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JREF on YouTube Disappeared?

It was the Bilderbergers with the Trilateral Commission who used the Servants of Cthulhu to get the Boy Sprouts to use the Sugababes to take it down, on behalf of the Secret Master Pat Robertson.
 
Jaxe said:
It was the Bilderbergers with the Trilateral Commission who used the Servants of Cthulhu to get the Boy Sprouts to use the Sugababes to take it down, on behalf of the Secret Master Pat Robertson.
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Dude. Don't bogart.
 
godless dave said:
Did you even read my post? I did not suggest they do anything of the sort. All I suggested was that when they receive a takedown letter, they notify the person whose video they are removing and tell them why they are removing it. Currently they do not do this.

I also suggested they lobby the government to reform the DMCA takedown process. I did not suggest they try to test out the limits of the law.
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I read your post, but consider things from YT's point of view. They are trying to make money, and I have no doubt that judging the merits of takedown claims is not something that they want ro spend a lot of money on - particularly when there are courts to judge the validitiy of those claims. Prudence suggest that when they recieve a properly attested claim they first take down the video/close the channel (if there are claims against multiple videos), and examine the claim at their leisure. My guess is that that they don't have many staff allocated to that function.

The next issue becomes the quantity of take-downs requested. I can imagine that you appreciate that an enormous amount of videos posted are protected by copyright, and that there are plenty of bots posting them. That's the nature of the 'net. Why, in a situation where a huge amount of legitimate take-down claims are made, should YT personally contact the person who posted the offending video? That's extra work, and they are recieving no revenue directly from people who post videos.

Far easier to take it down and wait for a complaint from the poster. Perhaps send a boilerplate emeil just for form.

YT are in a position where they handle huge volumes of posted content and have to take down a huge volume. To send individual tailored e-mails for every case would likely be ruinously expensive. It would also invite replies and a lengthy correspondence when many of the cases are simply no-brainers.

I can see why a service such as YT would default to a fail-safe position of taking videos down, closing the channel and then allowing the poster to defend its originality. Without such a posture, they would not be able to make any money and would not be available.

I notice that there has been movement in that JR has indicated that there were indeed some problems which may be due to copyright. That sort of blasts a hole in the unfounded and paranoid speculations that have abounded here and in Pharyngula.
 
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NiallM said:
So YouTube would be entirely protected if they host libelous or other material and they have no responsibility at all if someone breaches copyright? You're seriously saying that.
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Excluded middle fallacy.

47 U.S.C. § 230 (1996) (c) expressly states “that no provider or user of an interactive computer shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

Zeran v. America Online, 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997), and Blumenthal v Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44 (D.D.C. 1998) , and Barrett v. Rosenthal, 40 Cal. 4th 33 have all reaffirmed this immunity with regards to libel.

DMCA Title II, the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act modified 47 U.S.C. § 230 by setting forth requirements for safe harbor immunity. The Io Group Inc. v. Veoh Networks Inc suit reaffirmed this safe harbor provision.

In fact Judge Howard R. Lloyd's ruling creates a big headache for Viacom's case as he stated if a provider makes a reasonable effort to enforce copyright they are immune under DMCA Title II as this is in the state in which Youtube has its headquarters. So Judge Louis Stanton over in New York has got the added fun of deciding if Howard R. Lloyd's decision has any bearing on his case.
 
NiallM said:
Why, in a situation where a huge amount of legitimate take-down claims are made, should YT personally contact the person who posted the offending video? That's extra work, and they are recieving no revenue directly from people who post videos
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The key word there is legitimate. As the Stephanie Lenz vs Universal Music Publishing Group case PROVES not all take down notices are legitimate. This case REQUIRES the owner of copyrighted material to consider fair use in their take down notices. Since AIs are not the sharpest knives in the drawer I doubt their use can fulfill this requirement.
 
Complainants were in their rights, certainly- but that doesn't make them or their actions correct. Given that JREF's videos tend to be commentary and criticism, I think that these particular takedown notices might be good candidates for the Chilling Effects site. I can't post URLs yet, but Google the name.
 
