Google Blocking Video for Big Business

The key to this, clearly, is starting a GloNo viral video site. Until someone offers you a cool bil and you sell out to the man, as well.

remove the sound so theres no copytight issue? i wouldnt wanna hear that hack anyways

lol, i remember reading about a week ago that sony bmg got contacted by one of those remove content services for a video the record company itself uploaded to youtube. figures that they have no sense of how rediculous this is.

The EFF is suing these motherfuckers for similiar abuses of bullshit copyright claims.

"Copyright abuse can shut down online artists, political analysts, or -- as in this case -- ordinary families who simply want to share snippets of their day-to-day lives," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Universal must stop making groundless infringement claims that trample on fair use and free speech."

The lawsuit asks for a declaratory judgment that Lenz's home video does not infringe any Universal copyright, as well as damages and injunctive relief restraining Universal from bringing further copyright claims in connection with the video.

And they're winning cases!

• Jake, Jul 26, 2007 8:08PM ∞

PS - The problem here isn't really in the hands of Google/YouTube. User-driven sites and ISPs are obligated under the DMCA to take down anything that gets complained about, until the claim is provn invalid. Shoot first, ask questions later. Or as Xeni Jardin puts it, "The DMCA is so poorly conceived and written that even the nuttiest, most deranged of trolls can abuse it into silencing constitutionally-protected online speech."

The law needs to be changed. Until then, this will continue to happen. Unless, of course, the EFF keeps winning cases and some badass judges award some serious punitive damages against the bastards filing bogus claims...

• Jake, Jul 26, 2007 10:03PM ∞

There was a big issue on YouTube not too long ago involving some footage of the Sadies & Neko Case from a performance on one of the late night talk shows. Bloodshot Records kept putting it up and the network (NBC I think) kept demanding it be taken down. Shouldn't the record label have more authority than the venue?

Well, I'm pretty sure the network owns the broadcast rights. But it's still stupid. They're certainly not protecting the artist by taking down those clips.

I can (sort of) see the argument that maybe people won't watch the program on TV if they know they can find the part they want to see (ad-free) on the internet... So they fear a decrease in viewership.

But in reality the opposite is true: Look at SNL and the "Lazy Sunday" clip. Most (younger) people had given up on SNL before that clip shot around the internet. Its ratings went up after that.

• Jake, Jul 27, 2007 10:10AM ∞

YouTube talks to MTV re: pulling the Beyonce clips:

According to YouTube, users posting their footage of Beyoncé's fall were guilty of infringement because "even if [they] took the video [themselves], the performer controls the right to use his/her image in a video, the songwriter owns the rights to the song being performed and sometimes the venue prohibits filming without permission."

Two words: FAIR fucking USE.

• Jake, Jul 27, 2007 3:27PM ∞