Dude, where's my video?/Notes

From Driscollwiki

Guidelines

• 1000-1500 words
• Youtomb as it relates to participatory culture and civic engagement

How do the characteristics of participatory culture environments support the kinds of social deliberation, debate, and advocacy practices that allow entry into a shared public discourse?

Dude, Where's My Video?

• Intro annecdote
• Overview of this case study
• Short history
  • YouTube/Google
  • DMCA
    • Safe harbor
    • Takedown, notice, counter-notice cycle
    • What happens when a DMCA is issued at YouTube?
      • Video disappears, comments, links, etc. Also, accounts may be suspended
  • Content ID
  • Automated claims
  • Fair use (is a lawful use of copyright)
  • Lenz v. Universal, 2008
    • Stephanie Lenz posted a home video in which her young children are seen dancing in the kitch while the song "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince played in the background.
    • Universal sent a takedown to YouTube
    • YouTube removed the video and notified Lenz
    • Lenz counter-notified according to DMCA
    • Lenz filed suit against Universal on July 24, 2007 seeking a "declaratory judgement of non-infringement."
    • Universal did not evaluate the allegedly infringing video and reach a "good faith belief" that it was "not authorized by [...] the law" before issuing the takedown.
    • Because the takedown was "intimidating", Lenz is "now fearful" that she will be subject to further scrutiny and "has not posted a single video [since]"
    • http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/lenz_v_universal/lenzorder082008.pdf
    • "Universal argued that "fair use is merely an excused infringement of copyright rather than a use authorized by the copyright owner or by law."
    • "the Court agreed with Lenz" that "fair use is an authorized use of copyrighted material."
    • http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/lenz-order-denying-motion-to-certify-interlocutory-appeal.pdf
    • http://www.eff.org/cases/lenz-v-universal
  • McCain/Palin letter to YouTube, 2008
    • http://www.eff.org/files/McCain%20YouTube%20copyright%20letter%2010.13.08.pdf
    • http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/mccain-campaign-feels-dmca-sting
    • http://www.eff.org/files/08-10-14YouTube%20Response%20to%20Sen.%20McCain.pdf
    • http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/10/youtube-responds-mccain-campaigns-letter
    • EFF called for "human review"
  • YouTomb
  • Scott Smitelli
  • January 2009 massacre
    • http://youtomb.mit.edu/blog/?p=32
    • http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/01/youtubes-january-fair-use-massacre
    • http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/fair-use-massacre-continues-now-warner-s-going-aft
• Responses to the massacre
  • Angry, confused, and unaffiliated
  • Fan vidders migration
  • Living room rock gods
    • "What is a Living Room Rock God (LRRG)? Anyone who takes their rockin' seriously, but does so at home. There are thousands of us all over the world. We are the REAL rock stars!"
    • 120 members, 36 vids on FB group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70142195466&v=info
    • 197 registered forum posters, 20 or so with 100 or more posts, http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/
    • To get a full picture, however you must see the YouTube channels. (+ What is a YouTube channel?)
      • PookLowEnd who reached out to YouTomb is one of the founding members of the LRRG community
      • Started channel in August 2007 http://www.youtube.com/user/PookLowEnd
      • 29 yo Mexico City resident, Bass player, 399 comments on his channel (not videos), 1457 Subscribers to his channel, 724,352 views across dozens of uploads
      • PaulieWanna, recorded open letter to Neil Peart
      • Started channel in March 2007 http://www.youtube.com/user/PaulieWanna
      • 43 yo Canadian resident, drummer, 877 comments on his channel (not videos), 2376 Subscribers to his channel, 871,522 views across dozens of uploads
    • What do LRRGs do? Why?
      • "We basically post our videos on YouTube to criticize on each other's playing.", Pook email to YouTomb, 27 Feb 2009
    • What kinds of artists do LRRGs make vids of?
    • Big fans, deeply engaged with rock artifacts
    • Filling in gaps in commercial sphere, Paulie didn't make vids of Rush songs that already had vids
    • Typical activities: learning songs, making vids, posting to YT, chatting on the forum, collaborating on "virtual band" vids
    • Motivation for posting vids:
      • "Eric Sestak Well, I think moving out of Youtube would be a bad idea, personally. Youtube is by far the most active video sharing site on the internet. That reason alone is a reason worth staying. The collab videos I've posted on MySpace video are lucky to make it to 200 views and maybe 3 or 4 comments. And Myspace Video is a p ...opular video site.", http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70142195466&v=info#/group.php?v=wall&gid=70142195466
      • Paulie on educational value
    • Tribute is not theft, result of WMG/UMG takedowns
      • Takedowns interrupted their fan activity and threatened the cohesion of their community
      • The LRRGs believe that they have not done anything illegal
      • TINT uses the language of conventional political action: a "campaign" concerned with "consumer rights"
      • Not a registered non-profit, a blog + forum + logo
      • "*Look at me, getting all political! 8)", PookLowEnd, 8 Nov 08, http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=611
      • Surprised at themeselves for becoming activated
    • Stickers, web badges
    • Open letter videos

