The only solution I've found is "don't engage". It doesn't change anything, but at least I'm not the one getting burnt.
It basically says "Dear Youtube, if someone claims copyright you can't be liable if you immediately comply with the claim. However, if you don't, there is no bounds on how much you can be slapped for content posted on your platform."
It creates powerful incentive to err on the side of claimant, however ridiculous the claim is.
So if you are looking for somebody responsible for this, find politicians responsible for getting this passed and forever breaking Internet for everybody.
The DMCA, at least as it's written, is somewhat equitable: if I think you post something of mine, I can go to a lawyer in good faith to file a notice to get it removed, you can go to your lawyer and have it restored, and then we hash it out in court without the video provider needing to be involved for the duration of the case. With YouTube, it's YT throwing up more roadblocks in my way (as the uploader) should you start sniffing around. Plus, you can claim copyright on my work in a scalable, automated way, without needing to verify individual works, and that last part is where all the abuse of the system happens.
Google has absolutely no intention of fixing this claims process; doing so would break the armistice they agreed to with Viacom more than a decade ago, since Google wasn't complying with the DMCA.
It's kind of bizarre to suggest otherwise.
DMCA merely requires a timely takedown in response to an active report of infringement. And if the creator counter-claims and says "nope, I'm not infringing", the DMCA instructs the hosting service to put the content back up and guarantees the hosting service will not be liable if a court later finds the content infringing.
Google does not need to make any kind of judgment here; they can just say "hey DMCA claimer, the content creator says they're not infringing, so we're putting their content back up; if you don't agree with that, you can sue the content creator, and we'll comply with whatever court order comes from that."
But Google has decided to become judge, jury, and copyright-striker without any legal obligation to do so. Their current "solution" cost them way more money to implement than simply complying with the DMCA takedown process would cost. But I'm sure the buddy-buddy relationship they got with the music labels and movie studios in return for ContentID (and Google's hostile attitude toward small creators) has more than made up for it.
The DMCA has a lot of bad parts to it (the anti-circumvention provisions come to mind), but the takedown process is actually not bad. For the record this is all it is:
1. Copyright holder notices content they think is infringing and files takedown notice with the hosting provider.
2. Hosting provider takes content down, and notifies content creator.
3. Content creator can file a counter-claim attesting that they do not believe their creation is infringing.
4. Hosting provider puts content back up, and notifies the original claimaint.
5. Claimant can decide to sue the content creator if they still believe they have a case. The hosting provider is left alone.
And that's how it should be! People should be responsible for the things they post. Neutral hosting services should not be. The alternative to this takedown process would be that the copyright holder would have to go to court for every single case of infringement, which would not only be prohibitively expensive, but would clog up the court system. I'll bet that most DMCA takedowns never even make it to step #5. Either the content "creator" admits that they are indeed infringing, and leaves the content down, or the original claimant decides to drop the issue after receiving a counter-claim. It's surely not a perfect system, but I think it's better than making everyone reach for a formal lawsuit as their first and only option.
It's more than that. This bending over backwards is the only reason YouTube still exists. Until recently, the main value of YouTube to anyone was free music. YouTube was built on copyright infringement. Eventually, it faced a choice: clean house and lose the only thing that kept users regularly coming back, or go bankrupt trying to pay for royalties. They found a third way - settling and bending over backwards to funnel money to big media companies.
Perhaps today, YouTube could survive on "original content" alone - there are more options for music, and vlogosphere became a thing general population is very much into. But that would be still an extremely risky move for Google: streamers and vloggers can easily move to another service, but there's only one place on the Internet that can legitimately stream all the mainstream music, for free (with ads). It's still their only true competitive advantage.
This is not DMCA. I’m almost certain from the screenshots that the video was flagged by YouTube’s incredibly broken content ID system. Once flagged the content creator can appeal, but on appeal it is the supposed copyright holder who gets to decide whether their claim is valid, the content creator has no say, and no further recourse.
It’s an incredibly unjust system, plagued by trolls, but I don’t think it’s caused by DMCA.
IANAL, etc
> Viacom said it was not seeking damages for any actions since Google put in its filtering system, known as content ID, in early 2008.
It's not DMCA, but Viacom basically said "we won't sue you for damages since you've start scanning all videos and taking down our copyrighted content". Obviously other media giants weren't going to let Viacom be the only one with access to this profit machine, so now pretty much all global media giants have access to Content ID.
DMCA has a proper process where you can appeal properly, and you can't keep sending bogus claims without repercussion. DMCA also allows fair use. And finally, DMCA puts the burden of proof on the claimant. In ContentID, however there is no burden of proof, and claimants can deny disputes without mediation.
see
> If the claim is disputed by the uploader then the claimant can accept/reject that dispute. The uploader then has the chance to appeal; if they do so then the claimant has to either release the claim or escalate to a DMCA takedown. Of course if it gets to that point then the video is coming down and no one will be making money.
has any major company ever faced meaningful consequences for this? A handful of copyright trolls have been busted, but the MPA/RIAA send false DMCA notices all the time. Sometimes they're just incompetent (https://torrentfreak.com/all-dmca-notices-filed-against-torr...) but companies often very willfully abuse the DMCA to silence criticism yet not one of them seems to have been held accountable for it.
I did not say this claim is DMCA.
I said this situation is a result of DMCA, the law.
Basically, why deal with DMCA when you can just summarily take stuff down or demonetize even without any DMCA claim.
I am pretty sure without DMCA and other similar, made to order laws Google would not bother taking stuff down or building any kind of AI to do this. Because, you know, it costs. And makes people post less content.
So yes, this is result of DMCA.
No, its a result of bog-standsrd copyright infringement claims (the DMCA safe harbor weakened those against hosts generally, but then claims made in the massive Viacom suit—which, before it was settled, resulted on Google being forced to turn over the entire viewing history of YouTube to Viacom—and others involved YouTube being outside the scope of the DMCA safe harbor.)