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YouTube Apologizes For Tweeting Somebody Else's Video (inc.com) 107

Posted by EditorDavid from the taking-licenses dept.
YouTube's controversial year-end "Rewind" video has become "the most-loathed video in the entire history of YouTube," reports Inc., adding that with 14 million down votes, it now "might just be the most-hated video anybody ever posted anywhere."

"But then came Christmas Day, and YouTube apparently managed to top its own blunder." How? By uploading a promo video wishing viewers a Merry Christmas on Twitter. The problem: YouTube allegedly didn't own the video. Instead, it copied a YouTube user's video and reposted it as its own, without so much as offering credit....The only real difference between the version of video that YouTuber Lily Hevesh created and uploaded to YouTube, and the one that YouTube reportedly passed off as its own work in a post on Twitter is that YouTube's version on Twitter skipped the opening 20 seconds. That would be the part in which Hevesh, who describes herself as a "domino artist," shared her logo and a short clip of herself setting up the dominoes.

Hevesh caught what YouTube had apparently done about 14 hours after the post, and tweeted a response: "Very glad to see that my Christmas domino e-card is getting good use. However, I'm a bit disappointed that YouTube would take my video and re-upload it with absolutely no credit. People rip off my work everyday and it's honestly saddening to see this happen by YouTube itself...." Even if money weren't involved, YouTube's own terms of service and copyright page seem to ban exactly what it looks like was done here. It's a mess.

In the end, YouTube owned up to its mistake -- well, partway anyway. It tweeted a follow-up on the day after Christmas, acknowledging that they "forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video!" and linking to Hevesh's YouTube page.
The Verge points out that YouTube "does own a limited license to people's videos, so legally, the company can take Hevesh's content and upload it to its Twitter account. The problem is ethical....

"Reuploading video while stripping credit is a practice that YouTube explicitly condemns. YouTube's community guidelines and policy page specifically states that creators should only 'upload videos that you made or that you're authorized to use.'"
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YouTube Apologizes For Tweeting Somebody Else's Video More

YouTube Apologizes For Tweeting Somebody Else's Video

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  • Since if you include even a second of any commercial music in a YouTube video your work WILL be claimed and someone else will get all your ad revenue for your entire original work, I'm sure that the original owner of the domino video must be getting all of the ad revenue from the video YouTube ripped off wholesale...

    • Doubtful, but I'm willing to bet that she winds up with a lot more publicity this way. Whether or not that's worth anything is another matter though.

    • Re: So she got ad revenue, right? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      YouTube didn't rip anything off. They own your video when you upload the content - well, own isn't the word, but they can use it however they want, more or less.

      Read the fucking terms and conditions people, it's 2019 almost.

    • Re: So she got ad revenue, right? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by astrofurter ( 5464356 ) on Sunday December 30, 2018 @02:43AM (#57878434)

      As other respondents have pointed out with needless vulgarity, YouTube's one-sided "terms of service" almost certainly give them the legal right to use her content without compensation. The problem here is that _all_ "terms of service" documents essentially say the user has no rights - fuck you, prole, that's why.

      This practice is called "lawful fraud". It occurs wherever one party is unilaterally allowed to define the terms of commerce. What's needed is legislation akin to the Uniform Commercial Code (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code) to set standard, fair business practices for online services.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        We need a digital bill of rights. Something that protects both ways: against censorship, and against use without attribution.

      • As other respondents have pointed out with needless vulgarity, YouTube's one-sided "terms of service" almost certainly give them the legal right to use her content without compensation. The problem here is that _all_ "terms of service" documents essentially say the user has no rights - fuck you, prole, that's why.

        I guess this was necessary vulgarity?

  • That is a practice they definitely endorse.

  • Having a license doesn't mean that if you upload it and lie about where you got it, that you didn't harm the creator. Especially if you didn't give them any "consideration" (eg money) that would be consistent with selling that right. If it is a shrink-wrap license, and they present the service in a way that they know that video creators are trying to make money from the videos they upload, then they don't get very many rights from a shrink-wrap license.

