You know about copyright on the internet for movies and stuff? Well imagine that a step forward. Take, for example, Youtube. Let's say that you want to make a quick buck; well, all you have to do now is just file a copyright make up a random company, and boom, you'er done. This has resulted in, well let's say, fake companies that people made up taking down videos. Or taking money from people who makes money off of ad revenue... There is another theory out there since Youtube has this filter system that scans videos for anything including background music. GREAT I LOVE TO SEE WHERE THAT IS IS GOING FOR YOU.

So companies started putting stuff for Youtube to filter and since anyone can make up a random company and call it theirs. Yes, this has resulted into copyright Apocalypse. Thank you Google you first screw up the content system. Merge it into a blender with Google Plus. And screwed it up. Awesome !!

Anyway corporations only make decisions based on money. YAY !!!
Who knew...
Pretty much all of us.
Anyway Jokes asides. I must say something. Apple makes good products but they will sue for money. Basically they grab somebody else inventions. Makes it nicer prettier etc. And sues the company who gave it to them. Also you know the galaxy tab. Its illegal to buy in Germany now. Because its looks like a iPad.

Anyway the point is for this second rant that companies do not
make ethically based decisions. Rather on money. Like I said earlier.

Sources:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/09/galaxy_tab_remains_illegal_in_germany/
http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/samsung-what-has-apple-actually-invented
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/12/youtube-goes-nuts-flagging-game-related-content-as-violating-copyright/

I hope you liked that rant

Edited by Administrator: The plural of "company" is "companies", not "company s". Please check the difference between your and you're and their/there/they're. Commas and other non-period punctuation are useful. And a well-written post comes off as intelligent here.

While I view that the Galaxy Tab dispute as hilarious, I also agree with you there. There's just a lot more behind the scenes for patents.

Two people can patent the same thing. With exceptions. Let's say you, a random person and I both invent the keyboard. We apply for a patent and we get our respective patents. However, your keyboard uses A membrane to register key presses, mine is mechanical and the other persons uses a scissor switch (details on those). So, there can exist patents for the same thing. This goes with the "pinch to zoom" in the VICE article. Mitsubishi may have "invented" and been the first to patent this but Apple polished it and patented another version. This version was smoother and more fluid. I'm not following the whole Samsung vs Apple (and Apple vs Samsung) trials closely but Samsung likely took Apple to court because they believed the Mitsubishi patent was broad enough to cover Apples changes. The court ruled otherwise.

Also, innovation doesn't equal invention. Let's change the keyboard analogy above. You first invented the mechanical keyboard. I took it and innovated and used a membrane layer. I am well within that right. I may not have invented the keyboard but I can claim my innovation as the invention of the "membrane keyboard." Who ever "invents" the scissor-switch keyboard can do the same thing. Has Apple invented anything? Yes. But they've probably innovated more than invented in recent years. That finger print sensor? Definitely not the first phone with one but it was the first one to get it right.

Now, of course corporations are in it for the money. Take in your favorite retailer. They likely have their own "member card." Gives you like 5% back every year or on every purchase. They do this so their customers come back. Saving 5% for a cart of clothes at Macy*s is more money for Macy*s than it is for Nordstroms despite Macy*s losing 5% of their profits.

Apple, Samsung, HTC have different methods but the idea is the same. Each phone company needs to protect what they created so the consumer has reason to stick with them. If every phone had every feature there wouldn't be a marketing advantage and all phones would pretty much sell at the same rate. But if Samsung has this patent for Feature X and then Apple uses it without paying a license/royalty, you can bet your bottom Samsung will sue Apple. Companys need to protect their intellectual property. Big and small. To the consumer that pinch-to-zoom may be a small and unimportant animation but to Samsung it defined an experience on their product that Apple was using without permission.

Regarding YouTube, those claims are super easy to dispute. I had a copyright claim on one of my videos a year or so back by some random company/user. I was sent an e-mail telling me that someone claimed the audio in my video as theirs and I could file a counter-claim. I filed, I won. t was just some short form on YouTube, typed in a few sentences and sent it off. I won and haven't had any issues since. Now, if that had been Sony, UMG or another media giant it may not have been so easy and I would have had likely to produce a legal document giving me permission to use the audio or my own original file. If I had to produce the original file, I definitely would have been able to (for background, I made the audio in Garage Band).

Consider yourself lucky though. YouTube would not be where it is today without the support of the Media Labels. If the media labels had not entered deals with YouTube most of the [popular] content on YouTube wouldn't be there. For example, this independent video from the user "Mauhli" on YouTube. It's a "Alejandro" by Lady Gaga. Had YouTube not "partnered" with UMG, Interline, or any other labels this "video" from this user wouldn't be there. Luckily, for us, they did. And all we see is a "Buy 'Alejandro' on" section next to the description. This is thanks to the "background music" detection bots. I'm rather certain this exists on videos with real background music (rather than a Lyric video) but I'm in no desire to find these.

As for Youtube, keep in mind that in many cases, it's the third parties that fills copyright claims to take down videos. Square Enix will simply claim content on your vid and display ads, but some evil companies like the ones who own Dragon Ball Z will literally take down any DBZ-related video immediately then get you banned. The metal band Gamma Ray are particularly bad regarding copyrights too.

