Viacom Claims Copyright On Irrlicht Video 258
stinkytoe writes in with the news that Nikolaus Gebhardt, developer of the cross-platform game engine library Irrlicht, recently had one of his video tutorials taken off of YouTube. A thread on Irrlicht's forum contains a copy of the takedown notice. From Gebhardt's blog: "Viacom, the corporation behind MTV, DreamWorks and Paramount is now claiming they own the copyright on a video of an Irrlicht tutorial. Which is completely ridiculous, of course: The whole thing has been written by me and the Irrlicht team, even textures and skins and logos have been created by me, and an Irrlicht Engine user... simply filmed and published it on YouTube.com. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial, it's really just a 2D GUI rendered using the 3D engine, nothing special at all."
Woops... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Woops... (Score:5, Funny)
Goddamnit, use the INSIDE voice...the INSIDE voice!
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They must have gotten carried away. Quick guys, copyright your wedding videos and personal amateur porn before they do!
To be fair, they're probably already copyrighted [templetons.com]. That is, unless 1) you've explicitly released them into the public domain, or 2) created them before 1989. (And I'm not sure exactly what `created' means in this context. Perhaps you filmed it in 1945, but didn't upload it to youtube until 2006? (whoa!, that looks like those old photos of grandma! and what's that goat doing to her? ew!) The uploaded version would clearly be a derivitave work, but I'm guessing that putting it into another tangible for
Scanning "not creative" enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is actually a fairly interesting question, and IMO an important one. I'm not sure I share your conclusion that the uploaded version is a new work, though. Although it certainly could be, if you changed it (say, retouched, or even just cropped it), a straight scan+upload probably wouldn't be original enough.
It's an interesting question, because I recently scanned hundreds of old family photos and slides. Many of them, provided Congress stops extending copyright indefinitely, will be out of the original photographer's copyright relatively soon (as in, probably within my lifetime -- copyright, like geology, has its own relative time-scales). However, if the act of scanning the photo automatically makes a new work, then it's under copyright for another 120+ years, beginning 2006. Not really a concern to me, since I'd be the copyright holder, but of concern to a hypothetical other party who might want to use them.
I suspect that simply scanning a photo, in its entirety, and uploading it, does not represent enough of a creative act to warrant a renewal of copyright as a derivative work. Essentially, all that is happening, is that the older work is being "format shifted." However, if you were to do any type of alteration to the original photo that wasn't totally automatic, even something like color correction, I could see an argument for protection on the grounds that it was a creative act.
Re:Scanning "not creative" enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
But there is pressure to change it so that any refixing in a medium of a work grants a new copyright duration, even if (or if-and-only-if, I'm not certain on that detail) the original work had passed into the public domain. You can't make copies of the new copy; you need to go to the wellspring (a copy with expired copyright) and make your copy from that.
Of course this means if a company keeps a stranglehold on their works using DRM so that no one can make a new copy without the original masters, they can just keep reissuing the work and retain perpetual copyright control. It would allow for the reduction of copyright duration and stop dragging all works along with Mickey Mouse, but at the expense of granting perpetual copyright to immortal corporations and estates, which should violate the Constitution in the US.
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I'm not sure I share your conclusion that the uploaded version is a new work, though.
Well, that's not really my conclusion.
I don't think it would qualify as a *new* work (unless it was manually edited or retouched, as you suggested) but since the purpose of the Berne convention was to make sure everything was copywrited unless explicitly put into the public domain, I'm inclined to think that by being published (uploaded to youtube), especially by the owner of the item, would cause it (the uploaded version) to be copyrighted, even if the original wasn't before. (But to be sure, adding
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Wrong, sorry. The rules for Copyright Registration for Derivative Works [copyright.gov] says specifically:
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There may be difficulties in proving copyright infringement in a case like this, and that's largely ok with me. I mean, if, instead, I simply copied your digital scans rather than making my own, can you prove that I did so? Probably not, unless you watermarked them.
Put a
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Or if anybody here pwns their own botnet, DoS the bastards for us, huh?
