Curiosity landing is a bonanza for YouTube ContentID copyfraudsters

Remember the bogus takedown of NASA's YouTube footage of the Curiosity landing? It gets worse. Lon Seidman uploaded some clips from the Curiosity landing to his Google+ hangout, only to have them taken down by five takedown requests from various scumbags who play the YouTube content matching system to force people to accept ads on their personal videos, payment from which goes to said scumbags:

Wow now I'm really getting angry over this Content ID disaster from +YouTube regarding the Mars landing. On Sunday night I hosted a live broadcast with contributors from CTTechJunkie.com and NASASpaceflight.com to watch the landing live. We brought in footage provided by NASA, including their live feed of the landing. NASA footage is released into the public domain and can be freely used by anyone.

I just came home to my inbox filled with dispute claims from no less than FIVE news organizations claiming this footage as their own. BS. It's mine. And now Youtube says it might start running ads against content I created and handing that money over to these crooks who are essentially bigger players with the ability to claim rights to content they do not own.

The worst part is that Google clearly is not requiring these "rightsholders" prove they actually own the content. But it's somehow incumbent upon me to prove my innocence. This is outright theft of my content - plain and simple.

Wow now I'm really getting angry over this Content ID disaster from +YouTube regarding the Mars landing (Thanks, Xeni!)

• [Adam Goetz]

  what can we do? Boingers, ready your boing! 

  • [cfuse]

     Needs a class action IMO. They only get away with it because they predate people who are too small to fight back.

    • [Tarliman]

      Or crowdsourced activism. See my question re: we all post and repost NASA footage. What is the capacity of the takedown and processing system?

      • [jerwin]

        Vast, if it’s automated.
        Vulnerable, if humans with law degrees are required to intervene.

        (A few years ago, newly minted attorneys started having difficulty finding jobs in their field, as many of the grunt work jobs have been replaced by “expert systems”)

• [Kimmo]

  What the fucking fuck, Google.

  I’m sick of hearing about this issue. Fix it, or be prepared for your ‘don’t be evil’ slogan to morph into an ironic joke.

  You fucking suck for this shit; it’s gone on too long already. Fix the fucking policy.

  • [Bersl]

     I think they abandoned that a while ago; we’re the ones who keep it going.

    • [Mordicai]

       Yeah, that is my understanding as well.  Which is a huge shame.  I guess they wanted to be able to, you know, be evil. 

      • [Clay Dreslough]

        By U.S. law, public for-profit companies have to be evil. If the CEO of Google tried to not be evil, he’d be fired by the stockholders.

        • [Mordicai]

          That “maximize profit” line always strikes me as particularly meaningless. I could give away VAST amounts of money to politically neutral charities & count it as my PR budget. I could say that we’re investing in green options so that we’ll be ahead of the game when future regulations tighten. I can say I’m not bundling bad loans for resale because a recession would be bad for the company. I can do ANYTHING & claim I am doing it in pursuit of the bottom line. So when people act like short sighted greedy children, it isn’t because they have an capitalist mandate to do so; it is because they are short sighted, greedy children.

  • [Jim Saul]

    Your use of “fucking”(tm) violates several trademarks established and owned by clients of Carrion, Miasma, and Despair, attorneys at law. you are hereby ordered…

    • [Lemoutan]

      Your attempt to reference invective by quotation, in an attempt to mask theft as ‘fair use’, cuts no ice with us, sunshine. InvectiQuotage ® is IPR owned by the Scheißkopf-Squmbagge Group. As such …

      • [redesigned]

         all your letters r belong to me.

  • [benher]

    That’s how I feel. I’ve been affected both directly and indirectly by this policy over the last year and me not being able to whoop it up with other “Curiosity” seekers was the final straw.

    I don’t know who is worse, the MPAA copy-troll douche burgers or Google and it’s capitulamatic roll-over reflexes. 

    • [Kimmo]

      Clearly the MPAA douchebags, but with Google it hurts; it’s like hearing a favourite uncle got busted feeling up little girls.

• [Jonathan Peterson]

  I’d love to see NASA start making those claims.  Why are news organizations getting to sell advertising against content that could help fund space exploration?

