DRW wrote:What I don't understand: Why not just trying to give the companies a taste of their own medicine?
If YouTube automatically blocks videos due to copyright claims without manually checking them first, wouldn't this also work the other way around? Going to every official company channel and flagging each and every video?
I'm legitimately curious since I don't have a YouTube account: What would happen then? And why has nobody ever done this?
That's what we're trying to get YouTube to do. False claims should have a penalty. This would discourage companies from doing what they're doing right now. Up till now they could easily do that and even if is "mistaken", they have up to three weeks to send a response. In the meantime they can actually receive all the profits from the video, while the claim is active. Even if they can't get the video down they could still make money off of it. YouTube hasn't been doing anything about it because, let's be honest here, big companies bring in a lot of money. As long as Google is making money, it doesn't matter if there's fraud going on. Also, there is the fact that the Fair Use clause is not a law, but a court defense. So, YouTube doesn't really have to do anything about it. But people technically still have the right to it. Some companies have even tried to dictate what the law is. In one response to a YouTuber who asked why his video has been claimed, the company responded "If it's not filmed by you, it's illegal." That's some major bullshit right there. But we want to change that. I personally believe that Fair Use should become a law. That would tighten things up. All in all, the DMCA itself should be updated every now and then, so that the law would know how to deal with new forms of media like YouTube and not allow for shady practices. The current system is from 1998, before anyone could even imagine something like YouTube could exist on such a global scale.
JRoatch wrote:To that last point, I'm glad to pay the $5.00/year to provide my audience an experience free from the obese surveillance monster that is internet advertising.
Yeah, but it'll be much harder to advertise your content. The chances of people finding out about you are very slim, compared to that if you're on YouTube. I, for instance, have trouble reaching a wider audience even when I'm on YouTube, I can't imagine what it would be like if I was on my own website. :/