As you know, I filed a counter-claim yesterday for copyright violations — if, indeed, the reason for my account suspension was some copyright violation (which it wasn’t).
YouTube responded thus:
Dear Jeff,
We’ve reviewed your account and found that it’s in violation of our Terms of Use and cannot be re-instated.
Please review our Terms of Use here: http://www.youtube.com/t/terms
Please also take a look at our community guidelines that explain the reasons for our Terms of Use: http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines
Sincerely,
Harry
The YouTube Team
Note there is no explanation for the suspension. There is no specific reason given. I have yet to be notified. And I am unable to get anyone to detail for me what rules I have violated by posting clips from videos owned by Tony — and which are of a kind with thousands of other martial arts/defense videos on YouTube.
So. What’s the next step?
The obvious answer is to make PJM host the videos
OK sorry. IANAL so maybe you need one
The hokey-pokey, I’d say.
You need to put Harry in one of those reverse-nostril-grab-face-clamp-choke-holds (with spine twist). Maybe he will tell you then.
You haven’t been – offensive or annoying or inconvenient to any powerful individuals lately, have you?
Hmmmm…
It’s a puzzler.
This is starting to make me lose faith in teh interwebs.
Too bad you can’t get cleo and thor to craaaazy them until they give in
Any traceable email address embedded in the message? Can we light ’em up?
Jeff,
My property owner’s association is run by big city liberals, and they insist, insist on keeping a link to MSNBC’s lame weather information on our POA’s website.
I pointed out to them that MSNBC is just regurgitating the same weather info that our taxpayer-funded National Weather Service provides, and without all the flashing links to political nonsense, but they wouldn’t budge.
I point this out as a way of saying, media corporations have infiltrated their political message into every nook and cranny of Americans’ lives.
I’d like to get MSNBC out of my butt-hole right about now. Their probing this election year has become, shall we say, intrusive.
Get a lawyer who specializes in this sort of thing; unfortunately I don’t know one.
Could ask Ron
http://www.likelihoodofconfusion.com/
I dunno. This makes no sense. Can you call them, or can you physically visit them?
That IS one of the best “non-answer” answers that I’ve seen in an e-mail. But I don’t pay much attention to O! so my bar might be kind of low.
Jeff, why not have Tony open an account at You Tube.
Then Tony is posting videos that Tony holds copyright on.
If you don’t understand where I’m going with this, email me, and we can discuss the technical aspects of TONY doing this from the convenience of your home.
I wrote Ron.
Monster —
We’re not sure it’s a copyright issue at all, and we are hesitant to re-do a site (which took me well over 100 hours of work to populate) if they can just pull it down again with no notice or no reason given.
In the copyright counter-claim, Tony was named. YouTube has not suggested that I am an improper agent or any such thing.
In fact, they’ve suggested nothing, as you can see in the letter.
Hey there, Jeff. I expected you would get a non-answer answer, as that is what they send everyone else. But can you clarify something: was the note you received was in direct response to your DMCA counter-claim, or was this possibly a (10 days sounds about right) response from the “youtube team” to your initial inquiries?
I fucking hate mindless corporate bastards. Have you considered praying to Obama for a solution?
Sarah —
Re: [#353715488] DMCA counter notification
I filed another moments later.
Write your representative to Congress. He works for you. Here is the link. Shit looks much better with congressional letterhead. I did this with my GI bill and I got response within 5 days.
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
Ron responded with a very nice email.
[redacted]
Dear Jeff,
Fuck you.
Love,
YouTube
Really, would that be so hard? To just come out and say it?
Looks like my last comment got eaten…
Anyway, I’d say this looks like it would be right up the alley of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Don’t you know, silly rabbit? Omnicient bureaucrats-in-waiting needn’t provide specifics, or provide responses at all. You’ve been DENIED. Accept your verdict, citizen. Only the approved are allowed to speak truth to power and, unfortunately, this doesn’t include you.
Now go back to toiling in obscurity.
/sarcasm off and all that . . .
They are throwing up BS like chaff. Because they know, ultimately, it doesn’t matter what you do in retaliation. Sue them ? Their lawyers descend on you and cost you more money then you can count.
Though the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And you have a well known platform for .. um… being squeeky ?
hrm. Not the way I thought it would come out but accurate.
Check your email, Sarah.
Looks like any lawyer might work. Anyone?
Make a new video explaining this problem and put it on YouTube.