  • [Kimmo]

    Yeah, that’s another huge WTF.

    Do they even have a Youtube channel?

• [Deidzoeb]

  In addition to the usual “Like”, “Tweet”, “Share” buttons, can we get one that indicates the need for an open and democratic alternative to some private website or company, so I can push the button on every story about Youtube, Google, FB, Twitter, etc. ? Please?

  Suggestions for how to encapsulate that in one word or a cute, short phrase? = “Tyranny”? “CapitalismFails”?

  • [mobobo]

    Cnutit

    • [Lemoutan]

      ‘Like’ is not enough. I want to have its children.

• [grs]

  So what happens if Lon launches counter-takedown notices against these agencies?

  • [lonseidman]

    I wish I could! But alas I’m not large enough for the contentID system. I did apply, but I don’t plan to make my own frivolous claims. I just want the system fixed.

• [John Maple]

  Can’t the EFF or some agency go to bat and sue Google over this?

• [Jeff Kibuule]

  The system is broken. It assumes guilt until you prove you are innocent.

  • [digi_owl]

    One reason why it could be interesting to turn it into a criminal issue, rather than a civilian one. As the assumption of innocence only applies for criminal court.

• [Tarliman]

  What would happen if we all started posting the same NASA-sourced video, every ten minutes?

• [Stephen Schenck]

  “This is outright theft of my content – plain and simple.”

  In what way, shape, or form is what’s described here “theft”?

  • [P.]

     The same way RIAA MPAA consider pirating a theft.

    • [LinkMan]

       It goes even further than the piracy = theft concept.

      The RIAA/MPAA cartels argue that piracy = theft because pirates steal away rightsholders’ ability to profit from content they own.  The idea breaks down, however, because when you copy something, the original is generally still there, so it’s hard to argue it’s “stolen.”   The pirate doesn’t steal the content itself.  The rightsholder at least still has the ability to compete with the pirate for buyers of his content.

      This ContentID scam gets one step closer to the traditional notion of theft, because by forcing the original off the tubes (or forcing the rightsholder to accept advertising for someone else’s benefit), the bad guys are actually preventing the rightsholder from using his content for his own benefit.    That sounds a lot more like theft to me than the guy on the corner selling bootleg DVDs.

  • [lonseidman]

    It’s theft if they’re steering revenue away from me and giving it to trolls claiming they own content they don’t.

    • [Stephen Schenck]

       That’s something, all right, but “theft” isn’t the proper word.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Racketeering.

      • [kringlebertfistyebuns]

        You build a machine – of your own design and concept – that makes a widget that you also conceived and designed.  

        You sell all the widgets you make to Mega-Mart, who pays you for said widgetry.
        Now, some company who had nothing to do with any of the above process approaches Mega-Mart and claims they’re owed money on your widgets.  Oh, you can keep making your widgets, but Mega-Mart is going to be writing the checks to THEM now.  Sound like theft now?   If not, what the hell do you call it?

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    If someone steals your car, it doesn’t matter if they drive it or destroy it, it still removes your ability to use it.

• [hughbot2]

  Ugh, I created an original video last year and RT News featured it, then claimed it and then pulled MY original content off of youtube. I complained but I’ve never been able to get my footage back. :( It had hundreds of thousands of views! Damn you YOUTUBE! 

  • [Clay Dreslough]

    This is indeed “theft”. Are all the folks questioning the use of the word “theft” just shills for the megacorps?

  • [Kimmo]

    FUCK YOU, Google!

    FTFY

• [Dan Milano]

  I had a video with original footage that gained 100,000+ views. Then it was featured by Russian Times news on their YouTube page. My video was taken down because they claimed it was now THEIR copyrighted content. :( !

• [Pip_R_Lagenta]

  ” …Google clearly is not requiring these “rightsholders” prove they actually own the content.”

  I have long suspected that YouTube (Google) assists in the scam since YouTube receives money (perhaps BIG money) when allowing the scam to go unabated and unaddressed.

