back to article YOU. Your women are mine. Give them to me. I want to sell them

A friend of mine had his wife stolen three times this week. The first two times, they gave her back within hours. On the third occasion, however, they seemed determined to hold on to her for a month. This is the risk you take if you insist on uploading your wife to YouTube. I’d better explain. Be prepared for a sorry tale of …

  1. StephenH

    I had a copyright claim on a clip of my band doing a cover of a song we hadn't written. Almost immediately a copyright notice come up. That was not a surprise but but the claim was not for the original of the song. It was a totally different song that happened to start with the same opening chord - E major.

    There is a option to acknowledge the claim, or to assert copyright yourself but no way of saying the claimant is wrong. I tried to follow this up but the response was that if I am not the song owner, it's not my concern.

    1. Naughtyhorse

      Solution

      Play it in F

      1. Richard Ball

        Re: Solution

        Or F flat

  2. Mark 85

    This and other incidents point out one thing... Youtube doesn't give a crap as long their (or maybe it's their masters - Google) advertisers are happy. One would think that in a logical and reasonable world, that they would want feedback on the claims in order to refine their Content ID tool, right?

    It would seem that Youtube is leading or are at least trying to take the lead of the scum brigade lately. (See the other articles about music and not even being allowed to publicly acknowledge their licensing agreement.)

    1. TitterYeNot

      "Youtube doesn't give a crap as long their (or maybe it's their masters - Google) advertisers are happy"

      It amuses me when people deal with the likes of Goggle, PooTube, Facepalm or any other multi-national, corporate internet content-slurpers who truly don't give a shit about their users as long as they keep showing up, because they are the product they are selling, not the customer.

      And then said people complain that their pimp of choice is a multi-national, corporate internet content-slurper who truly doesn't give a shit about their users as long as they keep showing up.

      And then they keep showing up, again and again...

      ...

      On a lighter note, whenever anyone mentions ASMR, it reminds me of a certain economics computer class titled "The Shoe Event Horizon" in the basic middle school "Life, the Universe and Everything" syllabus.

      Teach - Aren't you forgetting something? Press the other button...

      1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

        PooTube

        Hey, what you watch is your business, and it's not my place to judge.

        1. TitterYeNot
          Coat

          "Hey, what you watch is your business, and it's not my place to judge"

          I, of course, was talking about the Australian nappy disposal bin refills. <cough>

          I have no idea to what other sort of pootube you may be referring to, but just the thought is enough to drive a man potty, or right round the U-bend...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

    OK. Can I do it for you?

    1. Richard 12 Silver badge

      Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

      Or what they have done is of questionable legality, as asserting a copyright claim when it is obviously false may be a breach of the DMCA.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

        may be a breach of the DMCA

        While it may be a breach, there is no realistic way for a private claimant with a limited budget to penalize them. This is the inherent problem with DMCA - it is unidirectional criminilization and false claims are not similarly criminalized.

        1. gnasher729 Silver badge

          Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

          Well, it _is_ criminal to make a DMCA claim that I violate the rights of work X if you are not the copyright holder of work X or representing them. That's not what happened here. The company had the rights to work X (I assume), but the work that they complained about was Y and not X. And that's not criminal.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

            It's not "criminal" as they skirt the law as you say, by having claim to X correctly, but falsely claiming against Y. Seems the law only prevents claiming you own Y when you don't... but allows you to claim X is Y till the cows come home.

            Which basically means Youtube have now facilitated making fraud legal. :(

            1. Oninoshiko

              Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

              In the US atleast, you should be able to claim "Slander of Title" (IIRC that's what Novell filed against SCO for). It does require a willingness to take it to court.

        2. Pfc. Parts

          Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

          "This is the inherent problem with DMCA"

          Problem? It's not a problem, it's a feature.

      2. Ben Tasker

        Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

        The DMCA can be particularly harsh when a copyright holder crosses the line, however, that's only IF the copyright holder manages to do the one thing that the DMCA provides punishment for - KNOWINGLY filing a notice for which you are not the copyright holder (or authorised on behalf of).

