Well, there were two e-mails from YouTube in the e-mail account I use for KWerky Productions. And both of them said that the clip I had posted two years ago of E!'s The Soup had been yanked for "copyright infringement".
It's an exact repeat of the situation with Viacom in the summer of 2007.
Sigh...
You know, the first time this happened, I had to laugh. Couldn't help but giggle at the absurdity of it all. I mean, that was about, what... one minute of a television program and most of it consisting of MATERIAL THAT I HAD CREATED FOR MY SCHOOL BOARD CAMPAIGN!!
It was no different than quoting from a news article. But Viacom jumped flunky about it and had that pulled. I fought, it got reinstated (with more than a little help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and I thought that whole thing ended amiably enough.
This time however, I'm more than a little pissed-off.
But this is what it's like under the conditions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, dear readers. As things with the law stand now, ANYONE can have ANY material removed from YouTube or any other hosting service, for the most dubious of reasons... and without YouTube even being obligated to check the veracity of such a claim.
One of these days a political candidate who's campaign has been posting clips on YouTube like crazy is going to find all of his or her videos deleted by order of their opponent. And YouTube will be unable to stop it. The videos can be reinstated 'course, but that first video took me two weeks (and a lot of publicity) to be restored. And that's an eternity in politics, and many other things.
So guess I have no choice. Gonna have to fight all over again. But this time I'm gonna do my damndest to make something out of this that Lord willing will make it a lot harder for this crap to happen to anyone again.
Stay tuned.
[[It was no different than quoting from a news article.]]
ReplyDeleteStrictly speaking, it's even more absurb: It was no different from quoting YOUR OWN QUOTE in a news article.
Let me know how I can help, because the more time goes by, the more this whole subject pisses me off. American copyright law has become where ingenuity goes to die, and I'm sorry to say that my own congresscritter has had a significant hand in creating this sorry state of affairs.
[Fun fact: Your verification word was "exprizer," which sounds like some sort of space weapon I simply must have.]