I just cannot figure out how you could otherwise be in violations, unless they are treating Tony’s site as one where an aggregate of embedded videos are gathered to generate advertising revenue. They state pretty plainly that using youtube videos to promote a website is not prohibited commercial use. I suppose in a stretch, in the gray area of generating ad revenue from content targeted ads, they might have decided to tip the scales against you, but it isn’t a clear violation to promote Tony’s website with embedded videos, from what I can discern. I don’t even know if Tony’s site had links or embeds.
I don’t very much you did any modding of the embeddable player.
The “somebody might get hurt” content rule, I suppose, could be behind it. But as you are promoting an athletic competitive style of wrestling, and nobody is getting his head pulled off, and not hobo street fighting, and there is plenty of similar content youtube seems not to object to, I have to wonder why they would single you out.
Very perplexing. I think asking might not help much, but it couldn’t hurt. Ask for permission to have your personal account reinstated to view content of others until the matter is sorted.
“I doubt very much”, not “I don’t very much”
As an addendum, let me say I think its too late for any blog to make a difference. If McCain wins, which I still think he will. its going to be because the majority rejects barraky. The vast majority of us did not choose McCain. I backed Guilliani and I wonder how much different Rudy would have been on the economy and the BS surrounding Obama’s background. McCain doesn’t have the oratory skills to attack barry on the lies and the bs. I’m still surprised McCain ended up the nominee. I wish he had focused more on the veto pen – he brought it out in a rally at Tampa and I thought it was powerful. He could say “I veto wasteful spending.” I wonder how much both candidates have had to compromise to build the funds necessary for a national race for president. I feel the debts, especially on barry’s side, will be very damaging for our country.
I’m feeling cynical. I fear the downfall of McCain will be people like me – who’s support for McCain is based more on an anti-barry plateform. He wasn’t even in my top 3 nominees, though he faired better than Huckabee.
Mr Coleman wrote back and may be willing to help out just because he’s a swell fellow. Fingers crossed.
Sarah —
If you look at competitor’s sites, some of the clips they run are literally ads for product. Tony’s clips are for information purposes. Each clip ends with a copyright notice and his web address, but that’s because he’s had his stuff pirated in the past.
Plus, looking at the terms of use myself, I see this:
E. Prohibited commercial uses do not include:
* uploading an original video to YouTube, or maintaining an original channel on YouTube, to promote your business or artistic enterprise;
…so you got me…
jeff, if we can find a way to sue them in florida i’m your guy. =p
I’m pretty sure one of the google founders was at the barry rally a day or two ago. I’m pleased my search engine of choice is a headed up by a barry schill.
Nah seriously click on that link I put up. You only have to write a paragraph and hit your zip code in there. Your Congressman then writes the letter to whoever for you. I interned for a congressman they get responses in less than a week back to your house. Just saying…..
I think Harry of the youtubeteam is an oozing rectal fistula.
I hope Ron can help. He’s a good guy, has another blog
http://likelihoodofsuccess.com/
and works with the media bloggers, so he knows all this stuff very well
Wrote my rep. See if that was yet another waste of my time.
Hopefully Mr. Coleman can/will help you; because it sounds to me like it’s time for you all to Lawyer up!
The explanation you were given sounds like total BS; in lieu of an explanation it appears that you were arbitrarily and capriciously denied service. As long as the account is free though, that’s a tricky path to navigate…
I wonder if you have to sue them in their home state or yours? And I’m sure you have plenty of lawyers that vivit your blog. Perhaps someone may be able to help you…
The conspiracy disposed paranoia voice in my head is screamin’ that this may have something to do with that essay on Cashill’s theory that you wrote…I mean, not all websites are as tolerant as you are of diverse and divergent points of view. Hell, I’ve had 3/4 of the comments I’ve written on HuffPo denied; and all who have read my commentary here know that they contain no ad hominem, no vulgarities, and no shout down tactics…
Good luck, because it sounds to me like there is certainly something rotten in Denmark, or wherever you tube is based…
Best Wishes…
Thanks, urthshu. He just sent me that link. Looks like a cool site.
Yeah, that is a nice blog. And you can sue anyone from New York City, right?
Jeff, like I said, Tony’s/your use of youtube would seem to be that expressly permitted. They do sort of weasel about prohibited use reg. embeds and the targeted ads. Basically the policy is, for use of embedded video to draw traffic to a site for the specific purpose of generating targeted ad revenue “they know it when they see it” and reserve the right to deep-six anyone who does it.