        In other words, if a company files a shitload of correct ones and accidentally includes half-a-shitload of incorrect ones, they're safe. They have to have known they didn't have the rights, and proceeded anyway for there to be any chance of them getting slapped.

        So when a company accidentally gets Github projects unlisted from Google, or 'accidentally' monetizes someones videos, that's apparently fine as they didn't deliberately set out to file a notice against something they had no claim to.

        The cynic in me wonders whether this is part of the reason they use bots. Bot's are great for dealing with the huge amount of content which may need reviewing, but are also a way to avoid having a human review the notice before it's sent - anything wrongfully submitted is accidental, so you don't get raped by the DMCA's counter provisions

        1. Uffish

          Re: "Bot's are great"

          Whoever is running the bot is responsible for their actions. Of course the above mentioned big guy v. little guy and skewed legal system scenarios mentioned above still hold true.

        2. Bernard M. Orwell

          Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

          If you file a notice for copyright claims, then refute the claim of the originator of the material, then monetize that claim, are you not "obtaining monies by deception" and thus subject to criminal law (fraud) rather than civil law? In this case, surely the police/courts should be dealing with the crime, rather than you having to sue as a litigant?

          After all, isn't our gov. making a big song and dance about dealing widespread, organised crime on the web? Looks like a prime example here....

      3. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

        A DMCA claim is uttered under penalty of perjury.

        Unfortunately there have been precisely ZERO actions for perjury resulting from bogus DMCA claims.

        A few examples being made of egarious offenders wouldn't go amiss - and most judges won't think much of the argument that handing things off to bots which often get it wrong is "accidental"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "In no way am I suggesting that INgrooves is an evil bunch of bastards"

      As an author and photographer I've had both types of work 'stolen' and passed off as their own (and for money).

      The people who do this are worthless [redacted] [redacted]

      Is it any wonder that after the last incident, I removed each and every copy of my work from the internet.

      Even my photo library listing was deleted. I earned around a grand a year from selling photos.

      The loss of them money is not the issue. I feel like my home has been burgled, invaded.

      It really pisses me off that I had to do it but there was no other way I could preserve my integrity.

      I know who stole my work. If I ever come across them then.... I'll leave that to your imagination.

  4. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Megaphone

    Computer says yes

    They're meeja types browsing YouTube from their Macs, they believe everything the iShiny tells them. At least they managed to reply so it means they're not using Mail.app.

    All hail the content-driven economy. This is the future.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Computer says yes

      Oh come on, is that the best you can come up with? That's not even a half-assed attempt at riling people. Even Linux users can do better than that.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Computer says yes

        I use the three big desktop OSes. I dislike them all equally but not as much as meeja types or Mail.app. I believe there are others who don't like them either.

        So there you go, fake copyright claims, meeja types, and Mail.app. All things I dislike.

  5. Alistair Dabbs

    Tail chasing

    On of the sillier stories I discovered during my research concerned a musician who uploaded one of this songs to YouTube, only to receive a complaint from a copyright company (not INgrooves) that he had stolen the song from someone else. He disputed the claim and this went back and forth for a while. Just as the musician was considering 'going legal', he discovered that the copyright company was actually working for his own record label. It had been hired to chase everyone who put their songs on YouTube, and simply did as it was asked, even chasing after the original creators.

    1. Tom 35

      Re: Tail chasing

      Record companies don't know what they are doing.

      I setup a website for a live performance of band 'owned' by Sony. Sony provided content for the site and approved it before the site went live.

      Next day I get Take it down NOW or else notice from a different bunch at Sony. After much forwarding of emails (and an attempt to get our host to take down our page) they agreed I had permission, but said I had to state that there was no way anyone could download any content form our site. I was not going to lie so I said...

      "Our website content protection technology is equal to or better then the system used by Sony"

      Sony - right click save as. Just like our site.

