This makes me happy. The chilling effect of copyright can be mitigated here. It’s a cautious step in the right direction. Hopefully the first step on a long journey toward holistic copyright reform.
“Google has announced an amazing, user-friendly new initiative”
I remain cautiously optimistic.
They will only have to stick to this policy until the TPP makes it illegal…
I had the same thought. I think at the end of the day this is great news, but Google has been treating creators and artists terribly for the last year or two. What with their crazy take-it-or-screw-off terms for both Youtube Music and Youtube Red. So this chummy defense news seems… interesting.
A wonderful thing.
FTFY.
While this a step in the right direction, at least… A much bigger and better step would be if Google fixed Youtube’s awful automated takedown system.
Look at it form the business perspective. If the most profitable youtubers keep getting hampered by take downs Youtube suffers just as much as the creator. If Youtube/Google doesn’t step up and defend them then Youtube’s profits as a whole suffer. So it’s not out of niceness it’s needed for growth and survival of Youtube.
Youtube is a Faustian bargain.
Naturally of course this only applies to DCMA takedowns and not YouTube’s own Content ID program that allows swaths of content to be removed in a way that completely bypasses copyright law.
This is true. YouTube thrives on a continuous stream of new content. I was never a major player, but I was putting professional videos up for my clients as an extra perk. I’m a real estate agent and photographer and the YouTube exposure was great for my listings and my colleagues. However, the music that I paid for and PURCHASED A LICENSE FOR was constantly getting flagged. I would get one flag taken off and 10 more would appear. Google would do NOTHING about it and their relationship with these rouge companies that said they were acting on behalf of artists was entirely too cozy.
I made some progress by publicly trashing some of these companies on Twitter and FB. A couple of companies “white-listed” my site after I hosed them relentlessly online. A totally absurd way to do business.
Anyway, after about a year of trying to get someone at Google to DO something about this, I just stopped using YouTube. I’m guessing enough people finally said “screw this, I’ll put my stuff on vimeo”. So its hitting Google where it hurts. If that’s the case, I’m glad. They caused me enough headaches.
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