Were most of the vids embedded at Tony’s? Did he have targeted ads? I’m just fishing here for something that could possibly make sense, for so far there seems to be little of it behind the suspension.
I did run across a case discussion a minute ago related to where youtube users agree to have certain types of cases heard. I’ll go get it and quote it.
Court upholds forum selection clause in YouTube’s terms of use
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008, excerpt below:
“YouTube moved to dismiss the complaint for, among other things, improper venue, invoking a provision of the site’s Terms of Use which read:
“
I don’t see what you could sue them for. You’re in a contractual relationship with them (because you agreed to their TOS). Maybe there’s some sort of breach of the implied covenant of good faith & fair dealing.
San Mateo County is Democrat-heavy, but the people tend to be tight-fisted, narrow-minded conservatives when it comes time to make a jury verdict.
Therefore, the deck is stacked against you as a Republican and as a Plaintiff. There is a reason YouTube chose to name San Mateo County and not the City & County of San Francisco. (And I already told you the reason: tight-fisted jurors, god love ’em)
If you don’t have a cause of action, there’s not much you can do. A big-name lawyer might get their attention long enough that they would treat you halfway decently.
None of the vids ever appeared on Tony’s site.
Looks like Sarah has found the root of the problem, Jeff. I’ll bet anything you personally are against the law in California.
The Legislature there was about to pass a law against me in the summer of 1994, but they dropped the matter when they discovered I had just moved to Alaska. So, I’m allowed to visit family there, but if I stay too long that bill will find its way back on the calendar.
If Kafka and Orwell had a possessed and evil lovechild, they’d have named it Google.
Curiouser and curiouser, Jeff. If the vids didn’t go to the external site, there’s not even a pretextual basis for claiming you were hogging their bandwidth to get ad revenue. So, what, then. That farking leaves spamming, and content.
Which, you did not spam, so that leaves the nature of the wrassling which didn’t seem very extreme, or an infringement of copyright not protested in your counterclaim, a third party privacy claim, or the possibility that someone uploaded terrible things onto your site you have no idea of.
You embedded one or two wrassles here, but they permit that expressly.
Yup. And no explanation forthcoming.
Don’t be evil©, Jeff. Be happy.
The messiah is coming!
You might have to weigh the effort of continuing in fighting the Kafkaesque “Don’t be Evil” (note they did not say anything about “Don’t be Arbitrary and Capricious”) vs starting over on a new site and telling Google – “fine, I’ll just continue to make sure my thousands of readers know how you have acted – and the alternative hosting service I have chosen as alternative to you…”
Asnd as we learned recently, you are in a simmilar boat as McCain, what with his YouTube Videos that included the Eye of CBS being pulled. They claimed trademark, even as it was within fair use. Interestiong is it not… Google owning the site and all….
(yeah, heard the story on NPR yesterday morning if you think you want to begin the journey)
Jeff, there are a lot of other video hosting sites. Like them, Google’s YouTube is a private venture contracted to you by a TOS. You can rattle sabres with an attorney to go noplace but the poorhouse fast, or you can go to one of their competitors and never look back. No compensation for your 100 hours, but there you have it.
Somewhat related, I recently contracted a budget household mover out of NY to move a simple 4’x8’x4′ crate of miscellaneous effects about 2000 miles. They or their contractee took my stuff and promptly attempted literal fraud (phony weights) extortion (pay more than contracted or we’ll steal it) threatened insurance fraud of some type (pay more or we’ll destroy it) and at least three dozen instances of misrepresentation (bogus insurance coverage) breach of contract (schedules, offloading, cost, etc) harassment, refusing service and information, and otherwise shoddy performance.
In the end there’s nothing I can do unless I go to NY, mount a very expensive discovery and suit across four state lines (their offices in NY and CA plus the two states involving the subcarrier and the move) and wait.
It’s not worth it. Maybe I’ll use the legislator-letter route to mess with them and certainly I’ll go back on my credit card company if I ever get my stuff back whole. But there will be no justice, that is assured, at least none that comes within a lightyear of making me whole.
Next time, a competitor gets my business. And in the mean time I take my story everywhere I possibly can.
I hate Google too. And where I think they’d go under the socialist administration.
This morning a friend emailed me all the nifty ways the NYT says the housing crisis can be salved. Not a single one involves adhering to the free market, accountability, or honesty. All, however, involve wrecking it by way of legalized theft and shirking responsibility and these are all from “noted economists and financial experts”.
