goes offline.

      It's true that it's harder to scan the entire Internet vs. a monolithic video hosting service. But that's not a fundamental difference.

    • The very premise of the Internet is that it is a network of PEERS

      In practice, three factors killed this premise:

      Dial-up networking
      The characteristics of Internet access over POTS and ISDN encouraged users to connect only when viewing documents or when posting them to a better-connected server.
      Asymmetric home connections
      ADSL is generally always on, unlike POTS and ISDN. But it offers upstream throughput unsuitable for serving documents to the same extent that one views documents, again encouraging people to post them to a better-connected server. And some DSL ISPs, too ac
  • It seems that it's the ContentID system, not DCMA takedown notices, that caused the clip to be pulled. ContentID is a pre-emptive system built by Google, as part of a settlement with Viacom

    One should note it was Konami, not the uploader, who made Double Dribble. So, it's entirely possible that Konami gave permission to Family Guy and/or Konami got the clip taken down.

    "Whether Fox can do that and legally show the clip in an episode is a matter for the experts to argue" is a scary statement. It seems like

  • EXCLUSIVE BUY TIP!!! ALL TAYLOR SWIFT MERCHANDISE!!!

    Taylor Swift's ongoing campaign to defend her brand, boot Etsy items with containing lyrics [buzzfeed.com] and shut down merchants selling unlicensed merchandise and destroy their wares [cbslocal.com] has had a surprising and completely unintended effect: it appears the original has been destroyed in the confusion.

    "Have you seen Taylor? Tell her to call her agent right away. We're worried."

    Asked how Taylor could have been destroyed... how an actual human being might possibly have joine

  • Golden Rule (Score:4, Funny)

    by hughbar ( 579555 ) on Friday May 20, 2016 @01:22PM (#52150083) Homepage
    The golden rule has just operated perfectly, to wit: those who have the gold make the rules.
  • I think sw1tched might just have some nice royalties coming now.

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

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