Viacom is sending bogus copyright ownership claims and illegal posting notices to independent filmmakers posting their own movies on YouTube. These films contain not one iota of Viacom content. Take, for instance, this lovely short animation, “Juxtaposer,” made by Joanna Davidovich for her senior project. It’s completely her original creation. She has copyrighted it and says that she “only entered into distribution agreements that were nonexclusive.” Yet, the media corporation saw fit to have YouTube tell Joanna, “Viacom has claimed some or all audio and visual content in your video.”
Joanna is, of course, disputing the claim.
The video is still up, but now Viacom gets access to her video statistics. The worst part is the fear Joanna has that something she slaved and sweat over could be taken away from her. “I’m just a scared that my little film will be lost in the shadow of the hulking monolith…,” she wrote on her blog. Also on her blog is a comment by another filmmaker indicating Joanna isn’t the only filmmaker Viacom has fraudulently targeted in this manner.
YouTube used to be cool but the site allowing actions like this show how much it’s become just another co-opted drek-hole… all because they’re too cheap to hire enough people to vet either the uploads or the corporate takedowns.
Below, a screenshot of the creepy and baseless stake-claiming.
Viacom Wants To Steal My Film [Channel Federator Raw]
Juxtaposer [YouTube]
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I’ve had a similar situation come up once. I was a leader of a non-profit organization and we used our logo/design on goods for sale at CafePress (members and supporters could purchase a t-shirt for example with our logo on it). I got a trademark claim from “trademark/copyright protection agency,” which was an outsourced group that apparently many large corporations use, claiming that we were violating a company’s trademark. . .which we weren’t AT ALL. There wasn’t even a resemblance between the claim and our logo. Suffice to say we had a volunteer lawyer write a long and jargon filled letter to the company, mentioning our right to sue for financial damages based on the fact they erroneously forced CafePress remove the products.
Under the DCMA if a company removes your item/product/in this case video from its website/server/online presence because another company claims the copyright/trademark/et cetera, you do have a right to file for financial damages if you were not violating the copyright or trademark. If the material is never removed from the site (you are just informed and asked to take it down) you don’t have the ability to file for damages, but once it is removed for this cause without your consent (and you are indeed not violating copyright or trademark protections) have at it!
I smell a potential Class-action coming on against Viacom… Can i join!…ooohhh i can imagine it now the whole redstone family (Those spawns of satan) in extreme finacial ruin and of course Viacom an National ammusements getting liquidated….Best revenge ever!
Wow I sounded creepy there..lol!
What I would like to see:
Class action against Viacom from all of the recipients of their fraudulent claims.
@jtheletter: I wonder, though, if this might be something she could/should report to the Department of Justice as opposed to doing it herself through a lawyer.
@Kos: Copyright Class Action against Viacom? Conversion? Attempted Conversion?
I dont’ know if this is possible.
@msbluesky: If the material is never removed from the site (you are just informed and asked to take it down) you don’t have the ability to file for damages, but once it is removed for this cause without your consent (and you are indeed not violating copyright or trademark protections) have at it!
So I could claim ownership of something of theirs, but never remove it and get away with it? Please. What a freakin’ joke that is.
@crankymediaguy:
My point is that she hasn’t suffered damage (no revenue lost), so the aren’t any grounds for a lawsuit.
Also, for those of you advocating a British libel suit, it might be worth remembering that, while Britain does have lax libel laws, it also has loser pays.
@WolfDemon:
Nope, but I sympathize with their efforts to protect their content from being illegally distributed without their consent. If you don’t think it’s a problem that people are illegally downloading Viacom content and/or posting it to YouTube (and they are), then you also shouldn’t think that what happened to the OP is a problem; if Viacom’s copyright is meaningless, then the OP’s copyright is meaningless too, and Viacom should be free to claim rights to the animation, run it on TV, put it on Viacom sites, whatever, all without compensation.
Contact the EFF. There is currently a lawsuit AGAINST a media company for sending a takedown notice over a fair use of a Prince song in the background of a baby video.
According to the DCMA, fraudelent takedown notices are a nono. She should cash in and teach Viacom a lesson.
It’s not like Viacom has an army of trained monkeys watching every YouTube video to see if Cartman is lurking in the background. Viacom sends out these takedown notices based on data gleaned directly from YouTube. So YouTube sent Viacom the wrong data here. It’s ironic that somehow posters feel that YouTube should be able to show free and profit from the millions of dollars Viacom spends to produce content. On the other hand, when an indie filmmaker is presented with a clerical error that could be very easily fixed, the only response is to sue Viacom for billions of dollars. Hypocrisy is a wonderful thing.
That’s horrible! And that’s a really cute film, btw.
@johnfrombrooklyn: The problem is is that someone with a bit of grey matter between their ears should double-check Youtube’s data considering the method in which its automatically generated. It’s not that hard to watch the video that Youtube’s system flags as potentially infringing.
I just watched the film, a cute little animated college film. I doubt anything in is remotely infringing on any Viacom copyright, but this is what God put Lawyers on the earth for. If you are not prepared to protect your copyright, expensive thou that may be, you will loose your copyright.
@allstarecho: Exactly what I was thinking. It’s a free way to get statistics on other people’s products. I’m sure Viacom is only targeting people without an army of lawyers since General Electric (NBC) would be up in arms if Viacom tried to do this to them – if only NBC would let their stuff on youtube for more then an hour after posting.
so can I make a claim on some Viacom products?
John from Brooklyn,
If I didn’t know better I would say that you’re John from Viacom.
When you say “… when an indie filmmaker is presented with a clerical error that could be very easily fixed…” What makes you think that the filmmaker did not try to solve “a clerical error” that was not even hers, for starters.
Also, a company as powerful as Viacom has a very well trained staff to play such a dirty game on a filmaker, but can’t hire a very good clerk? You know what, let’s not go for a “very good” one, let’s hire a decent one. Are you available?