Monday, October 08, 2012
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Automatic content filters have taken a hammering of late. False claims of copyright took down early footage of the Mars rover, Curiosity, cut off the Ustream broadcast of the 2012 Hugo awards, blocked footage of President Obama engaging in a bit of karaoke, and a great deal of other content. Yesterday YouTube announced that it would no longer completely automate the copyright claim/video removal process. As of today, eligible users will be able to dispute a copyright claim against their videos. If the copyright holder decides to push forward with their own allegations of infringement, they’ll have to file a formal DMCA notification.
That sounds great, but as Patrick McKay, founder of FairUseTube.org points out, that’s how the system was already supposed to work. According to McKay, YouTube’s new policy is actually a return to the company’s old policy — a policy it never admitted that it stopped using.
YouTube’s blog post yesterday partially confirms McKay’s previous allegations that the company had adopted policies that left contributors with no way to reclaim their own work. The post’s author, Thabet Alfishawi, stated that “Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims).” In other words, a company could walk in and claim copyright on a personal video in order to make money off it, while the uploader/creator was left holding the bag.
According to YouTube’s content dispute page, only eligible uploaders may appeal a copyright decision. Eligibility is determined by being in “good copyright standing,” the date of the dispute, and “other factors.” If an uploader appeals and the alleged copyright owner chooses to file a DMCA notice, the uploader still receives a copyright strike. Three strikes, and you’re out — regardless of whether the company filing the DMCA notification prevails in a court of law.
Still, this change is an improvement, and McKay describes himself as “cautiously optimistic.” Hopefully this announcement actually heralds real positive change rather than serving as an admission of lousy policy. YouTube’s promise that it cares about user feedback would ring truer if the company had simultaneously instituted a policy of requiring copyright holders to be in good standing in order to assert ownership or have their DMCA notifications count against a user’s account. Foreign companies have little reason to fear the consequences of filing DMCA notifications in bad faith, while legitimate uploaders can have their accounts shut off.
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