Opie & Anthony and Li'l Jimmy Norton are always having problems with youtube doing the same thing to their videos. Seems like they get one complaint and they yank all their videos. And youtube isn't exactly friendly or fast when it comes to restoring them.
 
The only thing is that we don't know if any of these videos might have been allowed under Fair Use doctrine. Problem is Fair use doctrine is such a pain to deal with these days.
 
Oh dear. So this wasn't part of an anti-atheist agenda, as some people thought. Lots of people jumped to conclusions on this (PZ Myers being one).

I'm glad that all is well again and that Randi went public to state that YT acted entirely appropriately and correctly.

One caveat, though: when JREF saw what was happening, they should really have reassured users much earlier that there was no conspiracy in place and that the issue was a real one.
 
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I still do not understand. It sounds as if there were too many videos that breached copyright. I would have thought that should there be one video youtube thought breached copyright they would inform the owners or take it down themselves. So it would be very difficult to have too many videos that breached copyright on youtube.
 
NiallM said:
One caveat, though: when JREF saw what was happening, they should really have reassured users much earlier that there was no conspiracy in place and that the issue was a real one.
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A little difficult to do when they were given no information initially, don't you think?
 
chillzero said:
A little difficult to do when they were given no information initially, don't you think?
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Absolutely. I think the JREF acted very sensibly, I was just amused by the number of people who saw a conspiracy in what seemed to me to be, well what it transpired to be. :) Still that was not because I am particularly perceptive or knowledgeable about YouTube, or that I am immune to automatic feelings of paranoia - it's just that as I kep pointing out excactly the same thing has happened many times before, recently to the RichardDAwkins channel, and every time I see the embarassing sight of people worrying about non-existent fundie conspiracies. If my experience of fundies if anything to go by, they don't generally give a **** about us, with a few exception and they try to convert not attack us. However I may be wrong! There are always exceptions... and the JREF does have real enemies, unlike some organisations!

cj x
 
rjh01 said:
I still do not understand. It sounds as if there were too many videos that breached copyright. I would have thought that should there be one video youtube thought breached copyright they would inform the owners or take it down themselves. So it would be very difficult to have too many videos that breached copyright on youtube.
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As has already been explained, YouTube do not police the videos, they rely on people reporting them.
 
I think Randi is too soft on YouTube. IMHO, their policies are unneccesarily harsh, for these reasons:
  1. A mere unverified complaint is sufficient to remove a video permanently unless challenged, and
  2. A mere complaint about only one video is sufficient to suspend an entire account permanently unless challenged.
While I don't dispute any web site's right to remove something that is in clear violation of the law, or even discontinue showing it until matters are cleared up, it is not reasonable or customer-friendly to do it in this heavy-handed manner.
 
steenkh said:
He needs to be soft on them: if they are angered they can just remove the lot and bring it back.
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Maybe that's why they get away with this stuff; everyone is tiptoeing softly when they should be hopping mad. It's very one-sided.

I don't see why YouTube is so great anyway. You can host incredible amounts of data (no, 200 short videos is not big enough to be incredible) for next to nothing; bandwidth is cheap and both are getting cheaper. If YouTube won't host it, put it on a privately-owned site and get more control.
 
chillzero said:
A little difficult to do when they were given no information initially, don't you think?
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But at the stage when they did get information it might have been an idea to announce that there was in reality a problem with the content and that it was being worked with YouTube instead of allowing YouTube to continue to field lots of blame.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I think Randi is too soft on YouTube. IMHO, their policies are unneccesarily harsh, for these reasons:
  1. A mere unverified complaint is sufficient to remove a video permanently unless challenged, and
  2. A mere complaint about only one video is sufficient to suspend an entire account permanently unless challenged.
While I don't dispute any web site's right to remove something that is in clear violation of the law, or even discontinue showing it until matters are cleared up, it is not reasonable or customer-friendly to do it in this heavy-handed manner.
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How is it not customer friendly? You're aware that YouTube's customers are not the people who are uploading videos or watching those uploaded by others, aren't you?
 
