Capitalism is awesome that way.

Huh. So there's no consequences for false copyright claims?

The article mentions SOPA; It was my understanding that SOPA hadn't passed yet, and seems to be be facing some rather stiff opposition in the Lege. How can Universal be trying to enforce aspects of SOPA when the law isn't even on the books yet?

" as set forth more completely in the March 31, 2009 Video License Agreement for UGC Video Service Providers"

This sounds a heck of a lot like a clickthrough license thing. "Oh, you implicitly agreed to our license when you allowed us to post videos."

Who knew that allowing one corporation to have a tendril in absolutely every internet session for every person in most (if not all) English speaking countries would come back to bite us on the ass?

/Is there even a way to excise Facebook and Google and still browse semi-normally?

Heron: How can Universal be trying to enforce aspects of SOPA when the law isn't even on the books yet?

They're not. They using fraudulent copyright claims to censor a song performed to oppose SOPA's passage. It's Gizmodo- it's not your fault that they're retarded.

Gizmodo. Via Boing Boing. Via Ars Technica.

So why the fark not link straight to Ars Technica?

This going to go over like a fart in an elevator over at Google.

Actually, my non-lawyerly reading of the Ars article seems to make it sound like UMG's lawyers shot themselves in the foot.

1) The DMCA doesn't give courts the power to issue a restraining order in DMCA takedowns.
2) This isn't a DMCA takedown anyway.

That seems to imply: "Well, the courts have a broad authority to grant restraining orders, and since this isn't a DMCA takedown, that law is irrelevant. Here's your restraining order, biatches."

I tried to RTFA, but Chrome crashed on me. Coincidence? Conspiracy?

/Puts on tinfoil hat.

Don't be evil.

I have a service that censors Gizmodo and all the other retarded Gawker sites. It's called NoScript.

Whoever thought this up:
GawkerClientside.pushWidget('maincontent', jQuery('.mainContent').MainContentWidget({'interstitial_frequency' : 4 }).data('MainContentWidget'));
has saved me a lot of time.

Heron: The article mentions SOPA; It was my understanding that SOPA hadn't passed yet, and seems to be be facing some rather stiff opposition in the Lege. How can Universal be trying to enforce aspects of SOPA when the law isn't even on the books yet?

SOPA hasn't passed yet. Yesterday was the first "markup" session where the House Judiciary committee considers amendments to the bill. Without fail, every amendment proposed by Reps that sort of understand how it will be abused was shot down by a 22-10 margin. The Reps that have been bribedreceived massive campaign donations from Hollywood are all voting in lockstep to push it through. The proceedings continue today and are being streamed if you want the stress, but in the end, it will likely pass out of the Judiciary and go to the floor of the House pretty much "as is".

I watched yesterday and it was like watching a couple 5 year olds argue over who's diaper was more full of crap. If you want, you can watch (new window) the next session today starting at 10:00am Eastern and join the despair of seeing just how corrupt our legislators appear to have become. Fair warning - they went until approximately 9:30pm last night.

t3knomanser: Actually, my non-lawyerly reading of the Ars article seems to make it sound like UMG's lawyers shot themselves in the foot.

1) The DMCA doesn't give courts the power to issue a restraining order in DMCA takedowns.
2) This isn't a DMCA takedown anyway.

That seems to imply: "Well, the courts have a broad authority to grant restraining orders, and since this isn't a DMCA takedown, that law is irrelevant. Here's your restraining order, biatches."

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure allows for your filing or answers to be inconsistent as long as they are in good faith. I read it more to say that "while one rule is this, another is that, and here is how we would respond to both."

It all comes down to what is actually in the fine print of the contract that is being referenced. I doubt UMG's interpretation because that level of involvement by Google could allow Google to be looked at as a publishing company instead of a message board, fits threatening their "safe harbor" protections from the copyright laws.

t3knomanser: Actually, my non-lawyerly reading of the Ars article seems to make it sound like UMG's lawyers shot themselves in the foot.

1) The DMCA doesn't give courts the power to issue a restraining order in DMCA takedowns.
2) This isn't a DMCA takedown anyway.

Correct. This is the way a DMCA takedown works in real life:

1. Entity A makes content available online, say, a Youtube video, an mp3 on a website, etc.
2. Entity B claims copyright of said content, contacts host to order removal of said content. Content is removed.
3. Entity A can contact host, tell them Entity B is full of it, and said content should be restored to host.
4. Entity B's next step of recourse is supposed to be legal at this point, as they should be fighting this in court. Instead, Entity B is just jumping back to step 2, in violation of the DMCA. Content is removed.

How does this get the "cool" tag?

Why am I not surprised that this case involves that bring-everything-that-was-wrong-with-TV-to-Youtube pos VEVO?