• [RaidenDaigo]

  I do not understand why Youtube(google) doesn’t already have a filter for public domain items such as NASA videos and anything posted by the US Gov so that copyright claims are impossible to make or tag.

• [cfuse]

  Ha. Do you really think you can pull off a DDOS on an automated system run on Google’s infrastructure? Good luck with that.

  Google is doing the wrong thing, the scammers they support are doing the wrong thing, and they both need to be dragged into court to answer for that.

  • [cfuse]

     Comments have gone weird. Replying to Tarliman.

• [Chuck]

  “NASA footage is released into the public domain and can be freely used by anyone.”

  How does anyone claim that public domain footage is “mine”? Google, etc should have a policy where any footage tagged as “public domain” may not have any advertising, and is not subject to take-down notices, unless it is not actually public domain.

  • [Lexica]

     It’s not the NASA footage he’s claiming as his, it’s the footage of himself and three other people discussing the event that’s his. Even these fraudsters aren’t claiming to own that part of it — they’re claiming to own the public domain NASA footage that’s included in the discussion.

    • [lonseidman]

      Yes it was not my intent to declare NASA’s footage in the broadcast as mine. But the broadcast is certainly my content.  This is what happens when I start on a viral rant in the middle of the night :). 

• [lonseidman]

  Thanks for the love everybody. Just a clarification: My content was not taken down but these “rightsholders” all claim it to be theirs and have restricted my ability to run ads on the content. 

  This speaks to a larger ongoing problem of where us little guys and gals have little recourse against the contentID elite. And unfortunately there’s little to no negative recourse towards making frivolous contentID claims against content, nor does there seem to be a means in which contentID members have to prove they actually own content they’re claiming. 

  I wonder how many millions of dollars in ad revenue are being misdirected away from legitimate creators to companies that abuse the system. I’m sure I’m in the minority that actually fight these claims – many people don’t and just give their potential revenue away to somebody else.

  • [oasisob1]

     I think it should be obvious to Google/YouTube that something is funny when FIVE different people lay claim to the same footage. Their automated system should at the very least detect that. If five different stores  all around the world tried posting charges to my credit card at the same time, you can bet my bank would notice. This is the sign that Google doesn’t care – they simply process (in an automated way) the requests and too bad for you, Mr. Little Guy.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    This is the new default corporate business model. Lawsuits, copyright claims, trademark hissy fits take precedence over production.

• [Gerald Mander]

  Of course, when similar policies are instituted by the U.S. for all potentially copyrighted content on all websites, everyone will be on their best behavior, and no one  will ever stoop to gaming the system. Especially not the RIAA or the MPAA.

• [noah django]

  yoooouuuuuuuuuuTUUUUUUUUUUUUBBE!!!!

• [Stephen Schenck]

  No, this is more like if someone booted a taxi you own, taking away your ability to profit from it. It’s all sorts of wrong, but it’s simply not stealing.

  • [redesigned]

    don’t forget the part where they can make money on his future fares without his consent and he cannot.

  • [timquinn]

    It is called an analogy. Look it up.

• [Bjorn Stromberg]

  The more videos Google can monetize the better. Google encourages people to use the content ID system to flag as many videos as possible so Google can generate revenue on videos that wouldn’t otherwise be generating revenue.

  The best part is that Google gets other people to do the dirty work for them and Google can claim they had nothing to do with it. How was Google supposed to know that video was fair use? How was Google supposed to know that content was public domain? Oh, please.

  Google’s massive 500 million dollar fine they got for knowingly serving up illegal pharmaceutical ads didn’t seem to be a big enough deterrant. Unfortunately, the media will continue to turn a blind eye when Google does something bad so long as Google keeps cutting them a check every month for serving up ads.

  Want to do something about it? Stop serving Google ads on your website. Does boingboing care enough about this issue to stop taking money from Google? I doubt it.

• [oldlady cannibal]

  I just got hit with one of these youtube notices from Rumblefish (remember when they claimed a birdsong?) for a Minecraft video I made. They claimed the 38 second music clip provided by Apple’s iMovie (TOS says free to use for your movies) was theres. I had to send emails everywhere to get them to drop it. 

  The system is so broken.