Viacom Claims Copyright On Irrlicht Video 258
stinkytoe writes in with the news that Nikolaus Gebhardt, developer of the cross-platform game engine library Irrlicht, recently had one of his video tutorials taken off of YouTube. A thread on Irrlicht's forum contains a copy of the takedown notice. From Gebhardt's blog: "Viacom, the corporation behind MTV, DreamWorks and Paramount is now claiming they own the copyright on a video of an Irrlicht tutorial. Which is completely ridiculous, of course: The whole thing has been written by me and the Irrlicht team, even textures and skins and logos have been created by me, and an Irrlicht Engine user... simply filmed and published it on YouTube.com. Here is a screenshot of the tutorial, it's really just a 2D GUI rendered using the 3D engine, nothing special at all."
Sue them? (Score:3, Interesting)
For a little perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I give you, courtesy Wikipedia, the List of Assets owned by Viacom. [wikipedia.org]
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"List of assets owned by Viacom." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 25 Jan 2007, 23:34 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 6 Feb 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of _assets_owned_by_Viacom&oldid=103256937 [wikipedia.org]>.
Stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
IANAL, but I believe that they can simply file a DMCA Counter Notice and make Viacom put up or shut up--hopefully that would be enough to make them realize that they've misidentified the clip as being something of theirs.
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Interesting)
Free speech doesn't include copyrighted material, and you should know that. But this type of thing shows yet another manner that the DMCA can be used to harass or silence legitimate speech.
Re:if you want to bake a cake (Score:5, Interesting)
As it is, they basically get to threaten anyone without any justification or consequence. It's getting absurd, really.
Cheers
Perjury! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Possible Reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Possible Reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Censorship and legal spam (Score:5, Interesting)
So apparently Viacom, DreamWorks and Paramount are sending legal spam, without verifying what they are actually sending out, and Google is taking them without verification on their part either. I guess DMCA procedures aren't good enough - censor now, ask questions later.
Scanning "not creative" enough? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is actually a fairly interesting question, and IMO an important one. I'm not sure I share your conclusion that the uploaded version is a new work, though. Although it certainly could be, if you changed it (say, retouched, or even just cropped it), a straight scan+upload probably wouldn't be original enough.
It's an interesting question, because I recently scanned hundreds of old family photos and slides. Many of them, provided Congress stops extending copyright indefinitely, will be out of the original photographer's copyright relatively soon (as in, probably within my lifetime -- copyright, like geology, has its own relative time-scales). However, if the act of scanning the photo automatically makes a new work, then it's under copyright for another 120+ years, beginning 2006. Not really a concern to me, since I'd be the copyright holder, but of concern to a hypothetical other party who might want to use them.
I suspect that simply scanning a photo, in its entirety, and uploading it, does not represent enough of a creative act to warrant a renewal of copyright as a derivative work. Essentially, all that is happening, is that the older work is being "format shifted." However, if you were to do any type of alteration to the original photo that wasn't totally automatic, even something like color correction, I could see an argument for protection on the grounds that it was a creative act.
100,000 Viacom videos on YouTube? (Score:3, Interesting)
This really calls into question the validity of Viacom's claim that YouTube was hosting 100,000 infringing videos belonging to them. I wonder what the real number is. I wonder when the backlash hits YouTube over these "false positives" if they will start to require a little more diligence on the side of the claimants who request for videos to be removed. Shouldn't there penalties for making false claims of ownership over the copyrighted materials of others? YouTube's success was built on the shoulders of the little guy, not these giant media conglomerates. Will they do the right thing and help protect their legitimate users?
Re:Sue them? (Score:3, Interesting)
They haven't "appropriated" anything. They've done a shitty job of trying to ID Viacom copyrights on YouTube, and the spineless pussies at YouTube / Google have folded to their blanket take-down requests instead of demanding more solid proof. YouTube /Google are now the Official Bitches of Viacom
Sure, Viacom needs to improve their accuracy in automatically IDing their stuff, but the weight of the balme needs to land square on YouTube for a complete lack of spine.
Re:Scanning "not creative" enough? (Score:5, Interesting)
But there is pressure to change it so that any refixing in a medium of a work grants a new copyright duration, even if (or if-and-only-if, I'm not certain on that detail) the original work had passed into the public domain. You can't make copies of the new copy; you need to go to the wellspring (a copy with expired copyright) and make your copy from that.
Of course this means if a company keeps a stranglehold on their works using DRM so that no one can make a new copy without the original masters, they can just keep reissuing the work and retain perpetual copyright control. It would allow for the reduction of copyright duration and stop dragging all works along with Mickey Mouse, but at the expense of granting perpetual copyright to immortal corporations and estates, which should violate the Constitution in the US.
Re:Anti-competitive and suppresses free speech... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the big media companies keep doing this to quality, independent content producers, then the independents won't be so inclined to use sites like YouTube to distribute their content, since there's a good chance that it will be mistakenly taken down, and restoration takes a while and more effort than the content is worth.
Thus, Big Media poisons a new outlet that is outside their control, for media that is also outside their control.
(Not trying to be a tinfoil-hat-conspiracy-theorist, but raising a point of discussion.)
It's not breaking eggs (Score:3, Interesting)
It's ridiculous.
Anyone remember the take-down [slashdot.org] notice for a 144k file called doom3.zip dating back from 1988 ?
The DMCA Auto-sue-bot strikes again !
A question :
A complain filed an a un-attended manner, without any human intervention, could it be considered valid in a court ?
As far as I know, only humans (themselves), corporations (with an employed lawyer) and the government (idem) may sue. No provision is made for robots or computers. And in this case, there's is a very good proof that Viacom's suits, no human were ever involved.
Where I live, even in case of animal abuses, a vet has to sue in behalf of the abused animal. Living animals. Now how could a
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:if you want to bake a cake (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Censorship and legal spam (Score:3, Interesting)
This makes me wonder what would happen if someone posted illegal content to YouTube with a filename that would be found by Viacom's bot. Does Viacom's claim of ownership make them liable for the content?
Re:Slander of Title - depending (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not send them a Cease and Desist Letter (Score:5, Interesting)
But this is what I would do:
Repost the video and send Viacom a Cease and Desist letter asking that they stop telling people that your copyrighted works are there's. Then, when they do it again, they cannot claim ignorance or that it was an oversight or whatever. Put up the video on a web site with an advertisement that pays you per page view, and claim that by lying to Google, they are causing you a loss of income.
So, essentially, they are lying about you, in writing, and it is negatively affecting you. Then you would probably have a better legal case. In addition, thanks to the RIAA and others like them, there is a great deal of negative coverage for people who engage in copyright infringement. So, now that it has been slashdotted, it could also damage your reputation...