My Web Series Was Suspended by YouTube Without Explanation
alexjmann.tumblr.com
alexjmann.tumblr.com
You may not have done anything wrong, for this to occur. All it takes is someone willing to _say_ that you infringed on their copyright.
I think you can sue the issuers of the takedowns, if they are fraudulent.
This was likely the act of someone with an axe to grind, not any violation of YouTube policies.
http://www.youtube.com/t/copyright_counter
The final line reads:
> We may then reinstate the material in question at our discretion.
So it's a toss-up if they're actually going to do something but they will reveal your information to the party that claimed infringement. That seems to be a pretty lousy deal.
Seems fair. /joke
Not that it makes it necessarily feasible, but at least there is an option.
I find it bizarre that people think you can't give feedback on a company's bad behavior because their service is free.
I do regret not backing up each video to another platform while I went. The reason was because I wanted to aggregate all traffic to a single platform, in the case that I started to run ads. I guess I could have uploaded them privately on another platform, only to open up publicly should something like this happen.
The conclusion I saw for myself is to "use platform, but do not rely your business to platform".
Google is incurring and running up against some real trust issues.
I haven't always agreed with their decisions, but even when I became discouraged, I'd still glean information and news that showed or hinted at concerned, ethical people behind the closed doors.
But... the continuing lack of a public, human interface to their endeavors, and the increasing... unreliability of their products. (Well, their products to us end users of their ostensible services, as opposed to us as products delivered via their marketing and advertising mechanisms.)
I increasingly don't trust them.
And this is going to be a serious problem for Google, in the long run. Once you lose reliability and accountability, people start looking elsewhere.
Ok, this is a bit of a long reach, but look at Apple. Jobs was, ultimately if somewhat capriciously, a primary source of Apple's accountability. And now he's gone.
Even if people couldn't explain it and articulate it fully, they felt concern that his passing potentially represented a significant shift.
The more and longer Google continues to refuse to acknowledge -- and address -- the gaming of the IP/content/distribution systems, the more distrust builds.
Even still, this "silence" is not consistent and company-wide. For example, Google Fiber -- at least in its incarnation; I'm less certain about it's continuing and evolving existence -- is a fairly strong statement (even if and as also somewhat self-serving; this is a business, after all) about the current state and needed direction of development and growth of connectivity.
But I don't know that this "under the radar" approach suffices. Back to the original point of this thread: I don't trust that anything on YouTube is going to be there, tomorrow.
The Web is failing as archive. More and more, the public is learning that it is indeed transient.
If you want people to "live" there and to trust to your online services, this may be a bad thing.
(Yes, I'm one isolated opinion, and I may be blowing smoke. But I'm disgusted at the increasing constriction back towards an entrenched status quo -- or the attempts at same.)
Google reserves the right to: Terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without notice.
I don't particularly care about that particular gmail account, but it's terrifying that they believe they have the right to do the exact same thing to my personal gmail account, which I definitely DO care about. That seems unethical, even if it's perhaps legal.
Remember, google customers are advertisers.
Also, that bit of snark is getting old and tired, and wasn't ever very accurate to begin with.
"In 2011, 96% of Google's revenue was derived from its advertising programs. For the 2006 fiscal year, the company reported $10.492 billion in total advertising revenues and only $112 million in licensing and other revenues."
If you want an SLA, you (almost always) have to pay for it. And if you pay for Google Apps, you also get phone support...
In the meantime: IMAP backups. If that's too much of a pain, there are also a ton of services (free or otherwise) which will do automatic backups for you, though you should really (really) make sure you trust them and their security procedures before you hand off access to your primary email account to them.
Same with the youtube channel from OP. i'm 100% certain that the guy has all his videos ready for re-upload. but who cares? He had worked hard promoting that channel in several venues and acquiring an audience to THAT channel. That is lost forever.
More on the that: http://thehorcrux.com/why-i-built-horcrux-app/
</shamelessplug>
Google's customers are advertisers. They get personal support, with real people. It is the advertisers that need to be reassured about Google's services; who need to be convinced that Google do not tolerate any kind of extra ad clicking. (Not saying that's what happened here!!)
It is incredibly annoying that quality original content gets removed while the blurry cat clips get reposted all over youtube. And the blurry reposts prove that YouTube will continue to make money for Google even if they take down original content.
Not really. You're essentially saying the same thing that people have been saying about Google on HN at least as long as I've been a member. (That's two and a half years on this user name, and another I don't know how long on one that wasn't my real name.)
--
Hi there,
After a review of your account, we have confirmed that your YouTube account is not in violation of our Terms of Service. As such, we have unsuspended your account. This means your account is once again active and operational.
If you forgot your password, please visit this link to reset it: (link)
Sincerely, The YouTube Team
--
Certainly not a stunt. I don't even know how I'd go about suspending my own YouTube account, which I was only able to access for the first time in over a week after receiving this email.
Atwood mentions his fair use issues here:
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/07/but-you-did-not-per...
Granted, Vive.ly isn't free. There's a small cost for uploading, encoding, and storing the video, but that's a one time charge, and there's a nominal cost for bandwidth (we call it "minutes" to make it simple). But it's a wallet system, so if you don't use it you aren't dinged every month, and you own the content so you can run your own ads, name the site what you want or embed it anywhere.
We've gone toe to toe with big content trying to do take-downs of fair use content, and won. The DMCA doesn't have to be handled the way YouTube does it.
You can try it out through http://www.getvively.com/ which explains the platform or direct at http://www.vive.ly/ which is the platform itself.
You can use the invite code "hd4yc" to try it out with 600 minutes of video storage, and 12,000 minutes of delivery.
You also have to "replace the removed material and cease disabling access to it not less than 10, nor more than 14, business days following receipt of the counter notice, unless its designated agent first receives notice from the person who submitted the notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) that such person has filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the subscriber from engaging in infringing activity relating to the material on the service provider’s system or network."[1] (emphasis added)
It would be interesting to hear about what you guys have found effective in helping support fair use with vive.ly, but since the DMCA makes it essentially zero cost to spam takedown notices, even if only to achieve a chilling effect, the only tool you have (talking to the company posting the notice) is not very effective. You certainly (AFAIK) have no legal leverage as a safe harbored service provider.
This discredits your entire premise. We are a registered safe harbor service provider.
I've been in video since 98, and we've been hosting customer video since 2001. We've been to court over this, on behalf of our customers, and won. We know what we have to do and what we don't have to do. There's a lot of leeway for the provider in the DMCA.
The big guys partly want to automate everything, and partly are simply acknowledging they have a pirated content problem since anyone can upload anonymously and free, so their practices are far more anti-fair-use than the DMCA requires.
As a final note: you don't have to take down a given piece of content. You only "have" to take it down if you're afraid you'll lose on fair use and want to cover your ass.
Google giveth and Google taketh away (often without you really knowing why).
Its also why I won't put any or my data near it.
If it is free, they can do this anytime they like. Your proper answer is to set up your own server and do it yourself. I guess taking it public and getting responses from individuals in that company is your response. Still doesn't mean you shouldn't set up shop in your own right.
</rant=off>
Hosting with The Pirate Bay would seem like an option. They seem to have 'stop shutdowns' stopped pretty well.
"Entitled" blogs, rants and the like (and to be clear, this entry didn't strike me as particularly entitled, but disappointed) are more the act of petulant children.
No money passes hands, but there is a benefit for both sides. It is the video that generates the traffic, I'd consider that the payment.
Am I correct that the You Tube or Google user, like yourself, pays nothing for the service or space & is therefore receiving a gift? If that is true, than what alleged "right" does the gift donee have to continue receiving the gift?