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That's somewhat of a problem, because they are automatically copyrighted when you make them. Even my lame post here is copyrighted. Permission-based culture indeed.
if you want to bake a cake (Score:4, Insightful)
they don't care if there is a little collateral damage in this war against 'piracy'
Re:if you want to bake a cake (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is, they basically get to threaten anyone without any justification or consequence. It's getting absurd, really.
Cheers
It's not breaking eggs (Score:3, Interesting)
It's ridiculous.
Anyone remember the take-down [slashdot.org] notice for a 144k file called doom3.zip dating back from 1988 ?
The DMCA Auto-sue-bot strikes again !
A question
A complain filed an a un-attended manner, without any human intervention, could it be considered valid in a court ?
As far as I know, only humans (themselves), corporations (with an employed lawyer) and the government (idem) may sue. No provision is made for robots or computers. And in this case, there's is a very
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Sorry to be so vile but I thought we were making an omlette.
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Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Insightful)
So this means that the media companies can falsely claim copyright to *any* material and the publisher is provided an email by youtube. However, in order to counter, you (the publisher) have to send a snailmail to them and wait how long before something is done about it? Are you even guarenteed a response?
This is complete and utter bullshit. As we have seen in other articles [slashdot.org] this only provides the media companies with the means to takedown *anything* posted on youtube or any other similar site for that matter for any reason whatsoever. Talk about Freedom of Speech and anti-trust* issues.
* -- If I don't like something that is said about my product online... I can simply have it taken down with the DMCA.
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:4, Informative)
No, Viacom can do this. You can't afford to go to court over bogus takedown notices every week.
The law, of course, favors the megalithic entity, because they're the ones who pay for it.
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the big media companies keep doing this to quality, independent content producers, then the independents won't be so inclined to use sites like YouTube to distribute their content, since there's a good chance that it will be mistakenly taken down, and restoration takes a while and more effort than the content is worth.
Thus, Big Media poisons a new outlet that is outside their control, for media that is also outside their control.
(Not trying to be a tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theorist, but raising a point of discussion.)
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That was exactly the point -- You, however, put it much more eloquently than I
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Interesting)
Free speech doesn't include copyrighted material, and you should know that. But this type of thing shows yet another manner that the DMCA can be used to harass or silence legitimate speech.
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Actually, in the US, it does. It's called Fair Use [wikipedia.org].
I don't really see much connection between that and the GP's comment, though. Moreso, this has nothing to do with free speech, since they're not censoring you, you can have your stuff reinstated and they'll have to sue next. Not to mention that you can counter-sue.
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What concerned citizen has too much time on their hands?
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*Blush* I do know that, but in my effort to make a speedy post overlooked the blatent error
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Takedown notices are provided under penalty of perjury. In order to take things down that they don't hold the copyright to, like in this instance, they need to commit a crime.
Faith and Understanding..... (Score:2)
Neglig
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Big corporation owns ABC
You post XYZ
Big coporation serves notice saying that under penalty of perjury they own the copyright on ABC. XYZ appears to infringe this copyright and must be taken down.
See how it works? - they only thing they swear to is ownership of ABC, not that XYZ is in fact a copy of ABC.
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I'm curious what Viacom's response would be if I sent a letter out claiming I had the rights to their properties.
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Which rarely gets charged. You should not expect the charge of perjury to be leveled on your behalf, even if the perjury is performed under oath in the presence of a judge with the evidence of it clear to all present; level the charge yourself.
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Informative)
This was hashed out in a Slashdot interview with a copyright lawyer. If you're sending a notice to an ISP saying that "You're hosting work 'A' which is an unauthorized copy of my work 'X', take it down", the perjury part only applies to your ownership claim of 'X'. For example, if I put up a copy of OpenOffice and my ISP gets a takedown notice from MS saying "You're hosting an unauthorized copy of MS-Office, which we swear we own" then MS is free and clear. They /do/ own the copyright for MS-Office. And it's /hardly/ their fault that they mistook OpenOffice and MS-Office. Whoops. No harm, no foul!
