#WTFU

[RepentantSky]

Starting off with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVqFAMOtwaI

I want to know what people think about fair use. The rest of this post will assume you watched this video, so please do, if you ever cared about content creators on youtube, it's very vital that you do. That said what do you think about the points brought in this video, about how a certain kind of claim can allow the one who issued it a chance to take all the money you make on a video until the claim is dropped or resolved, or how it can take up to two months to handle a claim, or how having a strike doesn't allow you to dispute a claim. There's already a lot of this happening as is, but it only gets worse when you consider how none of the the blame for a claim ever goes to those who issue it, or how most of them are automated. Critic is right in saying that this borders on the illegal, it's basically theft that's allowed to happen, and with no consequence.
This has been a problem with gaming as well, which is why I put it here, namely since Total Biscuit has an issue a few years back, but it affects everyone who creates content, so my question's are, what do we do about this? Can we as fans of content creators do anything? My first thought would be to boycott companies who do this, but that's harder said than done, even more so since the claims can be outsourced like that. The idea that claims can happen that often is also frightening to say the least. I have a lot of thoughts running through my head thinking about this, but none of them really come to an answer. However, this is something that needs to be addressed, because it's like SOPA or PIPA or already in effect. So, I don't know, any thoughts? Possible solutions? I'm at a loss here.

This second video here is very important as the title suggests, because it shows that claims can be made on content that you yourself create. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYL_eLZLfw8

I made this exact thread on the Game Trailers forum, but it's mostly been derailed by people who don't care or don't understand, but I wanted to see where it might differ here. This is a thing that hurts all content creators on YouTube, gaming channels included.  What's your stance on it?

[Psychospacecow]

It seems pretty cut and dry to be honest. A detrimental, harvest-able, and largely illegal exploit has been known for a good chunk of time. Its enabled by Google's inadequate address of said problem. There's your problem. You can try and stomp out as many of these claim makers as you want, but it isn't going to work. You have an inherent problem regardless, and it will be exploited, even if you somehow managed to make all these problem companies that likely exist for this very reason "disappear".

[CLXcool]

After doing some digging around. Doug's just pulling a attention stunt on this, and there are people who are willing to follow this like a herd of sheep. This video not only uses Doug's video, but explains(through text) on the details that Doug is misleading and not correct. One comment from Hellsing920(who made a video talking about this) sort of explains it all.

The funny part about IHE being in the video is that he couldn't cite Fair Use even if he wanted to.

Fair Use is exclusive to United States copyright law.  No other country on Earth has an equivalent to Fair Use.  IHE, being from, and operating out of England, cannot cite Fair Use, because it isn't a part of UK copyright law.

Just thought I would share that little bit of trivia.

The rest of Doug's video further shows that morons have no idea how Fair Use works, and they need to shut the fuck up about it.  I am in no way a copyright expert, but I have read up enough on Fair Use to know that what these idiots are doing doesn't constitute Fair Use in any way.  Not only do they use too much footage, but the footage that they use summarizes the entire film, therefore rendering the act of watching the movie pointless.  This negatively impacts the potential market value of the copyrighted work (essentially "why bother buying/renting/watching the movie when I can get the abridged version from this guy's YouTube video?"), therefore the use isn't in Fair Use.

Seriously, you would be surprised how many of these people would shut the hell up if they would just do a little reading on the subject.  Bitlaw gives a simplified version of how Fair Use works, and the US copyright website has a more in depth version.  Just reading those two sources alone destroys any argument Doug and all those using the #WTFU hashtag could possibly make.

[RepentantSky]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't fair use apply in general to YouTube because it's based in the United States, as is most of the content that get's claimed? Also, Doug's video is not the only one that brings up problems. Take for example this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCtJYgsW...e=youtu.be where the guy who made the fan versions of the songs got licenses from the actual copywright holder but Gamefreak and Nintendo still made those claims which led to his channel being deleted.

Whether or not Doug's video is the best one to go off of or not, it does being into question certain things, most notable is that some claims are made by mistake, and others are made on content the creator themselves made. Also, you can't tell me these claims are fair when the claims often dropped because they don't hold any water. I don't see that comment saying anything about that.

