I’m sorry, what was the question again?
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(Obligatory caveat: I am not a lawyer. Nothing I say should be construed as legal advice. If you require legal advice, seek qualified legal counsel.)
Short answer is “it depends.” Copyrights (and patents) are exclusively the domain of the federal government and states are unable to pass laws regarding them. Hypothetically, states could pass laws regarding fraudulent use of Content ID type systems, but it seems like it would get dicey. States can hear cases involving copyright, for example, a breach of contract involving the sale of the rights to a song, but only as long as they’re not ruling on matters of copyright themselves. So, while a state could make fraudulent claims illegal, such a law would have limited use, because you couldn’t make a fair use argument or an argument on the basis of uncopyrightability, because the state court doesn’t have the authority to rule on those matters. Even in cases where the uploader clearly is not using any copyrighted material, the court would likely have little grounds on which to rule in their favor. Anything short of an outright confession that they knew in advance that there was no valid basis for a copyright claim would rely on the court making a judgment about the validity of the copyright, which they can’t do.
One possible way to strike back is a class action suit against major corporate offenders, but even that seems like it would run into some problems. The 9th Circuit has a subjective standard for “good faith” when dealing with DMCA claims, i.e., if the person making the copyright claim believed it to be valid, even if they were unreasonable or reckless in doing so, it’s still “good faith.” Hypothetically, if there is a demonstrated pattern of behavior (e.g. lawsuits, reversed copyright claims, etc) one could prove that the claimants were willfully blind, but that would be quite difficult.
Besides amending the DMCA, the ball is pretty much in Youtube’s court. Youtube could certainly sue people who break their TOS. They could also freeze payouts rather than automatically make them available to the claimants and they can reform their strikes system (e.g., they can’t legally refuse to honor takedown requests, even from a known wrongdoer, but they can limit strikes in whatever way they wish). Further, under the DMCA, if the accused files a counter notice and no lawsuit is filed by the accuser within ten to fourteen business days, the service provider “must” restore access/ replace the material taken down. I don’t know what Youtube’s terms of service are, and they may supersede the DMCA.
Amending the DMCA is probably the best way solve a lot of these problems, mostly via creating balance between the accusers and the accused. E.g., the DMCA requires that an alleged infringer’s counter-notice include their full name, address, and phone number, whereas the accuser need only include an email address. Likewise, it includes a method for the accuser to subpoena the identity of the alleged infringer, but not the reverse. For individual crooks, it can be hard to prove perjury when you don’t even require them to ever give their name.
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I’ve copyrighted 777. Now any time that comes up, you must forfeit any earnings to me!
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Oh yeah? Well, I’ve just copyrighted 666.
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I pretty sure Douglas Adams beat you to it.
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Worst part is, if you upload a video from Rome containing an “L”, they own that too.
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Might as well copyrite ‘take a drink of me arse’
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the tweeter is saying that maybe the number is just referring to a point in the video rather than the actual number, but they say this as a guess, with no actual backing evidence.
At this point in time a guess that the copyright notice is referring to the literal number 36 is just as valid as a guess that the number is some kind of marker, the system is that fucked up.
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You mean I have to chmod all my files again?
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The bigger problem AIUI is that whilst Content ID was introduced by YouTube in answer to the DMCA, it’s actually an extra-legal process that just looks very similar. Claims enacted under Content ID are not in fact DMCA claims, and so the legal recourse that would normally be available to the target of a DMCA claim (eg - formal challenges, automatic reinstatement, etc) are not available.
It’s literally the worst of both worlds, and entirely (mis-)handled by YouTube.
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I’ve found a couple of similarly formatted messages through google image search, and that field isn’t normally populated by numbers. I’d assume either WB or Youtube pulled the wrong data into a field somewhere from their databases.
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I’m guessing “36” is the name of the file that got entered into the Content ID system, and since it’s claiming a game video is infringing, it was likely someone else’s “Let’s Play,” all of which indicates the whole process has been automated, and very sloppily. The registered file got automatically entered into the system with just a meaningless number (either due to fields getting mixed up or just a lack of concern about how the file was named, because it was a Twitch stream or something), and probably triggered the infringement complaint because both videos shared some music or cutscene that existed in the game being played in both videos… and since Fullscreen don’t represent the game developers, they have no legal right to have laid the claim in the first place, ultimately.
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Is 69 still available?
We need a ruling.
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“Fuck you! Ha, ha-ha!”
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I’ve got a 1027 to sell you, and I’ll throw in the bridge for free.
All joking aside, wait until Warner finds out that the numbers own them!
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In other news, Fox News has claimed ownership of the numbers 14 and 88
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It is possible to claim some trademark ownership over a number…
However, this does not prevent mathematicians studying integers between 56 and 58 - there has to be some element of capturing trade. Jif/Cif has a 3D trademark of the shape of a lemon, but other people are still growing lemons.
A nice case is the rounded 4-sided coffee jar with a ‘gold’ plastic lid. Nescafe claimed that other brands were trying to look like their ‘Gold Blend’. This was judged as permissible because there was no actual intent to deceive, but just to identify with a certain class of product ( instant coffee, perhaps one rung up from Maxwell House brown poster paint ).
The dammed thing is that people keep pushing to establish rights, and unless someone pushes back, they will win.
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I think Douglas Adams got there first.
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Jif (The lemon juice brand) is not the same as Cif (the cleaning product brand, formerly known as Jif in the UK), although both are now owned by Unilever.
It’s Jif that originally got the trademark on 3D lemon containers, not Cif.
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