Category: Law

YouTube’s Content ID Easily Fooled

When people talk about effective ways to mitigate the impact of online piracy, YouTube’s Content ID is often used as an example of what works. Unfortunately, despite its role as poster boy for anti-piracy tech, in reality it falls flat as a gatekeeper against online piracy.

Aside from a labyrinth-like user interface that seems likely to have been designed–not to help– but to discourage rights holders from using Content ID, the actual fingerprinting technology behind it can be easily fooled.

Read More

Improving YouTube’s Content ID could help creators of all stripes

Why not make Content ID more accessible and transparent?

Much has been written about YouTube’s Content ID program, a fingerprinting technology that allows rights holders to find and claim their music or movies when uploaded to YouTube.  The technology was introduced in 2008 in the wake of Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube and since then has helped (some) creators mitigate the problem of piracy on the popular UGC (user-generated content) site.

Those who have access to the Content ID system can uploaded reference files and use a dashboard to choose how matches should be handled.  They can be limited based on audio, video, and length.  Matching content then can be blocked, removed, or monetized based on territorial rights.

Read More

Update to Digital Millennium Copyright Act Long Overdue

Momentum is building for changes to the DMCA that will better protect creators

Content creators from all walks of life are coalescing around the need to update copyright law to protect their work against theft in digital age.  A piece in yesterday’s NY Times,  Music World Bands Together Against YouTube, Seeking Change to Lawis the latest to highlight growing calls by the creative community to update a woefully antiquated Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.

Read More

More Google DMCA misdirection…refusing takedown requests for Blogger sites with custom domains

Hop aboard for another spin on Google’s DMCA Merry-Go-Round

It’s not news that Google-hosted Blogger websites are a favorite storefront for online pirates.  It’s also not news that Google does its best to obstruct DMCA takedowns by setting up various roadblocks along the way.  Today I discovered yet another example of just how difficult Google makes the DMCA process–this time with Blogger-hosted sites that use custom domain names.

When you create a blog using Blogger you’re given a domain that ends in blogspot.com. However users are free to use a custom domain name instead.  That’s all well and good, unless the website distributes pirated content.  In that case, if you’re a creator trying to get your pirated content removed (by Google), you’re likely to run into problems.

Usually, when one of these pirate entrepreneurs creates a site on blogspot.com a rightsholder can send a DMCA by using Google’s annoying web form (or annoy them by sending an email: dmca-agent@google.com).  However, if you use the same DMCA form to report a blogger-hosted site with a custom domain, Google won’t remove it.  They’ll just send you back to the beginning.

Read More

A flawed study on the DMCA – Peeling back the layers of the onion

Berkeley Law’s dubious study on copyright notice and takedown faces more scrutiny

Last month–a day before deadline for public comments on the U.S. Copyright Office’s study on the impact and effectiveness of the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), section 512–UC-Berkeley School of Law and the American Assembly (via the Google-funded Takedown Project) released a study purporting to give a “broad picture of how section 512 notice and takedown works on the ground.”

A day after its release I wrote quick post highlighting some initial concerns with the study, but hadn’t had time to fully digest the entire 160 page report.  Now, nearly a month later, others have taken the time to more carefully look at the study and uncover its (many) dubious findings.  Kevin Madigan & Devlin Hartline  scholars at the Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) have published a detailed response to study, “Separating Fact from Fiction in the Notice and Takedown Debate,” and note:

The study reads more like propaganda than robust empiricism. It should be taken for what it is: A policy piece masquerading as an independent study.

Read More

Piracy apologists’ convenient lie (of omission) that Hollywood profits means piracy doesn’t matter

Yes Virginia, piracy damages both the film industry and its audience

It’s that time of year again, when the piracy apologists pull out their annual canard that Hollywood’s profits provide proof that online piracy doesn’t hurt the film industry. The fact is piracy leads to fewer films being made, fewer people being employed in the film industry, and fewer options for audiences at the movie theaters. Piracy comes with a price — and we all pay.

Read More

Will DMCA ‘safe harbor’ loophole finally get fixed?

U.S. Copyright Office announces study on impact and effectiveness of the DMCA safe harbor provisions

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) “safe harbor” provision has long been a source of frustration for creators.  For years it’s allowed 3rd parties who enable, and often profit from piracy, to avoid legal liability for infringement.  Momentum to tighten eligibility standards to qualify for safe harbor protection has been growing of late, both in courts and at the U.S. Copyright Office.