  6. Dave Bell

    A lot of this story seems to have its roots in the procedures set up by the American Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Follow the processes, and a company such as YouTube is safe from being liable for damages.

    Cases like this sound a bit dodgy under American law. Since a DMCA notice is made out "under penalty of perjury" is it even lawful to send out notices automatically? It would be expensive to find out.

    And sometimes there are overlapping but independent rights. In music, there are distinct rights, and payments, to the songwriter and the performer. It gets complicated, and then the USA has different law (and a long-running "fuck-you" attitude to international copyright laws).

    1. DragonLord

      Content id is not dmca, rather it is a voluntary system that Google has put together to avoid being completely snowed over by diva requests. This also has the side effect of not giving those affected by it the protections that are in the dmca. Though if content id fails the content provider is supposed to issue a dmca request.

    2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      The only perjury part is that you must be the copyright owner (or their representative) for the work you are claiming is copied. It isn't perjury to claim that the wrong thing is a copy - you simpyl allege that they copied it and it's upto the courts to decide.

      So it is naughty for me to claim to represent the Beatles, it isn't for the Beatles' record company to demand that Das Boot be removed as it is a copy of the yellow submarine.

  7. stu 4

    GarageBand loops

    I get them quite a lot, when I use garageband to write my own music for some of my videos (some of the more popular flying ones so I can monetize em and make a bit of cash).

    I almost always get some claim to copyright more or less immediately and have to respond back with that it was done with garageband loops all of which have the proper rights for commercial use.

    As you say - its guilty until proven innocent and really winds you up the wrong way.

    stu (shameless plug: youtube.com/powerlord69)

    1. frank ly

      Re: GarageBand loops

      I'm not sure about your makeup (too colourful and contrasty) but you have some great videos - thanks :)

  8. Dr_N

    Super Creepy?

    Bit harsh.

    Although I do have a question:

    Is that "Heidi's" real speaking voice or is she doing some kind of baby-talk accent?

    Also, the mention of "facial" is always good for a giggle.

  9. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Flame

    This is a problem of procedure

    The fact that ContentID "can be a bit wonky" is not the problem.

    The fact that ContentID's results are accepted by all companies involved without human verification is.

    The proper procedure should be :

    - claimant finds possible infringement with software tool

    - claimant checks the possible and draws up a list of infractions

    - YouTube receives claim and verifies its veracity and well-foundedness

    - YouTube now has authority to block the video and notify poster

    The actual procedure, of course, appears to have done away with both middle steps. Once again, humains have replaced their brains with blinking lights.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Re: This is a problem of procedure

      It's not up to YouTube to determine what is and isn't legal, any more than it's up to BT to determine which phone calls use swear words. YouTube evaluates copyright owners and provides the tools but then makes it very awkward for its own users to be heard in the face of unfair treatment. It would be nice if it could offer a better method for uploaders and copyright claimants to argue it out.

      It would be even better if it stuck to its word about chucking companies that make serial frivolous claims off the system entirely.

      1. foxyshadis

        Re: This is a problem of procedure

        It's not up to YouTube to decide legality, but it is up to them to decide that someone's followed a specific process. YouTube decided that they wanted to spend as little effort as possible on verifying anything, making every step automated without human intervention, and that's on them, not the law.

    2. DaveDaveDave

      Re: This is a problem of procedure

      Your proposed procedure's entirely unrealistic. Don't forget, some overwhelmingly large proportion of the copyright claims is entirely valid - my guess would be 99.99%+. (Have a look at Youtube when the football is on, for example: every goal is posted and removed dozens of times in the five minutes after it happens.)

      Let's also concede that every teenager uploading a copyrighted video of some kind or other is going to reply to the takedown claiming it's not copyright.

    3. Fungus Bob

      Re: This is a problem of procedure

      "The proper procedure should be :"

      Everybody leaves YouTube...