Because this is what we’ve come to in this land. We think for shit and then we look to the heavens in DC. The rest, as another friend says, is by now all cheese, mem, and leavings.
Screw’Tube.
Until Google’s virtual monopoly on search and video is breached there’s not much anyone can do.
We’ll have to have a RICO-sort of analysis of Google, an AT&T-style breakup, to see any real relief. Maybe a full-fledged backing of that Other Evil Empire, Microsoft, and their largely unknown Soapbox?
Press for a more specific reason, a defined analysis. That YouTube ‘response’ is as broad as M’Chelle’s butt.
Now here is how youtube describes spamming:* I can’t see how they could accuse the content of the videos as spammy, or your methods of getting them seen, which did not include tricks, irrelevant keywords and so forth:
I suppose there could have been spam in the comments, or repeat visitors “helping” you by trying to game the videos to a boosted status (maybe “favoriting” too often?). That is trying really hard to get the glass slipper on a stepsister’s foot, though.
*Inappropriate Content: Spam and Gaming
Spam
Spam is massively distributed, repetitive, untargeted content or communication of little or no interest. It has vanishingly little value, and by its presence it makes it more difficult to locate material that is actually of interest. Though at times you may see spam on our site, it is not allowed. If you have posted it in any area on our site, consider this a warning. However, accounts dedicated to spam are terminated with prejudice. Legitimate users found to be spamming will have the spam content removed. Persistent spamming may result in suspension of certain account privileges. We are working on tools to allow us to communicate specific removal reasons and allow users to appeal these decisions directly through the site.
Common examples of Spam on YouTube may include chain letters in video comments, advertisements in channel comments and private messages, and long lists of irrelevant keywords in video descriptions. If you see others massively posting this or irrelevant content on our site, please report it to us. We are working hard on eliminating it to further enhance your experience on YouTube.
Users on YouTube can do the following to protect and report spam:
The Private Messages feature allows users to mark incoming spam messages, and has an option to only accept messages from friends.
Spam videos and comments can be marked as spam.
Users can control who can post comments on their videos, or moderate comments so that they only appear if approved.
Users can delete spam comments from their profile pages or videos.
System Gaming
There are some automated systems on the YouTube website which bestow ‘honors’ on videos or channels, placing them on the Top Lists and increasing their visibility. These systems expect and are based on users of the site acting like intelligent humans in various ways, such as having a single account and not favoriting a video more than once. Another example of gaming on YouTube is a user creating many ‘dummy’ accounts and favoriting his or her own videos many times with them. Manipulating honors in this way is called gaming. Such activity on our site may result in us taking action on your account.
If you discover any of the above on our site, please help us by reporting it. This is your community. Your cooperation in fighting spam will help us to make it a better one.
From YouTube’s Help Center: “When a user has posting privileges temporarily disabled on one account, for the duration of the suspension that user is also prohibited from posting material to YouTube using any other account. Attempts to circumvent this rule may result in immediate termination without warning of all accounts.”
Even if Tony posts using Tony’s account, they will likely invoke this. Best not to try again unless you get some definitive statement from them as to what the problem is. See this article and comments: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/22835_Jawa_Report_Video_Censored_by_YouTube/comments/#ctop – one or more of the respondents say the ban may be an automatic response to some number of complaints. So, probably also best to keep a friendly face with YouTube and try to get more information, as they appear to hold all the cards.
What are some YouTube alternatives?
Here
If nothing else you may get a book out of this situation. Call it “The Trial II, the internet version”
My personal view, strongly influenced by my own life experiences, is that this is a political hit by someone fairly high up in their corporate bureaucracy. Doing it just because they can.
Youtube is owned by Google. If you look at what political organizations Google has donated to, it’s pretty clear they have a definite…inclination.
Which is not to say that said inclination has translated into any particular grudge against you, Jeff. Why they’ve done what they have is still not clear, and by all appearances isn’t likely to ever get much more clear.
If I had the wherewithal to start an alternative to YouTube, I’d call it TubeThis.
urthshu. I have that link. Which ones are like youtube? I mean, I set up a TV show account on blip, but…
Time for somebody to start TrueTube…
TubeSnakes!
Not to make you feel paranoid, Jeff, but that’s just a precursor of what will happen. I’m pretty sure you’re at the top of the “must visit” list in Obama’s Security Apparatus.