• • • Information sharing, triage on the LRRG fora
      • http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=21&sid=35d01677d3ebd77ea35e6f310ae2a334
      • "I 'change' the audio a little bit so it won't get recognised by the Youtube Identification system. Just turning the pitch a little up, a little reverb & eq.", http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1012
      • Critique of Google/YouTube copyright policy, http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1050
      • Zodiak "And I suspect there are no DMCAs filed for these account suspensions, either. Youtube's "matched third party content" notice is not an official DMCA take-down request, which is a legal action.", http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=884
    • Learning about industry consolidation
      • "WMG tentacles are friggin everywhere", http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1046
    • Frustration, migration
      • "No, I didn't contest it. I just moved it to Wekastar. Tired of dealing with youtube." http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1046
      • http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=83753&hl=en-US
    • Collectively sharing social capital
      • Pook reaches out to YouTomb and Fred von lohmann from EFF, shares responses on the fora: http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=884
    • Solidarity, support
      • Sense that they are alone, isolated
      • That YouTomb and EFF are among the only people that "care":
      • Thanks me for taking interest and writes, "we thought nobody cared", Pook email to me, 02 Mar 2009
      • "Well, they said at the end of the year; it's now january 5th and they're still being assholes. What do you think, time to start campaigning again?" http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1334
      • "What do the record companies get out of going after people like us. We BOUGHT the damn CD that the track is on, we're just playing along to it, on a FREE website. It's not like we're making money off of it. This kind of shit makes me think twice about buying CD's to begin with. That, and Youtube needs to grow a SPINE and stand up for whats right." http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=884&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
      • "I'm not clear on the steps that need to be taken in order to try to get the suspension lifted. Be assured however that there will be no bowing and scraping by this LRRG, and I ain't grovelling.", http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=884&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
    • Collective action:
      • Positive: "Thought it would be a good idea if we posted which labels WON'T pull videos from YouTube [...] Maybe we can make these labels richer and Warner and Universal can understand the mistake they're living, since money is the only language they understand.", PookLowEnd, http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=749
• Stewardship
  • YouTube as public/private
  • Their first legal obligation is to DMCA, in order to preserve their Safe Harbor
    • Not First Amendment nevermind Fair Use doctrine
    • (Though eff has offered UGC Fair Use Principles they might adopt: http://www.eff.org/issues/ip-and-free-speech/fair-use-principles-usergen and that the LRRG endorse: http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=689&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 )
  • DMCA claim/takedown offers censorship opportunity
    • Vagueness and confusing procedure has potentially "chilling effect" on participation, fair use
    • Google/YouTube incorporating Wendy Seltzer's Chilling Eeffects Tools
• Why did LRRG organize when the other groups did not?
  • They had a pre-existing structure outside of YouTube that could be adapted to organizing:
    • Evidence of membership identity, participants call themselves "LRRGs" and, as such, felt attacked as a community
    • Forums
    • Blogs
  • Though some members were engaged more heavily than others (PookLowEnd posting news clips, etc)
    • There's no evidence of dissenters or, "less talk, more rock" that you might expect
    • There appeared to be a universal recognition that YouTube takedowns were a problem
    • Some wished to resist and be recognized by YouTube and the record labels
    • While others were content to migrate to other sites
  • Their practices (blogging, video making, posting) could be translated to political action
  • Why fight to stay w/ YouTube when other options exist?
    • "Effing sucks. I've got all my vids backed up on my computer. That's not the point though. I post my vids to hopefully help another player figure a tune out. It's also my only venue at this time for performing. I don't have the time or the patience to start another band. I guess if you tube wants to be dicks I'll just have to find another venue." http://lrrgs.21.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=884&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

• What about the latent LRRGs? Those who do LRRG activities but aren't plugged into the group?
  • e.g.

    "My YouTube cover of John Denver's "Country Roads" was removed at the request of Cherry Hills Music Publishing, which led me to remove over 100 "cover" videos I had posted. Funny thing is, there are still plenty of "Country Roads" videos on YouTube to this day, some older than mine. Why was I picked out of the bunch?", Don Ward email to YouTomb, 17 Mar 2009

• Results: LRRGs educate themselves about copyright, fair use, DMCA only to discover that YouTube is a public/private space in which the law doesn't operate in the expected fashion. The automated tools remove videos outside the structure of even DMCA.
  • Validated by the UGC Fair Use guidelines

• Implications of international community grappling with US law? US corporations?

References

• http://youtomb.mit.edu/blog/?p=21
• http://youtomb.mit.edu/blog/?p=26
• jenkins blog post