Online Video Watch » DMCA

Livestream Issues Open Letter on Piracy

Corey Kronengold — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:42:44 +0000

Today, live streaming provider Livestream issued an open letter on their blog, announcing their Zero Tolerance policy on piracy.

In a nut shell, they’ve got a zero tolerance policy on piracy. The open letter, which we obviously support wholeheartedly, was written by CEO Max Hoat to inform their customers, advertisers, partners, policy makers and competitors about the real issues and practical solutions for copyright protection in an age of ubiquitous free live video on the internet.

In it, they state:

The availability of free live streaming services is unfortunately abused by many users broadcasting live, copyrighted content such as live sports, feature films and more (often rebroadcast from their television or cable box).

Please visit their blog to read the whole letter. If we don’t support content owners, there won’t be any content for us to watch, or for pirates to steal.

And, in full disclosure, our own Ben Homer is an employee of Livestream, which in no way influences our position against piracy and support for their effort.

Maddow Segment on Online Videos

Corey Kronengold — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:27:12 +0000

Fans of Rachel Maddow know that she’s a fan of quirky web video. Tonight she wrapped up her show with a segment on the lip-sync video battle between two high schools in Washington.

Hopefully the record labels will let these kids have their fun. On Dec. 5th, Ryan Lawler at NewTeeVee reported:

A few years ago, video-sharing site Vimeo hit the big time with a viral video of its employees lip-syncing along to Harvey Danger’s Flagpole Sitta after work one day. Now Vimeo and parent corp IAC are coming under legal attack for promoting the creation and distribution of these so-called lip dub videos in the form of a suit filed by Capital Records, which is seeking retribution for what it alleges is copyright infringement.

The complaint states that Vimeo “induces and encourages its users to upload…audiovisual works,” which it then disseminates virally throughout the Internet. According to Capitol Records, the company’s staff actively participates in “making, selecting, commenting on, and at times choosing to delete” audiovisual works, including those featuring its own copyrighted recordings.

Universal lost a similar law suit against Veoh earlier in the year. Veoh’s defense? The DMCA itself, citing “Safe Harbor,” which allows sites the opportunity to remove copyrighted material.

Could the publicity force the record label to be a Scrooge? Or is someone going to give these kids a licensing agreement for an early Christmas present? Both videos have credits at the end, and neither mentions the song, writer, performer, permissions…..or even if they rocked! Which, by the way, could have been good enough for a record label in the Christmas spirit. C’mon Mr. Mitchells and Mr. Ballew. You’re teaching your kids about copyrights, too, right?

Monica Corton, Vice President, Creative Affairs and Licensing at Next Decade Entertainment, Inc. told OVW, “Personally, I would prefer that the students went to the rights holders and asked for a gratis permission so that proper credits would be given to the songwriter(s) and master owner/artist. I think it would also help students understand that these songs/masters are owned by others and they are not free to be taken without receiving proper permission, even if that permission was for free.”

Bingo. Now enjoy the videos anyway.

Vevo Shmevo

Corey Kronengold — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:24:24 +0000

Why am I such a hater this week? I feel good, got plenty of sleep, had a great weekend after a 3 night run of Phish at Madison Square Garden. So why am I so down on two of the online video industry’s biggest launches? Is it just because I didn’t go to either of the parties?

See below for my take on the Boxee Box, and head on over to Will Richmond’s VideoNuze for a more thorough look at Vevo. But as usual, I agree with Will. Vevo is off to ea good start, but hardly prime time material yet.

It took nearly a full minute to load one of the celeb playlists, and then I was greeted with a full :30 second pre-roll. Waiting to see how long it takes before I see another one.

Audio quality is acceptable, but I’d love to know what bitrate the audio was encoded at. As for the video quality, that left a lot to be desired. Maybe they are overloaded with users checking out the service, but if so, they should have considered that adage about making a first impression a little more. Videos were choppy, although the audio never broke up even when the video did.

Having checked out the service on their site, I didn’t have the same issue with the lyrics button as Will did, but without knowing the rev share deal between Vevo and YouTube, I wouldn’t be surprised if Vevo wanted to have a slightly superior experience on their own site, or at least try to build their traffic as fast as possible.

Where I was most disappointed was with the HQ / HD functionality — which is to say that I didn’t notice any. I hit that HQ button a few times on each video and never noticed a difference. And its not like the quality was so high to begin with. Maybe the HQ functionality isn’t active yet? On YouTube, who provides the technology (from best I can tell from other reports), the player acknowledges that you are in HD Mode. On Vevo’s player, notsomuch. Videos from the archive (Michael Jackson “Rock with You”, Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger”) seemed noticeably lower quality than more recent artists’ videos (Fall Out Boy, Kings of Leon). Was this a conscious decision or just a random coincidence? Or just in my own head?

Lastly, I managed to break the player when jumping quickly through a playlist. Endless red dotted circle spinning for a couple of minutes before I had to refresh the page. And on my last leap through a playlist to the last of 10 videos, the video just failed to play, and I didn’t even get the “red circle of death.”