Read More

Downloading free stuff online comes with a cost – Malware

Cybercriminals exploit pirates sites to spread malware & steal personal data

Piracy website operators have  always been incentivized by the desire to make a buck, but with online advertisers and payment processors continuing to cut ties, thieves are finding other ways to make money off their content theft. The lure of “free” movies still attracts visitors like moths to a flame, but now, instead of being blanketed with ads served by Google, according to a new study, consumers who use pirate sites risk having their computers infected with nefarious malware.

Read More

Copyright Au Courant – Piracy, Popcorn Time and Privacy

Lots of news in the copyright, piracy and privacy world of late.  Here’s some worth a look:

First up, this thoughtful piece by Nelson Granados on Forbes.com “How Piracy Is Still Hurting The Filmmakers And Artists You Admire.”  Granados takes direct aim at the fallacy that piracy doesn’t cause damage to Hollywood studios.

“Many think naively that studios cannot be hurt too much, because after all, you hear mostly about the movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars. But the reality for many filmmakers is that they often live on the edge, seeking financing to produce quality content, and enduring high uncertainty about whether they will be able to pay off debt and have any profit left. Given the high fixed cost of producing a quality movie, losses from piracy can be the difference between making a profit or not.”

He notes that a number of “peer-reviewed” studies quantify this damage.  Bottom line, like any industry, Hollywood depends on making a return on its investment in order to stay alive.  No matter what piracy apologists allege, that’s a basic economic fact.  Granados also touches on the particular vulnerability faced by independent filmmakers.

Most artists struggle to make ends meet as they pursue their creative work with passion and dedication. Piracy may be tipping the next Quentin Tarantino over the financial edge into bankruptcy, and we will all lose.

As I’ve often said, we (consumers) won’t be aware of what we are missing if it isn’t made.  Piracy’s damage can be insidious and, to the public, somewhat invisible, but ultimately it diminishes the quantity (and quality) of film offerings we have to choose from.

Read More

YouTube’s DMCA decision and the campaign to morph victims into villains

YouTube will pay copyright court costs for a few users–not because it’s right–but to protect Google’s bottom line

According to a story in today’s NY Times, the folks at YouTube are ready to pony up cash to support some of its users “fair use” claims in court.

“YouTube said on Thursday that it would pick up the legal costs of a handful of video creators that the company thinks are the targets of unfair takedown demands. It said the creators it chose legally use third-party content under “fair use” provisions carved out for commentary, criticism, news and parody.”

You’ve probably read a lot about “fair use” lately.  It’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s mantra and if the folks there had their way, pretty much everything and anything would be considered “fair use.”  Fair use an important legal doctrine and when applied properly (criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research) is not an infringement of copyright.  However, these days, too often is used as a disingenuous defense for copyright theft.

The tech-funded campaign to turn villains into victims

When a court recently ruled that a snippet of a Prince song was indeed “fair use” in the notorious Dancing Baby case it gave a boost to efforts to use fair use as a cudgel against rights holders who legitimately assert their rights using the DMCA takedown process.

Note that the actual video at the center of this case was reposted after the uploader sent a counter-notice. The only reason the case ended up in court was because the uploader, Stephanie Lenz, filed suit and the only reason she did so was because she was bankrolled by the EFF.  The EFF saw it as an opportunity to advance its Google-funded agenda.

Read More

Google’s continued do-si-do around its piracy pledge

Google continues to dodge responsibility for its role in promoting online piracy

This past week members of the House Judiciary Committee traveled to California to hold a pair of roundtable discussions on the future of copyright.  On Tuesday committee members were in Santa Clara, the heart of Silicon Valley, and on Wednesday traveled to Los Angeles to hear from a variety of stakeholders discussing everything from overhauling an out-dated U.S. Copyright Office to DMCA circumvention for tractor repairs.
Though I wasn’t at the LA event, I read with great interest a report in Variety by Ted Johnson that documented an exchange between Google’s legal director for copyright, Fred von Lohmann and Richard Gladstein, founder of Film Colony…von Lohmann’s posturing on Google’s piracy problem is nothing new, but it is worth pointing out how his statements are carefully crafted to dovetail with Google’s own (vague) propagandistic promises.

Read More
Loading