      There, FTFY

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It would be even better if it stuck to its word about chucking companies that make serial frivolous claims off the system entirely.

    .. which more or less shows that any legal posturing by Google is not for any common good that you and I define as "good" - this is an obvious place where some kicking back at frivolous claimants could actually reduce the pressure on Google - but that could also reduce advertising revenue.

    I hear quite a lot of companies switching to Vimeo - I'm not in this market but it appears that promotional material and instructables are migrating off YouTube exactly because of all the work required to keep content online and not interrupted by the incessant Google marketing machine. For me personally, YouTube has pretty much lost any appeal. Well done Google, the Microsoft of the online world. I fully expect to see ribbon toolbars showing up any day now.

  11. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Cunning plan

    1. Post bait - er masterpiece.

    2. Wait for takedowns

    3. Issue counterclaims

    4. When someone ignores counterclaims lob ginormeous sueball alleging defamation, fraud, ingrowing toenail & anything else

    5. Accept much reduced but still profitable sum in settlement.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      Re: Cunning plan

      Too late, they already:

      1) Make some "original content"

      2) Upload it by the bucket load cheaply and randomly to Youtubes ID Content system.

      3) Pretend the world and it's dog have copied your content. Does not matter what the video is of, flag it.

      4) Wait for the defaulting Content ID system to send all the add revenue your way.

      Should anyone complain, just close the business down, rinse and repeat quicker than any letters from lawyers can get to you.

  12. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    As a God

    I naturally claim copyright on the whole of my creation and I demand that everything on youtube be turned over to me. Presumably YouTube would oblige?

    I also rarely reply to requests from my creations - and usually only in rather ambigous terms of burning bushes and stars in the east.

  13. danny_0x98

    The trouble with content-publisher written legislation is that all the penalties are for infringers. There are no penalties for false claimants. Make a false claim cost $100,000 with 25,000 to the channel, 25,000 to the falsely accused, and 50,000 to the government, I think we'll quickly see these ip claim jumps disappear rapidly.

    And, yes, I've been claim jumped. A public domain song with additional lyrics by me, photography by me, and performance by me had advertising interposed on my YouTube post, presumably by the publishers related to the Beach Boys, as they had a hit when they recorded a cover of The Weavers version of the song.

    I'd get really upset, but hardly any one finds my videos, so why care?

  14. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge
    Joke

    "A joss-stick is fizzling away in the corner"

    I think you might be burning sparklers by accident

  15. ukgnome

    Wonky? More like wanky

    When it comes down to proof it should be the person making the claim that has to prove it. It's no good saying that's ours without prooving it.

    By letting "wonky" bots do the work we are failing as humans.

    1. Uffish

      Re: Wonky? More like wanky

      Just wait till a Google Car wobbles all over the pavement.

  16. Version 1.0 Silver badge

    This is the end, beautiful friend <RANT>

    The Internet was once a beautiful landscape to explore, place to meet new people and discover things that we have perhaps only dreamed of ... and then along can AOL, Google, YouTube and all the rest with the desire to monetize the experience. And the cry was, it's only a penny, its only an email address or phone number... and now just an IP address is all they need to ID you and serve you adverts, or vacuum all communications into their maw.

    So nowadays we swim in the excrement of spammers, scam artists and businesses demanding your contact details before you can view a page or information about a product that you might have a casual interest in. Posting to anywhere simply alerts the 'droids to your location and presence, anything you post will be stolen and you will be sued, we are just chickens - waiting to be plucked, garrotted, skinned and turned into prepared meals that other members of our family will be forced to purchase. Occasionally we stick out heads up to a gasp to air, putrid from another farting hippo on YouTube only to have another steaming turd from our political masters rammed down our throats ... "for our own protection." </RANT>

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: This is the end, beautiful friend <RANT>

      "businesses demanding your contact details"

      Lie.

      In the case of UK registered businesses Companies House is your friend - Webcheck will give you their registered office which is an excellent contact address to use. Unfortunately it's had the .gov.uk makeunder & isn't as easy to find as it used to be.

