Nikola issues DMCA takedown of videos with their rolling truck clip

spartaman64 · October 3, 2020

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Nikola last month admitted that the promotional video of a supposedly functional Nikola One electric truck moving along a highway actually consisted of the company's vehicle rolling downhill. This week, Nikola "forced the removal of several critical videos from YouTube, saying they infringed its copyright by using footage from the company," including the truck-rolling-downhill video, the Financial Times reported yesterday.

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Sam Alexander is one of at least two financial commentators who had videos removed by Google subsidiary YouTube at Nikola's request. He says that four of his videos were taken down.

"The claim is from when I showed 30 seconds of their Nikola One in Motion footage, which is what they put on Twitter and it's of their Nikola One rolling down the hill," Alexander said in a YouTube video he posted Wednesday.

Alexander said he believes his videos should be protected as fair use under YouTube's policies. He used the 30-second clip of the Nikola One in videos that lasted 10 minutes or more, he said. Alexander said he put the words "Source: Nikola" in the corner when he played the truck clip and played his own audio over the clip.

"I'm fairly certain it falls under fair use," he said in the video. "That being said, I'm a little nervous because [YouTube's website] says if you challenge the [copyright] strike, then be prepared to get a lawyer and it looks like these are going to go to court, and I don't have lawyer money... I'm fairly broke."

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A Nikola statement sent to Ars and other media outlets tries to portray YouTube as the party that initiated the video-removal process. "YouTube regularly identifies copyright violations of Nikola content and shares the lists of videos with us," a Nikola spokesperson told Ars. "Based on YouTube's information, our initial action was to submit takedown requests to remove the content that was used without our permission. We will continue to evaluate flagged videos on a case-by-case basis."

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YouTube offered a different description, saying that Nikola simply took advantage of the Copyright Match Tool that's available to people in the YouTube Partner Program.

"Nikola has access to our copyright match tool, which does not automatically remove any videos," YouTube told the FT. "Users must fill out a copyright removal request form, and when doing so we remind them to consider exceptions to copyright law. Anyone who believes their reuse of a video or segment is protected by fair use can file a counter-notice."

We asked Nikola if it has a response to YouTube's statement, but Nikola didn't provide any further comment.

source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/10/nikola-tries-to-silence-critics-with-copyright-takedowns-of-youtube-videos/

I love how Nikola isnt even denying that they are taking down "fair use" videos. And even though youtube has tools to help creators find videos that infringe their copyright its up to them to review the videos so I'm not buying Nikola's argument. If this is about content ID then I would agree that its youtube's fault since its an automated youtube system but from the description its a copyright strike not content ID that's happening. This reeks of desperation and does more harm to their image than letting those videos stay up.

pm128 · October 3, 2020

Huh

Spotty · October 3, 2020

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Rightsholders must consider fair use

I read that multiple times before realising it didn't say "Right Shoulders"

Streisand effect going to be in full force now and it'll do even more damage to them. I never knew of this video until now. Congrats. You played yourself. Sucks for the channel(s) that have to deal with the Copyright Strikes though.

So supposedly the truck was just rolling down the hill and it wasn't being driven under its own power? How did people figure that out from the video? I'm actually curious to see that guys video now to see if he breaks it down and explains it.

Edit: Nevermind, I just saw that Nikola themselves admitted it wasn't functional in the 2018 promotional video. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/09/nikola-admits-prototype-was-rolling-downhill-in-promotional-video/

But that just begs the question, if Nikola have already admitted to it and the cats out of the bag, why try to takedown videos talking about it?

Edited October 3, 2020 by Spotty

Patrik_ · October 3, 2020

I didnt expect Nikola to have news here but even as an investor who started 3 months ago I knew that Nikola is one big red flag, no real product, cocky CEO, being mean to other companies like Hyliion, I love Hyliion they actually have a product, awsome team and polotical connections.