Viacom recently decided to take hypocrisy to untold new levels when it filed a DMCA takedown notice against a YouTube user after using the user’s clip without permission. Periodically, the Viacom owned VH1 runs a show where it pulls in clips from YouTube, without, mind you, asking the users permission or even notifying them that it is using the clip.
Of course Viacom can claim fair use for the clips since they add commentary and use the clips to illustrate it. The irony is Viacom almost always tries to deny fair use rights when others do the exact same thing to Viacom content.
Typically most people are happy for the exposure the VH1 show provides. One user was so happy he taped the show and uploaded it to YouTube, prompting Viacom to file a cease and desist letter to YouTube claiming that they own the clip.
The clip in question is from user Christopher Knight and is part of Knight’s campaign for the Board of Education.
The question is, was Knights posting of the video also fair use? Knight posted the video to YouTube and then embedded it on his blog with commentary, arguably also qualifying as fair use. The point of contention will likely end up being that the YouTube posting does not include commentary.
This is hardly the first time copyright “defenders” have quite possibly violated copyrights themselves. An RIAA website used plagiarized code, more recently a site defending against the open access movement was discovered using images from the Getty Database with the watermarks still on them, and the list goes on.
Hopefully the Electronic Frontier Foundation will take up the cause at some point and perhaps this can help Google which is currently embroiled in a nasty $1 billion+ lawsuit with Viacom.
For the curious, Political Soup is hosting the banned VH1 clip.
Scott, I was under the impression that users give up any kind of copyright/notification rights the moment they posted a video on YouTube. I thought the service agreement said something about YouTube gaining that right once it was posted and the posting was a sign that the user agreed to defer his/her rights. Am I completely off base here? Or is the only party with a case here is YouTube not Knight?
@matt-
YouTube’s EULA allows them to use your clip for any promotional purposes they see fit, but they don’t claim ownership. Here’s the relevant graf:
“For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube’s (and its successor’s) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.”
As far as I can tell that doesn’t extend to YouTube’s partners (which I don’t know that Viacom is anyway). I was just trying to dig around and see if there’s a way to add Creative Commons licenses to your uploads, but I didn’t see anything.
Wow I was way off, sorry Scott. Thanks for clarifying.
It may seem perverse, but the fact remains he posted it to youtube and viacom hates youtube - in large part for exactly the reason his clip was taken down: because youtube is granted the right, by submission, to repurpose those clips in any way it seems fit. His clip was used on a viacom show that reaches a broad audience, it is in every way part of the hype machine (arguably, the _entire_ reason for VH1 and MTV’s existence is to “hype” other media) so youtube would be idiots to not grant viacom this usage.
For ages, publishers big and small have fought seemingly petty battles over usage of their material.
The internet makes us all publishers. If you don’t like the contract offered by youtube or facebook or blogger or whomever, pretending it doesnt exist isnt going to win any battles.
Viacom should burn.