Google has vowed to help YouTube creators fight back against phony copyright claims by offering legal protection to creators—at least, to a few of them.

Fred von Lohmann, copyright legal director at the company, wrote in a blog post today that Google will now help defend certain videos that fall under the fair use doctrine. “We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns,” he wrote.

In the cases of content Google chooses to defend, he wrote, “We’ll keep the videos live on YouTube in the US, feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them.”

Google捍卫的前四个视频包括对两个视频游戏预告片的严格审查,,en,对于少数落后于Google的创作者来说，这听起来很棒,,en,但是，对于没有根据的声称他们的视频被违反的说法，这项新的努力似乎仍会让许多创作者独自一人,,en,但是Google当前的版权协议仍然严重依赖于称为Content ID的自动化系统,,en,作为Content ID计划的一部分,,en,然后系统扫描侵权的匹配项,,en,甚至包含少量侵权内容的视频都在版权所有者的控制之下,,en,取得国际专利Google誓约以协助对抗虚假的YouTube版权主张,,en; a video debunking a UFO sighting posted by another YouTube user; a video in which two sixth grade girls testifying at an Ohio House of Representatives committee hearing were asked by state representatives to date their grandsons; and a video that included news clips of Rachel Dolezal. (You can view all four in the playlist embedded above.) The creators of each video have received DMCA notices in the past.

This sounds great for those few creators Google gets behind. But the new effort would still seem to leave many creators on their own when it comes to unfounded claims that their videos are in violation.

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), web hosts are required to remove content posted by users if someone files a complaint alleging that the content infringes a copyright. If your work is taken down, you can file a counter-claim, but until the dispute is resolved, the content will remain offline. It’s a guilty-until-proven-innocent system that has led to abuse by copyright holders seeking to silence critics 或 cover up embarrassing mishaps. Creators also can fall victim to bizarre algorithmic accidents that result in non-infringing material being flagged. And because YouTube automates much of its copyright enforcement, as we’ve 此前报道, many users have their work erroneously flagged as infringing.

In many cases, creators that receive takedown notices should be protected by fair use doctrine of copyright law, which holds that parts of copyrighted material can be reproduced for news reporting, commentary, criticism, parody, and other select reasons.

But Google’s current copyright protocol still relies heavily on an automated system called Content ID. As part of the Content ID program, copyright holders can upload works to YouTube, and the system scans for infringing matches. Videos that include even a small amount of infringing content are placed under the control of the copyright holder, who can collect advertising revenue from the video if they decide to let it remain online. Worse, YouTube allows the copyright holder to evaluate complaints of overstepping instead of fielding those complaints itself, meaning that if your fair use work gets caught up in the Content ID system, you have little recourse.

Google has a long way to go to fix its system, but copyright reform advocates welcomed today’s announcement. “It provides a useful signal to other users and the world as a whole as to what things constitute clear fair uses,” Sherwin Siy, a a vice president of legal affairs at the advocacy group Public Knowledge said in a statement.

 

 

 

源: wired.com