Forum - View topicNeed advice on YouTube review that was DMCA'd.
|
|
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
thejdshadow
Posts: 2 |
|
|||
|
So, my situation: I have a channel dedicated to gaming and reviewing the new Sailor Moon Crystal anime (every episode) on YouTube. This past episode, I wanted to change it up to improve the videos (since they were declining in views), which was to take certain clips of the episode that I wanted to talk about and put them in the background to play while I talked over top of them to tell people what I thought about them. I had done my usual act of lowering the gain of the show's audio track and increasing it on my voice, as I do with all my videos. I previously just had the intro playing over and over again as I talked, and they were rather lengthy. I decided to try to cut down on the amount of time it took for me to review the episode, as well.
The strange thing is that the first thing that happened was that a monetization third party claim came in (kingrecords), which I countered right away (we Let's Players have had some issues right now with the new system that just bots everything like that, and many companies had to go in and release a lot of claims and white list people). I did that, and in two days, I got a release, but not in the way I thought it might. YouTube claimed that their 30 days were up (clearly, they weren't), and this happened twice now. Twice because of what happened next. A week later, I got an e-mail, saying that Toei Animation filed a DMCA on this particular one. I was immediately bummed about it, and wanted to get some answers as to what happened here to cause this. I am aware of the acts of using copyrighted works and all of that. I don't need to be recited that by YouTube's "Copyright School" to get to where I can do something about it. What I do know, as well, is that reviews are considered fair use in most cases because if they are not, whose to stop people from using it to censor negative reviews? The matter is that this could be considered a review. I am talking over everything, I use about 7 or so minutes (I don't know exactly the amount), everything I use I did discuss as what I liked and what I didn't like (there was something I criticized in the episode, too), and the audio of the episode wasn't as heard as my voice was. If I didn't talk about it, I didn't show it. I asked AuoraPeachy about this, and she suggested that it could've been the full screen showing that did this, which is what I had thought (that and/or using too much of the episode). However, the real problem came when I went to e-mail Toei for an explanation, and to explain the nature of the work that they took down, since I know about the auto bots that YouTube runs and the "shoot first, ask later" approach it loves to do. I e-mailed both Japan's and US's subsidiaries. I didn't get a response, and then messaged their YouTube channel. No response. I was a professional as I could be. Meanwhile, I uploaded an altered way of doing the new format. I do a Special Report (think like TotalBiscuit's Content Patch) which I recently redesigned again. I reversed the layout of it, and posted the altered format (the same thing is playing in a frame now with additional info on a sidebar) on both a burner channel and on DailyMotion. The burner is one in which I won't be heartbroken if it gets a million copyright strikes because I don't use that channel anymore and I've been trying to get that deleted in some way. In a way, I'm testing to see if it goes down again. It's a monetized channel, too, though (I'm affiliated with N4Gtv, a part of Maker Studios) and when kingrecords came in again with the third party money claim, I did counter again, and the same thing happened: it only took two days for a 30 day period to lapse. That's what got my finger itching to pull the counter notification trigger on this. Not to mention that the rep it lists is one I'm having issues finding any link to Toei, and I've yet to get the answers I seek. What is stopping me is that, if I go through with it and they decide to fight, then I'm in for a terrible time. But I feel like I'm in the right here, and it could've also been done by either someone acting as if they were Toei, or an error, or censorship. The DMCA system has been abused a good bit this year (TotalBiscuit, MundaneMatt, and recently Angry Joe) by those willing to use it to keep negative viewpoints about them and/or their products off of YouTube. Those have all been reversed. Most of my critiques were positive for episode 11 (only a wide angle shot got my attention as being wonky). It could also be a troll or someone with an ax to grind with me on a personal level for whatever they have. Regardless, I'm nearly where I feel confident to hit that counter button (especially when I hear that Toei never actually checks their counter notification button). My content was a review with me talking over everything, I've yet to get an answer from Toei, I have reason to believe that YouTube's system is bonked right now (when is it NOT?), and I can't find the rep's relation anywhere. There's no way that I could've uploaded the entire episode (it was a 15 minute video, part were intros, part was me replaying the same scenes I did before, and I've seen reviews on YouTube, Nostalgia Critic especially, use more than that in most cases). So, advice needed: should I pull the trigger on this? I've made three videos on this, and I think viewers are tired of me saying "I might, might, might, thinking about it, thinking about it". I've been waiting for something definitive, and it's not coming. These reviews are rather important to me since they are the most watched thing on my channel right now (rightfully so). Should I file it? What's the history with Toei checking these things? [EDIT: Made the thread title a little less long-winded. -TK] |
||||
|
||||
Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
|
|||
|
If your channel is monetized, you're probably SOL. I'm pretty sure that Fair Use only comes into play when it's a completely non-profit use. If your channel makes you money, then you're making money off of their product, which isn't Fair Use.
