The pirates of YouTube

Found on The Guardian on Monday, 12 December 2011
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Viacom says it doesn't match enough of its works, and complains that it shouldn't have to tell Google which copyrights it owns – Google should just figure this out and block Viacom's works a priori.

Malamud's 146-page report from FedFlix to the Archivist of the United States documents claims that companies such as NBC Universal, al-Jazeera, and Discovery Communications have used ContentID to claim title to FedFlix videos on YouTube. Some music royalty collecting societies have claimed infringements in "silent movies".

The American public paid to produce these videos, and they own them, lock, stock and barrel. Multinational companies – the same ones who cry poverty and demand far-reaching laws like the Stop Online Piracy Act – have laid title to them, "homesteading the public domain", and they are abusing Google's copyright peace offering to steal from the public.

It would be much more interesting to see how many such false ContentID claims would be made if each false claim would result in a painfully big payment to a non-profit fund supporting public domain.