MS Plans for world domination
just took a few steps backwards.
another Legal Dept totally disconnected from reality. Oh well, I expect they'll all be stanting for election soon after all, they are perfectly qualified.
Microsoft has sparked fury among the faithful following a DMCA takedown trawl that snared innocent Windows bloggers. The company was put on the defensive and forced to apologise after loyal podcasters and video bloggers received takedown warnings and had their YouTube accounts suspended for claimed copyright infringement of …
As I understand this, the takedown request was to have specific comments removed that contained information about obtaining pirate copies of Windows and/or contained cracked/stolen product keys, which seems like a legitimate request.
(If it doesn't seem legitimate to you, you might need to replace "Microsoft" and "Windows" with the name of a company and product that you like, and read it again)
Google decided to respond to this request by removing all of the videos, rather than the offending comments.
Why? Most likely incompetence by the low-paid intern who handles takedown requests, but I'm sure there'll be a conspiracy theory along any moment now...
pirate copies of Windows and/or contained cracked/stolen product keys, which seems like a legitimate request
Don't tell all that remote-activiation, medialess, no-you-must-download, preinstalled only, there-is-no-one-at-the-support-centre, enter-your-license-key sado-masochistic procedure I have to go through is actually USELESS TO MICROSOFT? #SHOCKED
If it doesn't seem legitimate to you, you might need to replace "Microsoft" and "Windows" with the name of a company and product that you like, and read it again
Hmmm..... the product I like can be had for free or is hardware. Weird.
"Automated takedowns are the cancer that is killing YouTube."
Killing YouTube? Hell, I left YouTube for dead three or four years ago. Got tired of them pestering me about the music in my videos, telling me they're leaving them up so they can run "relevant" advertising next to them.
I've since moved most of my content to Vimeo -- no anal-retentive music police, no pop-up or pre-roll ads, no "recommended" video links, no wading through endless footage of twerking and ice-bucket dumping and cats falling off of tabletops and plane-crash porn and schlocky music videos and people throwing dry ice into swimming pools just to find some interesting and challenging content.
"I've since moved most of my content to Vimeo -- no anal-retentive music police, no pop-up or pre-roll ads, no "recommended" video links, no wading through endless footage of twerking and ice-bucket dumping and cats falling off of tabletops and plane-crash porn and schlocky music videos and people throwing dry ice into swimming pools just to find some interesting and challenging content."
.......Yet......
"if I want to make Microsoft take a video I don't like from Youtube, [...]"
That tactic worked many times on usenet. Prejudiced people took down various alt.rec groups in a similar way. They put pr0n pictures in irrelevant postings - and then complained to ISPs to block the group from the news feed.
Let's see if I understood this: if I want to make Microsoft take a video I don't like from Youtube, I just have to get a hold on a stolen Windows 8 key, create a fake Youtube account, and post the key in the comments?
I suspect it's broader than that. Since MS is only web searching for product keys, you could probably post the key in the comments of ANY YouTube video and get it taken down.
With fitting I'm referring to the ongoing trend where all Microsoft seems to accomplish is to tick off their user, developer -base. At the very least a very large portion of it. And now we can even add the fanbase to this list as well.
From developers who got ticked off with Visual Studio 2012 right down to gamers who cried out over the XBox One limitations and insane regulations ("If you're not online at least once every 24hrs you can't play certain games").
Sure; sometimes the damage got fixed, but it always left two important issues. First of all its the first impression which counts, and second: did the problems really get fixed?
When looking at Visual Studio the "fix" was an upgrade to the next version (so basically buying a new version). Looking at the XBox One we learned that Microsoft reversed some of their plans. But there were no guarantees that they wouldn't implement their plans at a later time anyway (you know; when the platform has fully settled thus leaving people with little other options).
It seems to me as if Microsoft still doesn't realize the most important rule of an open market: the customer is king. Not always, but you most certainly do not want to piss them off to such extends where they might even want to stop using your products.