|
||||
|
||||
Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
|
|||
|
Critical commentary is protected fair use and being for-profit doesn't invalidate your protection, but the amount you use and whether you're earning money off the work are definitely things a court would look at before making a judgement.
|
||||
|
||||
yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
|
|||
|
Remember that "fair use" is only a defense against charges of infringement. A court would have to rule whether your usage fits within the exclusions in 17 USC 107:
Now these exceptions apply only to works copyrighted in the US. Japan has no fair use provisions, I believe, and its laws may apply. |
||||
|
||||
|
thejdshadow
Posts: 2 |
|
|||
In that sense, though, could you also argue that, in the way of reviewing pieces of media, that those that review content are making money off of that work, anyway? In this manner, you're putting value into the transformitive work by giving the viewer your insight into what is being seen. Yes, it was being monetized, but so are a ton of other videos on YouTube that review pieces of content, some of them in great length, for a variety of forms of media. The job of the reviewer is rather simple: to tell the people watching of whether or not the show or game or movie or whatever is worth watching, either at all or in the future. What if my viewpoints were negative? What if I was telling someone that they should not view or play that piece of content because it was utter rubbish? In this sense, reviewers have a very daunting task of informing the person who is viewing or listening to that person's viewpoint of whether or not that content is worth their time and/or money, and by that definition, they should be allowed to illustrate their viewpoints. Also, in this sense, the laws are rather unclear as to whether or not you can or cannot make any kind of money off of your own content when you review someone else's work, especially in the age of new media and viral media. That is the very point of a review - the very heart of what someone of that nature is doing. Complete removal of a review of your work, for any reason, will strike to people as a form of censorship, especially when you don't explain yourself, and Toei has said that they do not comment about their decisions, which is idiotic in of itself, but when you take down a review, for ANY reason, you better damn well explain yourself because you're going to give a bad impression to those that view your work, especially if that review was panning your content, that you are trying to censor that person's viewpoint by using a system that doesn't do anything at all about protecting the content curators and gives too much power to people who will choose to abuse that process to take down opinions they do not like. I'm not saying Toei actively disliked something I said, but what if it was me slamming an episode of the series? What could they say at that point? Reviews are a very important part of the process. That is actually their job to take a piece of content, critique it, and tell the consumer whether or not they should invest in it. To disallow those people the opportunity to make a living from what they do, and to blindly go about nuking those they disapprove of, is not only preventing those people from doing their job, but is anti-consumer because you taking information, positive or negative, away from that very consumer about your piece of work. Reviews allow the consumer to make informed decisions, and if you are trying to meddle in that process, either by censoring your viewpoint altogether or by buying out a particular feeling out of a reviewer by any means and for any reason, you're interfering in that process, and you're telling the consumer that there's something about your content that you are not confident enough in to allow those that give their thoughts about your work to share, especially when they are showing to the person viewing the review the actual points that are being addressed in the review. And, to be honest, if monetization was the only reason, then, one, they do have the third party claim tool like what kingrecords did and be able to make money off of it themselves, and two, the manner of not giving a damn explanation, as I have tried to get out of them. I have attempted three times to get an answer to no avail. Either their "no comment" rule applies to personal inquiries from the person they have targeted, or they don't care enough to further pursue this situation. Toei has blindly targeted parody content before, and in many of those cases, those that filed counter notifications have won their processes (the DBZ Abridged series were targeted, as I heard, and they have yet to lose counters). I have yet to see a case in which someone filed a counter and Toei pursued any further than that, simply because they seem to not care to check these things. But there is the simple notion that I could be the one that they decide to not only check, but to actively pursue because of the nature of what my content was. I'm not trying to insult you or anything by pointing these things out, but I think that, when dealing with what you said, a lot of gray area must be pointed out as to when you talk about a review (which I have hesitated to call my video series that, as it's just me immediately reacting to the episode after finishing my viewing of it).
This is what I thought to a point, too: that they thought I used too much. I tried not to use too much because I wanted to keep things short, as well (it was one of the problems my other videos began to have). This was actually why I wanted an explanation from them as to what the hell the problem was. The silence from them is deafening, and telling me something completely different. If that's the issue, then that is fine with me since I'm more than willing to cut down on the amount, but they should be telling me this and answering my e-mails to that respect to get it sorted out, not to just ignore that a problem exists. The possibility that it could've been a third party posing as them exists. I'm an opinionated person, and one of my fears about why my series was taking a hit was my position on a particular hot button gaming topic. Thankfully that wasn't the case (the new format was the trick, actually, as my view count was actually rising big time on this). The possibility of it being some random troll is also there. More reason why they should at least answer inquiries that are more personal, so at least that person knows the situation. [EDIT: Added some extra paragraph breaks. Please try to be a little more considerate for people who might not have big monitors. Thanks. -TK] |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group