On the plus side, there’s your standard social media functionality for sharing, embedding and emailing videos. Noticeably absent, however, was any Twitter tie in for announcing that you are watching a specific video or playlist, or discussing the video, the song or the band. As a start-up, I’d want to be spreading the word through any and every channel possible.

I suspect that my disappointment comes mostly from the fact that I worked at Launch.com almost 10 years ago, where we were streaming music videos on demand. Sure we had to hard code the ads to the videos instead of dynamic ad insertion, rotation and frequency capping, but those are just petty details, right?

Other than some smoother functionality – particularly the ability to jump around a playlist, which I do love – I don’t see how Vevo is going to save the music industry from itself. Its a perfectly good website and service, but unless the record labels start yanking videos from everywhere else, I’m skeptical about their walking on water abilities.

On the plus side, its like MTV used to be. Music videos without the reality show fluff. And that is definitely a good thing. I’ll be checking back in to see how they iron out a few of the kinks. They could all just be hung over from the launch party……..thanks for my invite.

UFC 100: A Tale of Two Streams (and one price)

Corey Kronengold — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:04:39 +0000

Live right now is the UFC 100, availble on pay-per-view from your cable provider as well as via live stream from UFC.com.

Interestingly, UFC is charging $44.99 for both the 300 kbps stream and the 600 kbps. What gives? Is anyone buying the lower bitrate stream? If you can’t support a broadband stream, you should probably be buying from your cable provider and not for online. But how ’bout making it even a remotely attractive option?

I’ve also been critical of live streaming technologies and portable devices for not protecting broadcasters’ rights. While most people will defer to an “official” broadcast for higher quality and color commentary, there is nothing stopping anyone from rebroadcasting via iPhone and uStream. This can’t be good for broadcasters. At $45 a pop, the 3500 people just on the stream I’m checking right now is costing UFC.com about $150,000 in lost revenue. Clearly something has to give. Will live streaming services be the next battle ground for online video copyright lawsuits?

That said, thanks to the guy with the iPhone sitting in front of his TV. I owe you a beer.

Update: In the time it took me to write this post, the number of users on the stream broke 5,000. This is starting to creep into the “serious money” zone.

Update 2: 17,500 viewers for the title bout, final round of Thiago vs. GSP. Thats some serious, serious coin lost to UFC for a big fight.

Court Holds Up DMCA for Veoh

Corey Kronengold — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 14:03:27 +0000

Too much legalese to get in to. Bottom line: Court says that Veoh – and presumably other video sharing sites – are protected under the DMCA provided they make a reasonable attempt to remove copyrighted content.

Peter Kafka at Alley Insider has the deets and the full court doc.

Interesting to Peter, and to me as well, that the court is getting into the distinctions between what a platform “can” do and what it was “designed” to do. I didn’t see the Napster vs. Veoh comparison coming at all. Have enough legal content, and the law gives you a pass on the copyrighted stuff as long as you make an attempt to monitor and remove it. Good deal.

Coalition Creates Vague Guidelines for UGC

Ben Homer — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 20:19:52 +0000

The cooperation between the major networks (and Veoh and Dailymotion) to create principles for finding and removing copyright infringing content on UGC services is a first for networks previously unable to come together in their digital media strategies. These guidelines are a long time coming.

But getting all networks together to agree on principles for user-generated content and video sharing has resulted in some vague principles and an alliance that leaves room for anticompetitive cooperation down the line.

At a minimum these guidelines will raise the barrier to entry for startups looking to begin file sharing services. I had intended to run through point by point, but it’s dry. So here are the cliffs notes, key points that stood out:

UGC Services must place warning signs on their site which are visible while you upload and in the terms of use. Most sites terms of use already prohibit infringing uploads anyway – they need that verbiage in there to protect themselves.

Reference to content identification technology and what that consists of is intentionally vague, meant to adapt to whatever the coalition believes is the best technology at the moment.

Because there are few standards for what constitutes acceptable ID technology it’s up to the coalition to specify what is “commercially reasonable.” Once the major networks partner with providers the potential exists for these accredited sources to engage in anticompetitive pricing or practices forcing out smaller players in the space.

The guidelines get into specifics on use of reference material to seek out infringing content, blocking that content and working with UGC services to implement ID and pre-emptively, pro-actively and retroactively remove content illegally shared on these services.

Not only should UGC sites block infringing content, they should also block links to sites that include infringing content. This makes sites even more accountable than most have been so far, and requires increased monitoring of comments and user-controls.

UGC sites should provide rights holders with enhanced search capabilities to make it easier for entertainment companies to find illegally uploaded content on UGC sites. Basically, the copyright holders want a back-end solution for finding illegal content to make the lives easier for the

Copyright owners should accommodate fair use. Nice of them to accommodate the law, but what constitutes fair use is still in many cases disputed and open to interpretation.

UGC sites should keep records related to users and content that has been removed for at least 60 days including IP addreses and time and date consistent with all applicable privacy laws, and should provide that information to copyright holders. Not very end-user friendly.

If UGC sites adhere to these principles copyright holders won’t sue them. “Copyright Owners and UGC Services should continue to cooperate with each other’s reasonable efforts to create content-rich, infringement-free services” and should work together to test new technology and update these principles as warranted.

