The Verge: How we built a copyright strike

[Spotty]

Source: https://twitter.com/bitwitkyle/status/1095578571244879872
 

Remember when The Verge tried to build a computer and it went horribly, horribly wrong? Vox Media, parent company of The Verge, have issued a copyright strike against popular youtuber Kyle AKA "Bitwit" for the video he uploaded titled "Lyle reacts to The Verge's PC Build Video". Kyle took to twitter to share the news of the copyright strike, and warning other youtubers that also criticised The Verge's build guide that they may be next in the sights of Vox Media. The copyright takedown request removed the video from Bitwits channel, and also issued his channel with almost 1.4million subscribers a Copyright Strike which works on a 3 strikes and you're out system with the entire creators channel being removed from Youtube if 3 copyright strikes are issued to a channel within a period 3 months.
 

Quote

Welp, @voxdotcom just removed the "Lyle Reacts to the Verge's PC Build Video" claiming copyright violation and @YouTube, without warning, felt that was deserving of a strike against the channel. Watch out @ScienceStudioYT @TechYESCity @KristoferYee

 

 

 

For those unaware, in September 2018 The Verge published a video guide to youtube showing how to build a computer along with an accompanying written article.

There was a fundamental lack of knowledge from those involved in the video, and the video contained many factual errors including being unable to name certain hardware, recommending incorrect tools for the job, incorrect installation methods, missing screws, and plenty more blatant mistakes. Anyone who followed the advice given in the build would be at risk of damaging their hardware or the system not working. This lead to a response from other popular youtubers in the tech community to condemn or parody the build video published by The Verge, including amongst others the aforementioned reaction video by "Lyle", a tech-illiterate character created by Kyle, published on the Bitwit youtube channel.

 

This copyright strike action follows a series of incidents recently where Youtube's copyright protection system has been abused by people either copyright striking videos that criticise them, or illegitimately copyright striking videos purely for financial gain. Other notable occurrences of copyright strikes being issued against youtubers include PewDiePie being copyright striked because a twitch streamer took offence to him calling her a "thot", a YouTuber being extorted for money through bogus copyright strikes, a youtuber whos video was copyright striked for using his own song, and plenty more.

This has lead to a lot of discussion recently that Youtube's copyright protection system is broken and open to abuse with illegitimate copyright claims and takedown requests which are difficult for the content creators to fight against.

[Spotty]

@bitwit Hope you can get the video restored and the strike removed from your Youtube channel. Is the video available on Floatplane?

[Guest]

Well if he used their media without their consent, there you go. 

[PokiDaSpitz]

damyum verge doing some shaddy crap. i mean if they know this vid was shit why did they even post it?? bruh i have lost all my respect for them.

[mr moose]

I think what needs to happen is that these companies that are abusing the youtube system need to be sued to oblivion each time,  It is clearly the only way they are going to stop with what is essentially extortion. 

[BobVonBob]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

I think what needs to happen is that these companies that are abusing the youtube system need to be sued to oblivion each time,  It is clearly the only way they are going to stop with what is essentially extortion. 

But nobody has the money to actually sue over stuff like this. It's not going to go happen until someone tries pulling this on the big players, copyright striking a Vevo channel, Disney, or similar.

[Triventular]

and lets not forgot where a youtuber got his clip stolen by another youtuber who then copyright striked him for literally using his own uploaded content. @Spotty

 

but these strikes are really getting out of hand, even non tech youtubers are feeling it. the most ridiculous case i heard was someone just sung a part of a song for less than 2 seconds and boom haha this system can just be abused so much by the one who wants the stike and there's not much the strikee can do

[Lathlaer]

14 minutes ago, Spotty said:

PewDiePie being copyright striked because a twitch streamer took offence to him calling her a "thot"

With how big he is and how toxic some members of community are I'm kinda surprised he doesn't get a copyright strike ever 3 minutes.

[Nicnac]

12 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Well if he used their media without their consent, there you go. 

nope, reacting to it is transformative work and considered fair use. nothing about this copystrike is justifiable

[leadeater]

 

hahahaha

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

But nobody has the money to actually sue over stuff like this. It's not going to go happen until someone tries pulling this on the big players, copyright striking a Vevo channel, Disney, or similar.

You mean like pewdipie?  Maybe they can form a class action against the bigger corporations who engage in it.  Filing a false DMCA claim is illegal.

[Bouzoo]

Oh I liked that video a lot. Google needs to step up and give more protection from this system. Even better, change it. 

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

You mean like pewdipie?  Maybe they can form a class action against the bigger corporations who engage in it.  Filing a false DMCA claim is illegal.

Problem is Youtube copyright system is outside of DMCA system so it's extremely rare that there has been a breach of DMCA filing rules when Youtube videos are involved.

[RejZoR]

Youtube copyright system is beyond broken...

[Spotty]

11 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Well if he used their media without their consent, there you go. 

That's not necessarily the case.
If you provide your own creative input to transform the original copyright content then it's possible to use it under fair use.
 

Quote

Fair use guidelines

Different countries have different rules about when it’s acceptable to use material without the copyright owner’s permission. For example, in the United States, works of commentary, criticism, research, teaching or news reporting might be considered fair use. Some other countries have a similar idea called fair dealing that may work differently.
https://www.youtube.com/yt/about/copyright/fair-use/

For example Cinema Sins is a popular youtube channel with over 8 million subscribers and more than 2.5 billion total views which publishes 10-20 minute videos criticising movies, which includes extensive use of scenes from the movie with commentary over the top. This is permitted under fair use as through the commentary and criticism provided they are transforming the original work.
This would be similar to how Bitwit criticised the video published by The Verge, though if legal action is taken it would be up to a court to decide whether or not the input Bitwit added transformed the content enough for it to be considered fair use and not copyright infringement.