Also I hate when there are false copyright claims, since they are hard to appeal. For example, I created a video of nDoom for the TI-Nspire back in 2011, then one year later, a TV station from Belgium flagged it as their own content (although it has recently been fixed).

Funny, every time I go to a video, either the whole thing is blocked or they completely mute the audio for, say, a 1-hour instructional video (for what was probably two seconds of music that somehow doesn't fall under "fair use"), making the video completely useless. Yeah, that sure makes a ton of sense.

That's not fair use. If you're the student and you use such audio in a presentation, sure. But if it's a college lecture broadcast/archived on YouTube then it's a gray area and the content will likely be deemed in violation unless a court overturns it or proper authorization is sought.

Not sure if it's the same in the audio industry but in the photo (and I presume video) industry you can rarely get a photo permit after-the-fact, since most places allow permit-free shooting for personal use (i.e. Facebook) but require permits for commercialization (i.e. selling prints, stock images) so if you later decide to sell it you can ask for the required permits later. Though more often than not you'll be asked to apply for a permit before the shot it taken, forcing you to lose a sale or reshoot the photo. :/

Well, they could have the common decency to mute just the infringing part of the video, then. But of course, everyone would rather just write a lazy bot to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's easier, just like it's easier to just throw every last person in jail instead of finding only the guilty ones.

Very true.

I'm actually sort of relieved that you agree with me on that.

Hehe. I'm no legal expert but I do brush up with a broad range of copyright laws every so often as I do post my pictures online and like to know where I stand in places if I myself go wrong (as in not getting a permit or something). The companies that take down videos over 2 seconds of their copyrighted material are only doing it because that's what the law allows. If the video editor were to go in during post and bleep out those two seconds no one would be the wiser.

But I agree that companies should just say "Hey, 3:02 through 3:04 contains our [clients] material." and YouTube would go in and bleep it out and add in any subtitles for any original audio. If I remember correctly, copyright reform is in the works for 2014...?

I've really had no issue with copyright, and I have used, sparingly, copyrighted content on youtube. But I'm assuming that if you credit the owner then they really can't say anything.

Thank you comicIdiot for all of your input in this thank you for explaining this more in depth about the situations. :3

I have actually studied the legal situations that I talked about in the first post that started this. I was just mad at the stupidity of it that it made me angry

Resulting in grammar loss and spelling in the original post.

You are welcome! I should disclose that I am a heavy Apple user but don't go gallivanting about how awesome/great/innocent Apple is. Even Apple has their faults and Samsung definitely has awesome things. I prefer to be in the Apple ecosystem for various reasons but I won't push that on anyone unless they are asking if they should go to Apple from Android. Even then, though, I offer a counter argument for them to stick with Android; I never reply with "Go with Apple!" (Though I will occasionally - jokingly - reply with 'Come to the dark side, we have apples!)

I won't go into detail about my reasons because others will certainly push their anti-Apple views into the topic but if you're curious I'd gladly PM you my reasons.

I'd say this isn't a problem with corporations being "evil" in a sense, but just taking advantage of large range of legal tools happily provided by a legal system that requires much reform. If it wasn't apple doing it, it'd easily be samsung doing it to apple

I think a good solution here would to impliment a loser pays system, where if you make a frivolus lawsuit (ehhhh, your fridge is square, our product is square... COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT) and the court/judge/jury/whatever finds your claim real stupid, and you lose, you have to pay the defendant's legal fees and other expenses for the time you just wasted for everyone.

Actually, this already happens in the England & Wales. Read the very last bullet point/paragraph.

Wow, that's great. Now if only the US would follow suit on this.

just think about all the innovations and neat tech toys we'll get without the restriction of frivolous lawsuits! Companies would have to make a product to make a profit, not sue people.

Here's another example about patents for the same thing. Newegg has won against all four patents that TPL insisted they had infringed. Three of the patents that they were cleared against early on in the first court battle came down to this:



Just because a company who is accused of infringing a patent, is proven innocent (aka wins) doesn't mean they stole it. It just means they have a different method of doing it.

Yes, indeed. And it should be *global*, not just applied in certain specific laws/situations. And while we're at it, let's add *extra* penalties to compensate for the effects of wasting the defendant's time, money, gas, etc., when it comes to the really obviously bad-faith claims.

Just skimming the thread, but a thought:
This situation would be almost certain to end in a ruling that it was fair use on the part of the video producer, dependent on specific facts.

The primary brokenness in the current system is that there's no incentive for service providers (in the example, Youtube is a service provider) to err on the side of caution- they go along with whatever copyright holders say, because that's the easiest (read: cheapest) way to protect their safe harbor standing under the DMCA.

Those subject to spurious takedowns of their creations are entitled to damages in cases of abuse, but it's exceedingly hard to get anything useful out of it- first you'd have to get a court to agree that you (as the producer) are in the right, then you need to prove non-trivial damages.

Side note: Don't believe anything comic says. He likes to pretend he's an expert at all things, but really is completely clueless.