[SamuraiGaiden]

Its no secret that YouTube has a problem with fair use.  But I agree with Cool that a lot of people who cite fair use do not know what Fair Use means.
I often see people on YouTube cite Fair Use when uploading entire episodes of a show, entire movies, or entire songs and albums thinking they can get away with it with a line that says, "I don't own the rights to this, I upload it under Fair Use." No, you upload it as a form of piracy.
For instance Fair Use is often cited for Let's Plays, even though Fair Use would give them almost 0% coverage in reality.  90% of the legal coverage Let's Plays get are companies letting them go because of the possibly marketing advantages.

That being said, Cool's right about his location affecting things, too, legally.  U.S. Fair Use laws do have some effect on things with YouTube being based in America, but not enough to matter.  He is British, therefore he is not protected under U.S. laws, even if he's dealing with a U.S. company.
If he put something up that was owned by MGM and they sued him for it, they would have to sue him in U.K. courts, because he's a U.K. citizen.  You can't play it both ways.

And with all that being said...I can agree with RS, as well, because YouTube has a very broken system.  Robin's video (the anime one) is a little more correct, but RS's line here is a bit misleading (although, admittedly, it is the narrative the #WTFU people are also using):

This second video here is very important as the title suggests, because it shows that claims can be made on content that you yourself create.

That's actually not the case in either situation.  The content claims come from the resources they've used from the media in question.  Robin even admits that she used far more of an episode from an anime than she should have in one video and that got her caught.  But to say that the videos Anime Network produces are entirely theirs is not technical factual.
They are making reviews and top 10 lists and the like, using media owned by the original creators (or the companies that own them, as the case usually is).  Now they are doing reviews, so they are covered under Fair Use and should be protected from these claims.
I don't know for sure in Doug's case because I've never really watched his videos whether any of what he uses is legitimate Fair Use, even if he was American.

One thing I will note, though..

This negatively impacts the potential market value of the copyrighted work (essentially "why bother buying/renting/watching the movie when I can get the abridged version from this guy's YouTube video?"), therefore the use isn't in Fair Use.

Fair use isn't really dictated by the potential market value of a piece of media.  It protects critics who might say that a movie is not worth watching or a game that isn't worth playing.  It allows teachers to use a piece of media in a class to show, "This is how to make a crappy, unreadable comic."

The most contentious would be abridged series, I think.  They are...technically parody, however they are also using copyrighted material in what could be construed as a very non-Fair Use way.  Creating a comic parodying how insane Connor is in AC3 compared to his father and descendants would be Fair Use, like I did a few years ago on my site.
VG Cats is a good game parody comic, everything they do would be fairly Fair Use cohesive.  But Team Four Star, much as I love their content, is not really true to Fair Use's parody protections.  The rumor goes that the company who owns it refused to let them continue the series and that's why they aren't doing it.  Whereas the DBZ abridged stuff has not been met with strict legal claims.

A good video on things is Adam Buckley's, although he is Canadian so he still has argument against him for Fair Use, but it explains Youtube's content ID system decently well without all the vitriolic falsities that other Fair Use complainers have.

[RepentantSky]

Doug is American and has always been a reviewer of films and shows, and nothing else, so he's been under fair use the whole time. I don't see where you get the idea that what you said about Anime America makes sense. The claim I was referring to is one she got that was for a 10 second span of content on her video, 5 seconds of which was her avatar talking and being shown, which is her content that she made.

[SamuraiGaiden]

Yes...5 seconds of her avatar talking over top of the copyrighted clip. If I green-screened myself in front of a movie, it's still using the movie. That's not technically 'her' content. The avatar is, but the backing is not.

You missed all of my points, though. I said that her videos were critiques and should be covered under Fair Use, regardless of whether her avatar is in front of the clip or not. What Yamadabadoo or whatever the hell that little Italian rip-off company was called is doing to her is wrong.

Here's the issue, though. Nothing's going to change. YouTube doesn't have a badly planned system, it has a perfectly designed system for what their goals are. You see Sony, MGM, etc. are the people they are concentrating on. Sony can put a fraudulent claim on one of my videos and get all my YT revenue, and Google is fine with this, because it wants to make sure that Sony is happy with it; that way when Sony puts out a new musical act's music video they put it on YT. How big of a Youtuber do I have to be before Google decides I'm worth more money than Sony?
Similarly they want MGM to put their movie trailers on YT, far more than they want me to put another video about samurai history on there. So if MGM puts a fake claim on my video, Google has no incentive to help me. That's why companies like Sony and MGM can contact YouTube and get actual customer support; but I would just get a form e-mail response if I tried it.
Trust me...it was designed this way. The only way to stop is it to fight back. There are two ways and they are both expensive and nearly impossible.

