Youtube is only complying with DMCA safe harbor by doing this. It requires a speedy takedown of whatever content the claim was filed against. I'm getting slightly sick of people claiming this is Youtube's fault. YT is required by law to do this.
"Youtube is only complying with DMCA safe harbor by doing this." … "YT is required by law to do this."
I'm pretty sure that's not the case here, but I'm also pretty sure that's the intended interpretation of intensionally misleading messages sent by Google/YouTube/Rumblefish.
As far as I can tell (and as mentioned in previous comments) there has been no DMCA takedown notice issued. That means Rumblefish hasn't crossed any legal line over the DMCA (but might still be acting fraudulently), and Google has no obligation under DMCA to take the video down.
Google/YouTube _do_ require you to agree to terms and conditions that say they can take down _anything_ you upload for any (or no) reason.
So Google have no obligation to host/serve your videos for you.
Google also have a business deal with Rumblefish (and many businesses like them) saying "we'll attempt to automate detection of uploads of copyright infringing material with your content and place ads on them and give you a cut, and we'll let you adjudicate disputes", presumably with something in return along the lines of "and you'll agree to ask for takedowns instead of suing us over things our automated systems miss".
It's obvious that the relationship with power is the one between Google and large-scale rightsholders, not the one between YouTube and the free uploaders and downloaders.
(Queue the old "The advertisers are the customers. _Tou_ are the product" line.)
With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally.
Then again, should we not say that the algorithm that processes for copyrighted audio is imperfect and therefore could be improved further to not have false positive such as this?
I would bet that someone would have copyrighted sounds such as cash register's ka-ching!. Although use of such sounds from a specific recording should be copyrighted, I should be able to record a video of a real world cash register without anybody in the world claiming my work to be theirs.
"With that being said, it seems appalling that it is possible on Rumblefish side to claim copyright on bird songs, assuming that they have vetted the audio personally."
Two comments:
I wonder of Rumblefish intentionally err on the side of false positives, and use that stance in marketing their service to copyright owners? Cynical-me thinks perhaps this is just some viral marketing scam - with the birdsong being used on purpose since there's no legal-entity who could be said to be "the copyright holder" who could file fraud charges?
Secondly, I wonder if there's some recourse available to audit Rumblefish over this? If they're accepting payment from Google for their alleged copyright interest in the birdsong, how exactly are they disbursing that money and to which "copyright holder"?
> I see no evidence that this incident has anything to do with the DMCA.
Other than the fact that false DMCA claims occur regularly on youtube. People end up blaming youtube. I guess that's not what happened here, but I don't think my assumption was unjustified. I've seen this happen often. The original post on the google support forum also refers to "false copyright claims", and barely mentions ads.