Notably missing from this group is Google, which is big enough that it can stand up to the rights holders and seems set on their new world order argument that people are using media in fundamentally new and different ways, and that they will set the guidelines for this.

It’s also interesting that Veoh has aligned themselves with broadcast media companies following their dispute with UMG. Television continues to take a much less aggressive, but no less serious stance than the music industry in fighting copyright infringement, choosing engagement and diplomacy rather than all-out attack.

YouTube Begins Anti-Piracy Testing

Corey Kronengold — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:02:42 +0000

Finally. At last. Phew. About F*&ing Time.

YouTube announced yesterday that they have begun testing an anti-piracy video batching database to protect themselves from copyright infringement lawsuits. The original announcement of the YouTube Video Identification system was back in June.

According to the Official Google Blog, the Video Identification system goes above and beyond the company’s legal responsibilities, but I’m not entirely sure thats the right message for them to be putting out. “We do what we can,” isn’t the warm, fuzzy sentiment that will prevent future lawsuits.

It remains to be seen how well the technology works, and how easily it can be circumvented by modifying basic elements of a video file. Additionally, the burden of the workload seems to be put on the content owners. As with the previous system, where content owners needed to find their protected material among the thousands of clips added daily, the new system requires content owners to upload their original material into the system to be scanned. For large archives, that can be decades worth of video content.

YouTube Video Identification will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube. We have worked with Google to develop one-of-a-kind technology that can recognize videos based on a variety of factors. As its Beta status indicates, our Video Identification is brand-new, cutting-edge stuff, so we will be constantly refining and improving it. Early tests with content companies have shown very promising results. As we scale and refine our system, YouTube Video Identification will be available to all kinds of copyright holders all over the world, whether they want their content to appear on YouTube or not.

No matter how accurate the tools get, it is important to remember that no technology can tell legal from infringing material without the cooperation of the content owners themselves. This means that copyright holders who want to use and help us refine our Video ID system will be providing the necessary information to help us recognize their work. We aim to make that process as convenient as possible.

That Was Quick: Single Mother Loses to RIAA

Ben Homer — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 04:01:48 +0000

It took a Minnesota jury only 4 hours after 2 days of testimony to find single mother of 2 Jammie Thomas guilty of copyright infringement. She is now responsible for the $222,000 judgment for re-distributing 24 songs.

This, the first RIAA lawsuit to go to trial sets a major precedent for the music industry. Sharing music online is illegal, the law is immutably clear and a jury when presented with proof has no choice but to enforce it.

That said, Thomas’ lawyer Richard Gabriel’s defense: “Someone used her name and IP address—it’s not impossible.” was pretty weak. There are still major challenges to the recording industry to come in the form of the society has changed argument employed by Google, Veoh and DivX that media is being used in fundamentally different ways.

Purple One Set to Sue YouTube et. al

Corey Kronengold — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 21:32:27 +0000

The Purple One, Prince, plans to sue YouTube and other online outlets in an attempt to “reclaim his art on the Internet,” according to a Reuters report.

“YouTube … appear(s) to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success,” according to a statement.

We couldn’t agree with you more, Prince. We’ve been critical of YouTube in the past for their lack of content filtering, be it copyright material or hate speech. One of these days they are going to get tired of fighting these court battles, and just buy some filtering technology that really works.

What happened to the copyright detection technology that the GooTube announced back in April?
Clearly it isn’t working very well.

Whether or not you believe that all content should be free, the law says it ain’t. The sheer volume of open copyright infringement on video sharing sites is outright appalling.

DivX Joins Fight, Preemptively Sues UMG

Ben Homer — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 05:32:20 +0000

DivX today filed suit against Universal Music Group, following Veoh’s lead and becoming the latest company to preemptively sue to protect their rights as set forth by the DMCA. The weight these cases will play in the future of media cannot be understated.

DivX has quickly become one of the most widely respected companies in online video, a result of the strength of their codec and their online video site Stage6, which has become of the top 200 sites in the world.

The argument put forth by DivX mirrors that of Google and Veoh: UMG is unfairly targeting DivX. Stage6 is in complete compliance with current laws, and entitled to safe harbor under the DMCA.

Said David Richter, EVP, Corporate Development and Legal:

“We are taking this legal step to protect Stage6 from groundless claims and unreasonable threats brought by UMG. UMG’s pattern of attacking innovative online service providers is discouraging and will ultimately hinder innovation and the development of new technologies”

There is a fundamental transformation that has taken place as a result of the development of digital media and the lower cost of distribution that has resulted. Mainstream media is aggressively defending their cause in this disrupted environment.

The entertainment industry has rallied together, filing briefs in support of lawsuits against Veoh and YouTube. If more new media companies stand up to them, we may well see a turning of the tide in control of media.

While current intellectual property law should not be thrown out, there is a strong case to be made for re-evaluating a segment of the law now filled with gray areas.

The more companies assert their rights in this new media environment, the more visible this debate will become, and the more likely the law will be adjusted to reflect the current state of media and American society.