I agree the system is broken, I just wanted to clarify the perjury part.
-jdm
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Excellent! Microsoft.com is currently hosting a picture of a picture of my dog that i took in fourth grade. Please shut them down.
Theft? (Score:2)
Slander of Title - depending (Score:5, Informative)
Per Groklaw - Slander of Title [groklaw.net] would apply to this, if you can show some sort of malice. If there were a pattern of the types of videos they 'erroneously' had taken down, it would go a long way towards establishing malice. However, if there is just a bunch of random crap thrown into the legitimate claims, then it's unlikely that you would be able to persue a Slander of Title claim very far.
They have obviously failed to check on the actual status of the Copyrights for the video, which would set them up for a negligence suit. Since it's a tutorial on using a companies software, you might sneak it in under 'Tortuous Interferance' - ie. their actions are causing harm to the company's business and are not related to competition by VIACOM itself. [irony]MS couldn't claim interfierance by Apple just because Apple sells an OS. If Apple were to blackmail/bribe software houses into not developing for MS, then there would be a legitimate suit.[/irony]
Of course if you want to be boring, you could go with
Depending on how many of the videos they asked to have taken down were not infringing on their copyrights, then this might be a prime target for a CAS against Viacom. That would rattle their chain - and might give the other big distributors a pause before they sent out mass takedown notices as well.
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Can't resist... (Score:2, Funny)
That's not all... (Score:5, Informative)
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IANAL, but it sounds to me like they want you to indemnify them for their mistake, thereby excusing them from a charge of perjury themselves, while opening you up for such a charge as well. Don't excuse them for their actions. Get your own lawyer.
Sue them? (Score:3, Interesting)
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They haven't "appropriated" anything. They've done a shitty job of trying to ID Viacom copyrights on YouTube, and the spineless pussies at YouTube / Google have folded to their blanket take-down requests instead of demanding more solid proof. YouTube /Google are now the Official Bitches of Viacom
Sure, Viacom needs to improve their accuracy in automatically IDing their stuff, but the weight of the balme needs to land squa
That's not the way it works. (Score:5, Informative)
So if Viacom sent the DMCA request, then the beef of the actual copyright owner is with Viacom, not with the ISP.
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Come now. Google / YouTurd has these dogs called "lawyers". If they had given a shit and wanted to question the Take-Down, they could have. What this does is set a precident for Viacom to walk all over Google/YouTube and take steaming dumps on them. If YouTube / Google was smart, and not "evil", they would not have folded so easy.
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If you do that you're effectively surrendering your Safe Harbor protections so . . . no.
Numbered days... (Score:2)
So if a company perjurs itself (Score:3, Insightful)
For a little perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I give you, courtesy Wikipedia, the List of Assets owned by Viacom. [wikipedia.org]
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"List of assets owned by Viacom." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 25 Jan 2007, 23:34 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 6 Feb 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of _assets_owned_by_Viacom&oldid=103256937 [wikipedia.org]>.
Re:For a little perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
IANAL, but I believe that they can simply file a DMCA Counter Notice and make Viacom put up or shut up--hopefully that would be enough to make them realize that they've misidentified the clip as being something of theirs.
Shut up, go away, and never come back (Score:2)
A class actions of "Show a Jury why you weren't negligent in filing these 100 requests.", tells Viacom and all the others to use a scalpel not a shotgun to do this or we will hurt you.
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This is Slashdot. Obviously, Viacom is afraid of YouTube's popularity competing with Viacom's. So they send a broad DMCA (they bought it for a reason!) takedown notice in order to YouTube. Duh.
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Like I said, this is Slashdot.
Possible Reason (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Possible Reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Possible Reason (Score:5, Funny)
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Using a bot to send out such notices would be dangerous, as any false positives would open the sender up to a countersuit- ala, Michael Crook [eff.org].
Perjury! (Score:4, Interesting)
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I think the rule of thumb is.... it's not perjury if you are wrong, only if you lie. Generally, the best defence is being an idiot.
Now automated harassment on the other hand... that would IMHO be a reasonable claim.
