After years of video creators being caught in Kafkaesque support-loops from Google, the company has finally introduced a meaningful appeals process to copyright complaints for YouTube videos. Though, as Timothy Lee points on at Ars, the new process still has plenty of room for abuse.

  • EH

    Google is short-changing customer service so that they have a reason to pursue patents in the automated customer care department.

  • http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

    Any chance they will start a meaningful appeals process for Google AdSense users who were falsely accused of clicking on their own ads? This is related because Youtube partners used to make money by having Google AdSense accounts tied to their channels. I don’t know if they have a flawed way of tracking who clicks on their ads, or if they don’t realize the lengths that haters will go to mess with somebody, but somebody at Google screwed the pooch on this.

  • http://scavenger-ethic.blogspot.com/ scav

    Well, it’s better than nothing.

    I hope the new process allows the “three strikes” policy to be modified. If the law allows you to challenge a DMCA takedown notice, it shouldn’t automatically count as a “strike” against you as long as you file a challenge to it. Actually, now I think about it there’s not much point in auto-banning someone either way. If they challenge the notice and prevail, there was nothing wrong with their posting it in the first place. If they accept the takedown and don’t repost the same content, then they are presumably acting in good faith and it doesn’t do anyone any good to punish them.

    But it’s also impossible to pay enough qualified humans to accurately determine the legal status of every video on youtube given the complexity of the law. So, I guess if you want to post something you have reason to believe will be abusively DMCA’d, host it somewhere on a torrent site outside the US instead of expecting Google to champion your fair use rights. It’s not really what they do.

  • NoWayJose

    As someone who just challenged a take down of an X-Files clip video – one using the same concept of another recent one that went viral and is still available – got my video reinstated under a fair use challenge, then was flagged almost instantly again and to regain access to my account, had to acknowledge I was a bad actor for ‘reposting’ my video and then watch a ten minute long patronizing Happy Tree Friends video about copyright and am now in danger of losing my entire youtube account if I want to stand up further for transformative, non-profit, clip compilations I’m wondering: Am I going through the *old* or the *new* procedure?

    Because it sucks either way.

  • http://www.jimdraws.com Thorzdad

    Google is the poster child for how not to do customer service. Has anyone ever actually gotten a reply from an actual human when trying to get through Google’s pre-baked, automatic-reply system? Google seems to be heavily invested in the idea that their product and services are infallible, and there is no need for actual customer contact or service.