Bobblehead_Dave and EvilEgg blame markets and capitalism for the evils of Government. Copyright law is purely the invention of legislatures; we can't even tell how markets would deal with the issue because the heavy hand of pervasive Government permeates all.

piperTom: Bobblehead_Dave and EvilEgg blame markets and capitalism for the evils of Government. Copyright law is purely the invention of legislatures; we can't even tell how markets would deal with the issue because the heavy hand of pervasive Government permeates all.

Should we take the heavy hand of government out of property rights and let the free market decide how to deal with property issues as well?

piperTom: we can't even tell how markets would deal with the issue because the heavy hand of pervasive Government permeates all.

Actually, we can. Because we have a little thing called "history". Prior to copyright laws, huge amounts of effort were put into encrypting books so that only authorized users could view them. Physical access to creative works was tightly controlled. This predates things like cinema and photography, but it's easy to see how our modern cultural landscape could not have arisen in an era where access to creative works needed to be restricted to avoid copying.

It's easy for idiots like yourself to ignore the fact that the government is little more than a participant in the markets. It's also easy to ignore the fact that governments are the tool that society uses to organize itself. Markets are also an organizing principle, but markets don't scale terribly well, largely because of externalities, both positive and negative.

The real problem is not government's presence or absence, but how government interacts with other market entities. Government's charter is to secure the greatest good for the greatest number, and in situations where one market entity has sway in the government disproportionate to its number in the market, markets get distorted by government involvement (even as the government gets distorted by the market). Because our society conflates money with speech, we live in a society where minority forces (multimillion dollar businesses are a minority market force) have incredible control over the political process.

My first reaction was Google was really screwing the people who post videos. After thinking the matter over for a while, I have concluded this is similar to other forms of print, radio and television media.

In the print, radio and television realm they sell advertising. As part of advertising contract they usually have an agreement to refrain from criticizing the company or their products, along with other side agreements such as agreeing not to sell ads to competing companies and/or products. The public doesn't have to like it (I certainly don't) but this is standard fair for all other forms of media, so why should YouTube/Google be held to a different standard?

I think the real issue here is that it appears Universal made a false copyright claim in their request to have the video removed, instead of demanding it be removed pursuant to their contract. The letter from their attorney appears to be contain a lot of back peddling in an attempt to avoid problems with a false copyright claim, which I believe has some substantial penalties pursuant to the DMCA.

ArcadianRefugee: Gizmodo. Via Boing Boing. Via Ars Technica.

So why the fark not link straight to Ars Technica?

Because Fark Mods love sucking Gawker penis.

KierzanDax: Because Fark Mods love sucking Gawker penis.

I hear it tastes like gingersnaps and beer.

Tendancy to over-dew it: How does this get the "cool" tag?

It's in a paragraph of the agreement UMG has with Fark, LLC.

Fluid: Huh. So there's no consequences for false copyright claims?

There are consequences for false copyright claims, but in this case nobody made a copyright claim.

From the parent article:
"...Universal argues that its takedown is not governed by the DMCA in the first place. ... the takedown was sent "pursuant to the UMG-YouTube agreement," which gives UMG "the right to block or remove user-posted videos through YouTube's CMS based on a number of contractually specified criteria.""

And there are apparently still some consequences to this action, as MegaUpload is suing UMG and asking the Judge for a restraining order. At the very least, it has forced UMG to bring their lawyers to bear which, as usual, makes them look like complete dicks.

I used to think that "corporations DO own America" as a hyperbole. With SOPA on the way and other net censorship stuff, my closed eyes were suddenly forcefully opened by the shock. I used to look up to you, dear America, but now your own citizens can be detained without reason and these corporations that have agents from within your government actually control the show.

Goodbye civil rights, goodbye humanity, goodbye logic, goodbye America.

Is this really surprising considering Google is now struggling to NOT become the next MS? The last revolutionary idea they had (that I can recall) is Gmail (i.e. allow your emails to be scanned for ads targeted directly at you in exchange for a few GB of online space for your emails). More and more, their stock price is being based solely on their liquid assets... which are quickly draining as they continue to try to diversify.

The sad thing is Brin and Page have likely done the exact opposite of one of their most important goals: to encourage others to earn a PhD. By weighting the accomplishment of a PhD so heavily in their business model, they've become starved for true entrepreneurship.

/Anyone that thinks Apple is Google's biggest problem is naive.
//Ballmer is intent on revenge against Google, and MS has the money to do it...
///The only question is if Google continues to worry about Apple, instead of MS.

Now, you say.

Can we censor the government?

You entitled whiners. Corporations built the whole Internet. They write the video games you fellate endlessly and hire the sharp-kneed actresses that will never fellate you. What makes you think you're entitled to get on the Internet and say bad things? There are billions of dollars at stake here. You can't be allowed to just destroy the whole country so you can have your LOLCats.