Re:Perjury! (Score:5, Insightful)
In any case, a DMCA notice would probably not be considered purjury. The sender took no oath to be truthful when they sent the notice. However, they could land in hot water for harrassment. It would be tricky to prosecute, but if you could show a significant degree of error in Viacom's takedown procedures, you could get them slammed with an injunction against sending DMCA notices. At least until a judge is fully convinced that Viacom has corrected the errors.
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Great, so now that their bot has been proven to be unreliable, further use of it to identify material would be reckless. We'll give them this one, the next time an automated process incorrectly identifies material as copyrighted, they knowingly used a process known to falsely identify copyrighted material. If they aren't prosecuted the second time, then it's no different than
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Excepting, of course, that they did [youtube.com]:
This isn't a random rule YouTube/Google made up, it's part of the DMCA [loc.gov].
(Link to
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Not in general, but DMCA notices are specifically filed under penalty of perjury. It's part of the law.
Perjury requires intent however -- it's not a crime to be mistaken. Viacom's automated notices are a grey area that is at worst negligent (and at best for them, well, the system's rigged enough that they're guilty of nada).
Maybe we can get them declared vexatious litigants?
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http://www.cyberlawcentral.com/2005/06/musings-on- dmca-takedown-provisions.html [cyberlawcentral.com]
You have to make a statement that you have a good faith belief that the material is infringing. A bot matching a word seems to be streching good faith a bit - can a bot have good faith?
Obviously they used bots. How else could they have found such a vast volume of material? What they should have done is checked each item found before issuing a notice.
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Inside Out US Label (Score:2)
A few quick ideas (Score:2)
2) It's restraint of trade: sue.
3) It's defamation of character: sue.
4) It's slander of title: sue.
Sue, and do not accept a settlement. Make sure to use loaded words like "piracy" and "theft" in every press release. Have fun!
Must be nice having money pouring out your ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Class Action Status (Score:2)
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"Innocent until proven Guilty" has meaning only in criminal law. In civil law there is simply a finding for the plaintiff or the defendant based on the weight of the evidence.
It doesn't take much to shift the balance against you.
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um no.... (Score:2)
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Sue Viacom ... (Score:2)
It's been said time and time and time again on slashdot whenever wrongfull DMCA takedown notices are sent.
I'm sure you can find a lawyer that'll be willing to nail their collective ass to the wall and sue for defamation and whatever else you care to throw in for good measure and monetary value.
Same goes for the peopl
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Censorship and legal spam (Score:5, Interesting)
So apparently Viacom, DreamWorks and Paramount are sending legal spam, without verifying what they are actually sending out, and Google is taking them without verification on their part either. I guess DMCA procedures aren't good enough - censor now, ask questions later.
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This makes me wonder what would happen if someone posted illegal content to YouTube with a filename that would be found by Viacom's bot. Does Viacom's claim of ownership make them liable for the content?
Isn't a task for Free Software Foundation? (Score:2)
I know that irrlicht is not a GPL software, but is is a Free Software and FSF should act now, instead talking over and over about many different things.
Why not use the law they have to fight the "evil company" and show the world that this battle can be won?
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EFF not FSF (NT) (Score:2)
100,000 Viacom videos on YouTube? (Score:3, Interesting)
This really calls into question the validity of Viacom's claim that YouTube was hosting 100,000 infringing videos belonging to them. I wonder what the real number is. I wonder when the backlash hits YouTube over these "false positives" if they will start to require a little more diligence on the side of the claimants who request for videos to be removed. Shouldn't there penalties for making false claims of ownership over the copyrighted materials of others? YouTube's success was built on the shoulders of the little guy, not these giant media conglomerates. Will they do the right thing and help protect their legitimate users?