    I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure if she has a law

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Naw (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 29, 2018 @03:30PM (#57876142)

      >I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure if she has a lawyer she can get paid here.

      Nope.
      https://www.youtube.com/t/terms [youtube.com]

      C. For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service.

      People that use these services like YouTube or Facebook seem to forget that any content of theirs, whether their own produced vids or posted family photos, are no longer exclusively their own property anymore. Under YouTube's terms, it had a perfect right to modify that woman's video and display it without crediting her. Not very ethical, but legal.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      This. A license allows you to use it, but it doesn't allow you to remove the creator's name from it.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The license given to Youtube allows them to "prepare derivative works".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          They still need to credit the original source.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ...isn't run by Caesar's wife.

  • Pretty sure that's a copyright violation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday December 29, 2018 @03:37PM (#57876176)

    The Verge points out that YouTube "does own a limited license to people's videos, so legally, the company can take Hevesh's content and upload it to its Twitter account.

    I'm pretty sure their license allows them to distribute people's videos (necessary for YouTube to function). It does not allow them to edit then redistribute the edited video. That's a copyright violation. Hevesh should be able to sue them for up to $150,000, more if she filed a copy of the video with the U.S. Copyright Office.

    The silly thing is that YouTube's sharing link has a tool to allow you to add a start time to a video link (start the video x seconds in). They only had to tweet her original video with the start time set at 20 seconds to skip her intro. The ease with which you can do that and the fact that they didn't would seem to put this violation in the class of willfull and malicious infringement. Someone at YouTube knew exactly what they were doing by manually editing out the first 20 seconds of her video. Which is why the full $150,000 fine could be in play.

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by SlaveToTheGrind ( 546262 )

      I'm pretty sure their license allows them to distribute people's videos (necessary for YouTube to function). It does not allow them to edit then redistribute the edited video. That's a copyright violation.

      Why guess when it takes only a minute or two to actually read the terms of the license [youtube.com]? Here's the relevant provision (my emphasis):

      For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels .

      It may well have been a bad business move, but it seems to me that "displaying/performing" a "derivative work" of the video in question "though any media channel" fits squarely within their rights under the license.

      • I don't think its a bad business move, really. Their Twitter feed is full of clips. The only difference in this case is they simply neglected to credit the creator as they do in all their other tweets.

        Much ado another nothing as far as I can see.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

          This is not neglect. It is not just that they didn't credit them. They went out of their way to remove the credit. If they had linked to the video would have credited them implicitly. Linking to the point 20-seconds into the video would have been rude, but would have credited them indirectly since it still leads to their channel. No, someone intentionally chopped the first 20 seconds off the video and uploaded that modified video. That's not neglect, that's a willful act.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by xlsior ( 524145 )

            This is not neglect. It is not just that they didn't credit them. They went out of their way to remove the credit. I

            That change made it a 'derivative work', which their license explicitly allows youtube to do as well.

            While ethically questionable, they didn't violate their own license.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

              Agreed. No one in this thread is asserting that they did violated any license. Merely that it was dirty, and more than simple neglect.

      • Wow -- guess you couldn't find the "-1, TruthHurts" mod and had to improvise. Idiot.

      • Interestingly, the non-bolded part you omitted in between two bolded sections seems to limit the rights of the bolded part. I think a case could be made that this exceeds those limits.

        I'm not sure if that case you be made against YouTube's lawyers, but that's just a "good luck holding corporations accountable" thing

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You could just read the license:

      "you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels"

      Youtuber's ret

    • "...prepare derivative works of..."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        Google nevertheless harms its reputation here, perhaps by far more than the trivial $150k of ad revenue.

        One more straw on the camel's back.

    • Actually they have a right to change (Score:5, Informative)

      by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Saturday December 29, 2018 @07:41PM (#57877100)
      Look at their TOS : "royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's" emphasis mine. You upload it, they can pretty much do everything and anything with it.

  • For arbitrary values of evil.

  • is this just another way of saying 'I live in my mom's basement'?

  • I dare you. Of what significant consequence could this story possibly be?

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