Doug Walker made a video, that has a few other youtube personalities, where he talks about Youtube’s lopsided policies that favor the claims filer over the person being accused and how much it basically takes to fight just to not get their channel removed much less have an enjoyable experiance making things for other people.
He does not, however, go into the DMCA, Safe Harbor, or how those might force Youtube’s policies. Instead he goes after Hollywood since generally they (either directly or through middlemen groups to do the hatcheting for them) are the constant source of takedown notices, claims filed, and so on.
Given the nature of this site’s general readership, I figure discussion could be had that goes deeper than ‘fuck Hollywood.’
Well, the DMCA only exists because the MPAA and the RIAA managed to monopolize congress on the issue of copyright. It’s still completely “fuck hollywood” as far as I see it. It just happens to detour through the government on the trip from my mouth to hollywood’s ears.
Well for me it isn’t enough to go ‘fuck these guys burn them’ Anger and flinging flaming poo is one thing. Giving a solution is another, and i"m glad Doug offers a few sensical modifications to youtube policy. Pity Hollywood is full of ‘NO MINE!’
The real solution would be to toss out both copyright and patent (I have much smaller problems with trademark. It seems to be working mostly okay) and re-write the law for copyright and patent keeping in mind their constitutional purpose: Public benefit.
Currently copyright has been perverted into a bludgeon that’s used most of the time to prevent creativity. That’s dumb, and the opposite of its intention. Same goes for patent. Patent was supposed to be a limited protection in exchange for handing over a complete description to the public. A recipie/blueprint that any craftsman skilled in the given trade can use to make the invention themselves.
Patents are also supposed to be non-obvious and novel. So patents like “display an entry from a database… On a computer with the internet” shouldn’t ever have been let through. Patent is almost completely backwards today. People are getting patents granted for pretty much anything, then exercising them to prevent science and the progress of the useful arts. Instead of what the constitution dictates, ie promotion of said science and useful arts.