Give these bastards the same treatment (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting a few thousand Slashdotters all hot and bothered may feel good, but it's a purely masterbatory exercise. If the victims are that pissed off, they can sue. And don't give me that shit about "oh, how can poor tiny little us possibly prevail against the mighty Viacom?!??" IANAL, but it looks like it's a pretty open-and-shut case. The victi,s could do all of the legal work and filing themselves, and with a little extra work can probably find some lawyer to make it all nice and pretty pro bono. Unless the damages are significant, I'd be halfway surprised if Viacom even sends anyone to defend it. If the judge finds in the victim's favor they might try filing a complaint against the attorney that filed the DMCA takedown notice with the relevant bar association - Viacom's lawyers may have committed perjury. If the victims can find a prosecutor that thinks it's in their political interest to beat on Mighty Corporate Viacom vs. The Little Guy, then it's a nice high-publicity case for them.
Other than that, the rest of us feel badly for the victims and wish them the best (fuck Viacom and all that), but let's be real - it's not like we're going to stop watching South Park or anything.
Re:Who cares? Depends (Score:2)
As for damages, that is going to depend on the exact video involved. If this were video 5 of a 6 part video
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DMCA (Score:2)
The problem (Score:2)
What did they search for? (Score:2)
Or something to that extent.
I hereby claim copyright for the bit strings "1b" and "0b". They appeared in my diploma thesis.
Why not send them a Cease and Desist Letter (Score:5, Interesting)
But this is what I would do:
Repost the video and send Viacom a Cease and Desist letter asking that they stop telling people that your copyrighted works are there's. Then, when they do it again, they cannot claim ignorance or that it was an oversight or whatever. Put up the video on a web site with an advertisement that pays you per page view, and claim that by lying to Google, they are causing you a loss of income.
So, essentially, they are lying about you, in writing, and it is negatively affecting you. Then you would probably have a better legal case. In addition, thanks to the RIAA and others like them, there is a great deal of negative coverage for people who engage in copyright infringement. So, now that it has been slashdotted, it could also damage your reputation...
Evidently not, Mr. AC (Score:2, Funny)
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Irrlicht doesn't need to sue Viacom. Because Viacom isn't trying to 'muscle out a smaller company'. To anyone - ANYONE! - in this thread who thinks Viacom should be sued, answer me this - What damages is Irrlicht suing for? Did Viacom really try to destroy their business - to 'restrain trade'? Did they prevent Irrlicht from selling their product, from promoting their wa
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THEY TOOK AN EFFING VIDEO OFF OF YOUTUBE. Not only that, but a video they had at least SOME basis to believe infringed on their copyright material.
Yeah, they took a video off youtube based on the name only. That's not reasonable by any stretch. What you're missing is that you can use this to lay the smackdown on anyone and they have a minimum 3 day window before they can get the content restored. This is a big hammer that can be used to hammer the fuck out of a small company and VIACOM knows it.
Re:Surprisingly, this is not the end of the world. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dissent.
This sort of problem is exactly one of the primary reasons the DMCA should never have happened in the first place, and should be repealed.
Any individual claiming to be a copyright holder can have anything removed from a server based on nothing more than mere assertion. The Safe Harbor provision of the DMCA leaves ISPs and server operators little choice. Once the takedown notice is presented, the ISP either deletes the material or responds that it believes in good faith that the takedown notice is in error. If they do neither, they risk criminal liability.
Note that nowhere is anyone required to verify the validity of the claimant's copyright, that the named material is at all related to the claimed copyright, or that the named material falls within the scope of Fair Use or not. It's either take it down or risk getting sued. The law requires that takedown notices be served in good faith, but there are no penalties prescribed for willful or negligent sending of erroneous notices (and lotsa luck finding a D.A. willing to prosecute).
This kind of unaccountable censorship was intended by the DMCA's authors. You should not have to provide papers that you are "allowed" to speak, and that's a principal reason why the DMCA needs to go away yesterday.
Schwab
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Which will accomplish absolutely nothing. Probably won't even be read by a human. From the (boilerplate) notice:
"If you elect to send us a counter notice, to be effective it must be a written communication provided to our designated agent that includes substantially the following (please consult your legal counsel or see 17 U.S.C. Section 512(g)(3) to confirm these requirements):
A physical or electronic signature of the subscriber.
Identification of the mater
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