Face it. Microsoft customers are exploitable elements. Anyone who believes otherwise?
Stockholm syndrome.
"Microsoft is GOOD. Their next upgrade will FIX MY PROBLEMS."
"Take THAT, dog. I hope you like it. MWHAHAHA!" (offers glitz and ribbon crap)
"Thank you, Microsoft."
Yeah, look what happened to Sony! They kept kicking their customers in the balls, and now they are in big trouble...
http://www.cnet.com/news/sony-expects-489m-loss-this-year-as-financial-woes-continue/
Funny how that happens! I stopped buying anything from Sony after the root-kit fiasco.
Are we sure a bunch of Sony execs haven't defected to Microsoft?
We can only hope Microsoft follows the Sony example...
It's trivially easy to get rid of anything Microsoft - I did back in the early 90s. The company I work for got rid of everything Microsoft in the mid-90s..... We now refuse to deal with any company that still tries to send us MS-format files, and we've even stopped dealing with one bank because of their reliance on the MS brokenware - if they care that little for the security of data, they don't care about the security of your money!
Mine too!!!!
Now, as to Microsoft, well, I did purchase a new desktop a few years ago, and it did have WindblowZE pre-installed on it; but a new hard drive, and a Linux Live CD cured that problem.
The OEM hard drive was disconnected from the motherboard, and placed in the static bag from the new one, and a bio-hazard sticker (thanks to my Dr's office assistant for one) was used to seal it shut. While I am using the PC, it just sits in the case. Some day, when I finally decide to dispose of it, I will reconnect it back to the motherboard, and keep my Linux hard drive. Some lucky bastard will get a PC with a pre-installed WindblowZE 7 that was never used.
Meanwhile, another malware magnet is prevented from corrupting the internet.
IMHO this is NOT a failure of Microsoft, this is a failure of YOUTUBE to actually know laws and support the video bloggers. According to United States copyright law, Title 17, sections 107 to 118
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
"Fair use" is allowed and NOT classified as a copyright infringement. "Fair use" has been declared as
"quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported."
So what part of "quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment" does a video blog NOT fall under, YOUTUBE??!!
Again, this is GOOGLE / YOUTUBE'S FAILURE TO REPLY TO THE DCMA TAKEDOWN NOTICE THAT THE VIDEO BLOG REVIEWS ARE LEGAL ACCORDING TO TITLE 17 AND WILL NOT BE TAKEN DOWN UNTIL ORDERED BY A COURT OF LAW.
But they caved under corporate pressure rather than stand up for rights guaranteed in the law.
The pigs.
For big publishers (i.e. registered partners) the takedown is automatic. They just flag up any video they want to takedown and down it goes. It is them up to the video uploader to argue that it is not a breach to get it reinstated.
This was part of the agreement with the MAFIAA where the publishers can choose to takedown videos or revenue share (who knows how many videos they are taking a cut from without being entitled?).
In reality the power of the MAFIAA would have meant that Google would have been faced billions of dollars of lawsuits by now if they had not come to an agreement - they were sending in thousands of takedowns a day and complaining Google was not taking them down quick enough - imaging if each had to be challenged.
I would like to know just one instance where the DCMA was properly used to remove actually infringing content.
It seems to be that every single instance I have heard of its use results in the overbearing takedown of either non-copyright-infringing material, or the wholesale blocking of entire domains that had nothing to do with the notice in the first place.
The DMCA is hopelessly broken. Kill it with fire.
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Did anybody file a counternotification? The person or group who asserts a DMCA problem does it under the penalty of perjury. If one gets their video (or whatever) removed via DMCA, the counternotification process allows the victim to get their video (or whatever) immediately put back up, and at that point the person or group who filed the improper DMCA notice is also liable for perjury.
Know your rights!
So once the Mojang/Minecraft buyout goes through, what will happen to all those Minecraft videos? Can't imagine the Microsoft Copyright Police would like to see all those blocky textures misused by having people entertain other product owners....