I'll say it: I think that YouTube is a bloody fantastic service. It's free to view, it offers nice links to similar material; it is a really good archive of stuff that you thought you'd never see or hear again.

I love it. I think that it's superb and should be applauded.

It's also free.

As a user of the place, I have absolutely no right to demand that they change the way they do things; they entirely have the right to manage their business whatever way they want.

If that means that they err on the side of caution when a potential copyright issue emereges, then so be it. That is their right - and possibly their duty according to the applicable legislation and the duties they bear to their investors.

Lotso of people seem to be treating them as if they were a pariah because of their perceived bias, yet nobody has at any stage demonstrated this bias, and in the case of JREF, James Randi has explicitly said that everything was fine about the temporary suspension.

Remember that if JREF wants a guaranteed host for videos, they will have to pay for the redunundant storage and bandwidth that hosting permanently available video demands. The JREF gets a great deal from YouTube, and all it has to do is to follow the terms and conditions and to tolerate the occasional spat when someone makes a complaint.

This whole thing has led to ludicrous claims about YouTube and has generated a huge slew of criticism where none was merited. Some commentators have been so indiscrete as to challenge YouTube even before the facts became know. Sceptical commentators commenting when they had no facts; ironic. They've even stuck to their position. The JREF kept quiet all through this, when maybe they would hace served both YouTube and the sceptical community better by making it clear as soon as they knew that there were genuine reasons for the suspension.

This whole incident has shown the sceptical organisations can mess up and that they can infer gross conclusions on little evidence just like the worst of the woo-guys can.
 
I also think YouTube is a great service. The advantage of putting videos there instead of just hosting them on a private server is the network effect. An unknown person can put a video on YouTube and it may end up being seen by tens of thousands of people. I'm sure the JREF videos get more exposure by being on YouTube than they would if they were just hosted on the JREF site.
 
Prometheus said:
How is it not customer friendly? You're aware that YouTube's customers are not the people who are uploading videos or watching those uploaded by others, aren't you?
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They're not? I upload videos. I watch Youtube videos. So do many of my friends. Isn't that what it was designed for?
 
Prometheus said:
How much do you pay them?
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Why is that important to know? Should services have no scruples if they are free? Should they treat customers as dirt if they aren't paying customers? Since they make more advertising dollars with more customers, why should they take an attitude that drives customers away?
 
Sherman Bay said:
Why is that important to know? Should services have no scruples if they are free? Should they treat customers as dirt if they aren't paying customers? Since they make more advertising dollars with more customers, why should they take an attitude that drives customers away?
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The point is that users are not YouTube's customers. Advertisers are their customers. Certainly if they were to drive away all their users, they would no longer be of use to the advertisers, but that's not what this is about. They're trying to strike a balance between providing their customers with the most lucrative potential audience for their advertisements, while limiting costs/risks. Also, the advertising industry has come a long, long way from merely equating audience size with advertising value. YouTube's customers are looking at how well the service targets certain audience demographics. It's entirely possible that the sorts of users being driven away by this policy are not useful to their advertisers in the first place.
 
Sherman Bay said:
I think Randi is too soft on YouTube. IMHO, their policies are unneccesarily harsh, for these reasons:
  1. A mere unverified complaint is sufficient to remove a video permanently unless challenged, and
  2. A mere complaint about only one video is sufficient to suspend an entire account permanently unless challenged.
While I don't dispute any web site's right to remove something that is in clear violation of the law, or even discontinue showing it until matters are cleared up, it is not reasonable or customer-friendly to do it in this heavy-handed manner.
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This is exactly correct. A series of unsubstasiated claims can get an entire channel removed and the user banned for life, and in order to fight a DMCA notice a user who posted anonymously would have to provide contact information to the person who made the claim.