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: This is the end, beautiful friend <RANT>

      Well said, Version 1.0.

      The Internet has become nothing but a mostly useless clogged up sewer. Even the intellectual content is getting harder and harder to come by or ending up behind pay walls.

      The noise to signal is overwhelming.

  17. Tom Jasper

    A quick google search implies that INgrooves have a bit of a track history

    https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ingrooves+youtube+false+copyright+claims+site:productforums.google.com

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Super-Creepy...

    Mmmh, interesting to get the corporate take on super creepy.... I think Super Creepy is Uber profiling users for one-night-stands, or LG spying on USB files you play on your own TV, or Verizon manipulating headers to create inescapable mobile tracking.

    Super-Creepy is also the direction Smartphone & Smart TV makers seem to be rapidly heading, just to get a piece of the google, facebook, amazon pie....

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re. Copyright

    As 2004 BL86 has an as-yet-undetected dark matter companion which will impact around 6.39 pm on Monday 25th January 2015. this discussion about copyright is probably short lived.

    1. D@v3

      Re: Monday 25th Jan?

      round these parts, it's Monday 26th already. where does the time go...

  20. ecofeco Silver badge

    It's always the lying thieving bastards...

    ...that screw it up for everybody.

  21. Stu 18

    Content ID - obviously a solution by uni trained professionals

    Allegedly it is entirely possible that some children I may or may not be related to, used to watch quite a lot of kids TV shows on you tube. These can be easily found by searching for such things as 'Pippa Piglet', of course you have to know the name of the show to find it.

    Brilliant show btw, very clever (for the age group it is aimed at, as well as being acceptable to watch for older viewers) and I am happy to pay for that kind of material, and we regularly do, by buying DVD's as the online equivalent is a subscription where we don't want 95% of the content offered.

    But I digress, ContentID might be clever at catching some material, but why not just start with greylisting all content that includes names of copyright material in the title?

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WOW

    Someone at el'reg has finally noticed Content ID

    Now imagine your livelihood relied on youtube and how hard various companies fuck you.

    I always find it funny when computer game companies are able to find 5 seconds of footage (that they provided in their adverts to promote their product) in an hour long video and then claim the entire video but apparently Movie companies and Music companies can't?

    They can of course as notable youtubers have pointed out that they have been fucked by content-id for fair use material and for random things like a mobile going off and TV playing in the background and even game soundtracks (not the GTA style sound tracks, but normal game soundtracks)

    1. Magnus_Pym

      Re: WOW

      I think I'll post a video of trees rustling in the wind and claim all tube content filmed outside infringement.

    2. tempemeaty

      Re: WOW

      I know of someone who got hit for infringement of some song because of a printer going in the background.

  23. Benchops

    Backgrounds

    Start the home-made video, and at 14 seconds in start the one with the alien in it.

    Then watch the background blobs.

    They are spookily similar for some time. Don't know if this is just the same algorithm having been used, but if you watch them together you can see why they got automatically got flagged up.

  24. David Black

    Surely someone round here could reverse engineer the ContentID algo and create an "auto-violater" content creator that will trip the engine but would be so obviously different to human viewers. Make it easy to generate violating content and render the engine useless and they'll improve the engine or end the insanity (hopefully).

  25. Sarah Balfour

    Please, I humbly beg forgiveness for this, but…

    It's been going round in my head since the first time it was mentioned…

    DMCA,

    blame it on the DMCA-ay

    No, ya can't blame us

    No point in causing a fuss, coz it's the

    DMCA, I tell ya blame it on the DMCA-ay…

    I am truly, truly, TRULY sorry…

  26. regorama

    Simples.

    The solution to this is simple - you make three invalid claims, you lose your right to make any further claims for a year. You can bet that the biggest culprits of illegal copyright claims would be MUCH more careful about such claims if it hurt them to make one.

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