The issue with the current Youtube system is that the creators who receive the strike have little to no avenue of defending the copyright claim, with the person/organisation issuing the claim having final say in the matter. When a copyright claim is received, the creator has the opportunity to flag the claim for review... However it's not reviewed by Youtube or another independent body, it is the person/organisation that submitted the copyright claim who gets to review the claim and decide whether it is valid or not. This means that if Bitwit would fight the claim, he would essentially be submitting a report to Vox Media saying "This isn't copyright infringement" and Vox Media would have final say and deciding whether it is or isn't.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Nicnac said:

nope, reacting to it is transformative work and considered fair use. nothing about this copystrike is justifiable

I guess so, hopefully he can dispute it, but if there is direct video and audio clips, it would be hard. 

[kirashi]

20 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Well if he used their media without their consent, there you go. 

Fair Use allows for content re-use for research, education, and satirical purposes, to name a few. Whether the Fair Use Act is respected by The Verge's legal team is another story, of course, as they can still fight it tooth and nail until @bitwit has more time and money then they do to win a legal battle.

Moral of the story: It doesn't matter who's legally correct as much as it matters who has more money and time at their disposal, which undermines the entire purpose of the entire justice system as we know it today.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Problem is Youtube copyright system is outside of DMCA system so it's extremely rare that there has been a breach of DMCA filing rules when Youtube videos are involved.

If the youtube system is operating outside of official DMCA then youtube can be sued for taking down the videos.  The DMCA law is what protects youtube from legal responsibility so long as it adheres to the requirements of DMCA.

 

If what you say is true then a class action against youtube for the system they run  would be legal and quite costly to youtube in the event of a win.  Surely some lawyers have already looked into this?

[Nicnac]

Vox is just a shithole tbh

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Spotty said:

That's not necessarily the case.
If you provide your own creative input to transform the original copyright content then it's possible to use it under fair use.
 

For example Cinema Sins is a popular youtube channel with over 8 million subscribers and more than 2.5 billion total views which publishes 10-20 minute videos criticising movies, which includes extensive use of scenes from the movie with commentary over the top. This is permitted under fair use as through the commentary and criticism provided they are transforming the original work.
This would be similar to how Bitwit criticised the video published by The Verge, though if legal action is taken it would be up to a court to decide whether or not the input Bitwit added transformed the content enough for it to be considered fair use and not copyright infringement.

The issue with the current Youtube system is that the creators who receive the strike have little to no avenue of defending the copyright claim, with the person/organisation issuing the claim having final say in the matter. When a copyright claim is received, the creator has the opportunity to flag the claim for review... However it's not reviewed by Youtube or another independent body, it is the person/organisation that submitted the copyright claim who gets to review the claim and decide whether it is valid or not. This means that if Bitwit would fight the claim, he would essentially be submitting a report to Vox Media saying "This isn't copyright infringement" and Vox Media would have final say and deciding whether it is or isn't.

 

2 minutes ago, kirashi said:

Fair Use allows for content re-use for research, education, and satirical purposes, to name a few. Whether the Fair Use Act is respected by The Verge's legal team is another story, of course, as they can still fight it tooth and nail until @bitwit has more time and money then they do to win a legal battle.

Moral of the story: It doesn't matter who's legally correct as much as it matters who has more money and time at their disposal, which undermines the entire purpose of the entire justice system as we know it today.

 

Fair use is a defense of copyright usage not a license.   It is a policy you can use to defend your use of copyrighted material, it does not automatically give you the green light. Which means if someone makes a DMCA claim, it is up to you as the defendant to argue fair use policy.

[Stormseeker9]

YouTube’s system is a fucking joke. 

[Taf the Ghost]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Problem is Youtube copyright system is outside of DMCA system so it's extremely rare that there has been a breach of DMCA filing rules when Youtube videos are involved.

 

6 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Youtube copyright system is beyond broken...

It's working as intended. YouTube can't legally exist in its current form. While a Video Maker has Fair Use, YouTube the platform really doesn't. That's why their system works the way it does. It's better for the major Video Rights Holders to just keep Google on a leash rather than having it all everywhere. Some of the EU moves have pointed to the functional problems, but the system is working as YouTube wants it. Has nothing to do with the end-user.

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

If the youtube system is operating outside of official DMCA then youtube can be sued for taking down the videos.  The DMCA law is what protects youtube from legal responsibility so long as it adheres to the requirements of DMCA.

 

If what you say is true then a class action against youtube for the system they run  would be legal and quite costly to youtube in the event of a win.  Surely some lawyers have already looked into this?

You could try that in court but no Youtube is allowed as the owner of the private company service with it's own terms and conditions you accept to use the platform. Youtube copyright system is acting in the way all content creators have agreed to when creating an account to use the platform.

 

It's much like a publisher of short stories in a collection book, you could submit a story to be included, it gets included then later there is a dispute of who actually wrote the short story. The publisher then reprints the book without your story due to this dispute, at no point does DMCA actually play a role so the only legal action you can take is breach of contract or something to that extent.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

11 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Youtube copyright system is beyond broken...

 

[Nicnac]

4 minutes ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

snip

I've never seen such a pristine version of this meme before