Scientology has used this to take down critical videos and attempt to identify the people responsible. They simply claim copyright on videos that they do not own, and when the user refuses to provide their name and address (out of fear of being targeted by the cult) the videos stay down. When the user has enough videos removed they are no longer able to post, even if they start another account. Of course, making false DMCA claims is punishable by charges of perjury, but of the 4000 videos removed en masse by Scientology, many of which have been restored, not one perjury accusation has made it to court.

YouTube seem content to remove videos to comply with the laws, but doesn't seem willing to protect their producers from identification by a process of invalid and fraudulent claims.
 
TheStig said:
This is exactly correct. A series of unsubstasiated claims can get an entire channel removed and the user banned for life, and in order to fight a DMCA notice a user who posted anonymously would have to provide contact information to the person who made the claim.

Scientology has used this to take down critical videos and attempt to identify the people responsible. They simply claim copyright on videos that they do not own, and when the user refuses to provide their name and address (out of fear of being targeted by the cult) the videos stay down. When the user has enough videos removed they are no longer able to post, even if they start another account. Of course, making false DMCA claims is punishable by charges of perjury, but of the 4000 videos removed en masse by Scientology, many of which have been restored, not one perjury accusation has made it to court.

YouTube seem content to remove videos to comply with the laws, but doesn't seem willing to protect their producers from identification by a process of invalid and fraudulent claims.
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That still seems to me to be a problem with the law, not with YouTube's attempts to stay in business despite the law. Why on earth should users be justified in expecting the company to come to their defense against abusers of the law? That could cost them millions of dollars, and gain them virtually nothing.
 
Prometheus said:
The point is that users are not YouTube's customers. Advertisers are their customers. Certainly if they were to drive away all their users, they would no longer be of use to the advertisers, but that's not what this is about.
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Yes, it is. Such tactics drive away their customer base, and that's exactly what this is about.

They want the most advertisers and the most viewers. Perhaps they feel they are striking a balance, but I don't, and I am one of the viewers and one of the posters. I avoid YouTube in many cases and post my videos elsewhere sometimes because I don't wish to abide by their policies. Meanwhile, millions of other users may be making the same decision.
 
Sherman Bay said:
Yes, it is. Such tactics drive away their customer base, and that's exactly what this is about.

They want the most advertisers and the most viewers. Perhaps they feel they are striking a balance, but I don't, and I am one of the viewers and one of the posters.
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They're still in business, though, aren't they? And their "customer base" is made up entirely of advertisers who pay them for advertising space. Can you show any evidence that any significant number of advertisers has stopped doing business with YouTube because of this policy? The users who upload and/or view videos are not customers; in fact, it would be more honest to call them 'usees' since that's really what they are. They're being used to provide free labor which the company uses to provide a product they can sell to advertisers.

Sherman Bay said:
I avoid YouTube in many cases and post my videos elsewhere sometimes because I don't wish to abide by their policies. Meanwhile, millions of other users may be making the same decision.
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:rolleyes: I'm sure your occasional absence has them wondering where their next meal will come from:

* YouTube was the number one video site on the Internet as of January - with 67.5 million unique users in the U.S., according to Nielsen NetRatings.
* The site also was the 6th largest Internet destination overall, Nielsen determined.
* People watch hundreds of millions of videos a day on the service.
* Every minute, 10 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
* Of the 9.5 billion online videos watched in the U.S. in November last year, 2.9 billion of those were watched on YouTube, according to Comscore.
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http://www.emw.net.au/blog/marketing/social-media/interesting-youtube-usage-facts/
 
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Bruce Grubb said:
Youtube is subject to little things called the 1st amendment and the laws of this country. THe door on private own companies swings BOTH ways.
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The laws of this country--absolutely.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--only as it protects Youtube. The only thing that the First Amendment does is prohibit the government from infringing on freedom of speech. The First Amendment has no applicability over similar actions by private individuals or companies, unless they are acting as government agents or surrogates, which Youtube clearly is not.
 
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