1. The biggest Youtubers being affected by this stuff need to stop making videos. They need to upload a video explaining that they will not create another video for major companies to rip them off and that they will only return to making videos when YouTube changes its policies and content ID systems. They can go a step further to actually go to Google's headquarters and protest; that'll give media attention to the issue.
Why it would work: Same reason MLK's bus boycott worked. I don't go to YouTube daily to see the newest music video or movie trailer, I go to see my favorite Youtubers: Extra Credits, Game Grumps, DYKG, etc. So if none of my favorite Youtubers are uploading new videos...how long until I stop even logging on and just to go Netflix or Hulu and watch all the TV shows I can't catch up on?
Why it won't work, though: Many of the biggest YouTubers are part of the system and are part of big conglomerates, like Maker Studios and Machinima. They have no incentive to help out because their YT conglomerates protect them from false content IDs. PewDiePie isn't getting hit with fake content IDs. You'd have to get enough of the big guys cutting their ties to make YouTube take significant financial loss to convince Google to come to the negotiating table.

2. Youtubers hit by a false content ID need to sue the company who did it for the lost revenue and violating fair use doctrines and name YouTube/Google in the suit. Even if its a Class-Action lawsuit against several companies. Part of the reason why YouTube created this content ID system is to protect itself from getting sued by big companies like Sony and MGM. It favors them over the little people, because the little people aren't a threat to them in court. Or so they think.
Why it would work: If enough little people harass them with lawsuits, they'll have to figure out a new program that's more fair.
Why it won't work, though: Good luck in getting small channels to sue a big company like Google and their cronies. Do you have any idea how expensive a lawsuit like that would be? Even after getting damages back or a good settlement offer, you might wind up in the hole. Not to mention the real problem is that it might take years before the case is actually settled or decided and in that time...you're spending thousands of dollars on court cases, but still losing out on your income because the companies are still targeting you for content IDs.

Note: BTW, Sony and MGM are the ones I use in all my examples simply because they're the ones who have come after me before for one of my older videos. They claimed one of my videos before I even monetized and it wasn't worth fighting it, because I knew the system was broken. They put ads on my video they split the proceeds between themselves 50/50. If I refuted the claim and they both said, "Nope, we were totally in the right." Then I go from one video monetized by someone else to two strikes on my account. A third one is immediate deletion of account.
The trick is that when I'm not too lazy to do anything about it, I can now just host it on my own site and there's nothing they can do about it then. But I haven't even had a new view on that video in almost a year, so it's low on my priority list.

[Psychospacecow]

[CLXcool]

Man, this keeps getting uglier and uglier doesn't it?

[Psychospacecow]

[CLXcool]

Alphaomega talks about WTFU along with making youtube great again

[Psychospacecow]

So, why is this in the gaming discussion anyway?

[RepentantSky]

It's because gaming is the biggest group of Youtubers there is right now, and they get a lot of this as well.

[Arjahn]

I can speak as someone who's been personally affected by this. I've been making silly videogame videos since I was like ten years old (seriously, used to do a "gaming news show" called GAMING 411 with my friends in my basement, we had a whiteboard and everything. I rode in on my heelies because I was just the coolest kid, you know?). My old channel had somewhere around 500 subscribers, which isn't huge or anything, but it was pretty good for my goofy 14 year old voice talking over TF2. Then I used an old Flintstones Traffic Safety commercial and got a claim. I was just thinking hey, this is really silly and absurd, so I refuted the claim, then Youtube decided to destroy my entire channel for good just because of that. FUN STUFF MAN.

I have a new channel now, but if I get auto claimed for something silly (like using a portion of a TV show intro from the 80's and heavily editing and transforming it, yup) then my video can get blocked everywhere and I literally can't do anything about it because that would risk having my entire channel permanently deleted. Youtube's copyright system is utter bullshit.