Again, another musician account has mysteriously disappear from YouTube. This time it's MarloweDK's. And again, it was a clear case of fair use material.
Thomas Risell, who goes by the monicker MarloweDK, is a well-educated bass player who hosts his own website, playbassnow.com, for teaching and has created quite a big fan-base which can also be considered his students. Today, they were all horrified when they discovered the infamous YouTube's pink rectangle along with the so feared sentence: "this account has been suspended." After hoping for a mistake in the playbassnow forums this was confirmed by Thomas himself:
"Well, maybe its a little less dramatic but still very bad, read on… ARGGGRRRR!! MY YOUTUBE ACCOUNT IS CLOSED!! ON COPYRIGHT ISSUES (my play-alongs), most of my videos were hosted there and are not available rigth now"
"And im not able to open a new YT account, im a “persona non grata” as far as they are concerned"
A couple of days back I wrote about other two accounts being suspended: joch84's and Munkybarz's. If YouTube's actions in the past serve as any indication, we can only predict that more and more user accounts who "violate copyright" will start to suddenly disappear. The problem with this is, how many people are "infringing" in YouTube? Is this the beginning of the end for YouTube?
I've never heard of "Literal Videos" until about half an hour ago, and became an instant fan. Sadly, the reason I heard of DustFilms and this wonderful work of media genius was because of this piece of news from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Literal Videos is the creating of Dustin McLean, now hosted on the comedy web site Funny Or Die, and thank god, because they're too great to lose over a WMG tantrum. The videos are pretty much the same you've seen on MTV (when it used to actually show music videos), but with a new set of lyrics: the specific description of what's happening on screen.
The idea it's so simple, yet so creative; WMG doesn't like creative people, as one look at their list of signed artists would tell us; they claimed copyright on two videos: Under The Bridge and Take On Me.
The problem is, these videos are clear parodies. Again the long corporate arm completely ignores the Fair Use clause while bitching and whining at the same time about the users' complete disreagard for copyright laws. They're huffin' and puffin' trying to eliminate any evidence of their music from YouTube, which will have devastating results for both the record label and the video website. And as for the users? They'll just pick up their stuff and move on to a different site.
In this video, we see a young child who's just learning to walk while being filmed by his mother who then uploaded the video to YouTube to show her family and friends. That's it. No editing. No music added in post-production. However, that did not stop the ever-watching eye of the Universal Music Group music police and actually claimed copyright infringement on it for the Prince song playing in the background. Fortuatelly, Stephanie Lenz, the owner of the video sued UMG with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the video went back up on YouTube. While her case is still ongoing, the judge did say that UMG and other copyright holders should consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.
I'm posting it now to make a point: this is how far these companies, such as UMG or WMG (Warner Music Group) are willing to go. Right now, they're claiming copyright infringement over the videos we make of ourselves playing covers from our living rooms or bedrooms. But, if we let them get away with that, and without shame, they'll claim copyright over your home movies and even videos of your kids learning how to walk.
These people have no shame. This image of Barack Obama was seen everywhere during the last months of 2008, and became one of the most important images of, at least, the 21st century when he was elected as President of the United States. The famous "HOPE" image was done by a Calfornia street artist named Chris Fairey, but it was not done from scratch. Inspired by Obama's campaign, Chris found a photograph by Manny Garcia, from AP, and transformed it into the image we all recognize today.
Now the campaign is over and Chris Fairy is getting a law suit threat by AP for copyright infringement!:
"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," said Paul Colford, AP's director of media relations taken from an article by Lewis Wallace for wired.com.
Fairy's lawyer is using our new two favorite words in the English Dictionary: Fair Use. It really does not take a lot of brain cells to figure out Fairy's work is completely transformative and it follows the Fair Use guidelines; he has not made a cent from the famous poster.
Now Fairy has counter-attacked AP. According to this article by David Kravets for wired.com, on Monday, Fairy "filed a preemptive lawsuit claiming he did not violate The Associated Press's intellectual property rights."
The lengths some people are willing to go for money or recognition is unbelievable. We can only hope the Fair Use clause gets more specific over time, so that no one with a little bit of power abuses copyright laws and demands "compensation" just because somebody else's work was better than their original efforts.
This is what it's come to. Teenagers singing "Winter Wonderland" being censored off YouTube.
Fair use has always been at risk on YouTube, thanks to abusive DMCA takedown notices sent by copyright owners (sometimes carelessly, sometimes not). But in the past several weeks, two things have made things much worse for those who want to sing a song, post an a capella tribute, or set machinima to music.
First, it appears that more and more copyright owners are using YouTube's automated copyright filtering system (known as the Content ID system), which tests all videos looking for a "match" with "fingerprints" provided by copyright owners.
Second, thanks to a recent spat between YouTube and Warner Music Group, YouTube's Content ID tool is now being used to censor lots and lots of videos (previously, Warner just silently shared in the advertising revenue for the videos that included a "match" to its music).
EFF, along with many other public interest groups, have repeatedly expressed our concerns to both copyright owners and YouTube about the dangers of automated filtering systems like the Content ID system. These systems are still primitive and unable to distinguish a tranformative remix from copyright infringement. So unless they leave lots of breathing room for remixed content, these filters end up sideswiping lots of fair uses.
And that's exactly what has happened these past few weeks. And while today it's Warner Music, as more copyright owners start using the Content ID tool, it'll only get worse. Soon it may be off limits to remix anything with snippets of our shared mass media culture -- music, TV, movies, jingles, commercials. That would be a sad irony -- copyright being used to stifle an exciting new wellspring of creativity, rather than encourage it.
It's clear from the Warner Music experience that YouTube's Content ID tool fails to separate the infringements from the arguable fair uses. And while YouTube offers users the option to dispute a removal (if it's an automated Content ID removal) or send a formal DMCA counter-notice (if it's an official DMCA takedown), many YouTube users, lacking legal help, are afraid to wave a red flag in front of Warner Music's lawyers. That's a toxic combination for amateur video creators on YouTube.
So what can we do?
First, YouTube should fix the Content ID system. Now. The system should not remove videos unless there is a match between the video and audio tracks of a submitted fingerprint. When we made this suggestion in October 2007, YouTube assured us that they were working on improving the tool. Well, it's been more than a year. If YouTube is serious about protecting its users, the time has come to implement this fix. (Some will point out that this implies that record labels and music publishers can never use the Content ID tool to remove videos solely based on what's in the audio track. That's right. I think that adding a soundtrack to your home skateboarding movie is a fair use. If copyright owners feel differently, they can send a formal DMCA takedown notice, and with any luck, we'll see each other in court.)
Second, YouTubers, EFF wants to help. If Warner Music Group took down your video, ask yourself if your video is (1) noncommercial (i.e., no commercial advertisements or YouTube Partner videos) and (2) includes substantial original material contributed by you (i.e., no verbatim copies of Warner music videos). If so, and you'd like to counternotice but are afraid of getting sued, we'd like to hear from you. We can't promise to take every case, but neither will we stand by and watch semi-automated takedowns trample fair use.
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