Pathetic. All this dude did was show users their fake ads and fake reviews. He's also showcased reviews where the instructors don't seem to know much about how the internet works.
Now the legal system is being used to maliciously prosecute him. There is little hope for this man in India given the level of corruption and rot in the system. If there are well connected folks in the west who want to spend their time on actual injustice as opposed to casting in Hollywood movies and other first world problems, I'd invite them to speak up for this man and contact the investors / folks at Disney and other Byju's investors.
Also if you know folks at Reddit or YouTube congratulate them on having such a trash tier DMCA review process where a decent man with the intention of protecting a gullible population of poor folks can't stand up to a scam corporation backed by a mammoth like Disney, on your platform.
Rarely am I the one to stand up for Google, but the DMCA is such a garbage law that they have no choice. They don't have the legal ability to call bullshit on the takedown. It's the video creator's job under the DMCA to prove themselves innocent, under penalty of perjury. (No such penalty exists for filing a false claim, BTW.)
My understanding is that once the content creator file a counter notice, the hosting platform is off the hook and free to reinstate the content. Any further legal fight will be directly between the claimant and the creator, not involving the host at all. IANAL, so feel free to point out any mistakes in this take.
Now assuming the above to be true, YouTube has rejected a counter notice by the creator. What other reason exists for such a decision, than the commercial relationship between the two companies? This shows that content creators have no priority at all. The host is likely a willing partner in this abuse.
So hypothetically you are suggesting that someone like Nigel Farage or the Brexit Party could just file DMCA requests against any YouTuber who has made a video critical of them, and YouTube and Reddit would have to suspend the accounts because they're at the mercy of DMCA?
If that were true how come this isn't happening all the time? I know it happens often, but not universally. It seems like this is the easiest way of killing dissent and criticism. How come the folks who have the most criticism levelled against them haven't figured out this tactic if the law is so flawed? How is it that it only happens in some cases but not others? If the law is broken why doesn't everyone exploit it?
I suspect that you are right that DMCA is a flawed law but I think in this particular case there may be more to it than just these companies being at the mercy of a broken law.
Because not everyone is scummy, and it's obvious that they would be in the wrong? I also imagine something attention grabbing like a western politician will get more care taken than some random educational company in India.
AIUI that's not correct. You can ignore a DMCA takedown notice but you lose the common carrier protections and effectively become open to being sued for contributory infringement. They have a choice, they have the legal ability but eschew the liability that exercising that ability carries.
>Rarely am I the one to stand up for Google, but the DMCA is such a garbage law that they have no choice.
First of all, Youtube with their ContentID circus goes far beyond what the DMCA requires. The DMCA requires you take down content once you receive a proper notice with all the required elements. It does not mandate that you proactively scan all video and audio as ContentID does (but other jurisdictions may have such mandates).
And then, they have a choice. They can reject DMCA notices. This opens them up to potential liability when they do, if the other party decides to sue them and wins. Thus they probably will consider it a bad choice. It's so much easier and "safer" just to accept every bullshit notice for them. But it's a choice regardless.
Github recently rejected the DMCA notice from the RIAA (it took them a while but they got there eventually); at least I am not aware of any counter notice filed and mandatory wait period elapsing afterwards.
Try filing a DMCA against google.com and see if Alphabet takes down that page ;)
No, they will have their lawyers look at the notice and laugh it out of the room, instead of blindly accepting a notice like that.
>It's the video creator's job under the DMCA to prove themselves innocent, under penalty of perjury. (No such penalty exists for filing a false claim, BTW.)
No, it's actually not. The process is this:
1) Party A sends DMCA notice to Company
2) Company (such as Youtube) receives notice, checks if it conforms with the law[0], removes content and informs the affected party if it does, details what is missing to party A (if possible) otherwise.
3) Affected party B may file a counter-notice now if their content got taken down.
4) Company receives counter-notice, checks the formalities and informs the original party A it received one.
5) Original party A has now 10 business days to file a court action against the alleged infringing party. If it does so, it has to notify the company.
6) Company will restore access to the content after 10 business days (14 at most), unless the original party A files a court action and notifies company about this action.
If it goes to court, the original party will have to prove their copyright was indeed infringement, and if it can, then the other party can still mount a defense, such as a fair use defense.
If it's a nuisance DMCA notice without merit, and if the alleged infringer files a counter-notice, nothing has to be proven, the content will be reinstated (after up to 14 long days), unless the complaining party is actually willing and bold enough to waste their time and money, and the courts time, and files an action.
Of course, this is not how YouTube and their ContentID does it; they heavily disadvantage whoever has content taken down/de-monitized/"revenue shared", and they actually make judgments on counter-notices themselves (not just looking at formal requirements of such a notice).
[0] Or not. As somebody handling DMCA notices on a daily basis, I have seen many, clearly templated notices from medium and major companies which are very incomplete or outright inaccurate. One "DMCA as a service" company likes to file notices for user-uploaded content that has been removed from our servers months ago, sometimes years ago. A lot of companies also forget to mention what they want removed, or better yet send us notices giving links to other domains we do not own, do not control and are not affiliated with in any way; while this is mostly human error, we had one company respond to us that they expect us to remove the content regardless... yeah, let me just hack that other server real quick for you...
> If the subscriber serves a counter notification
complying with statutory requirements, including a statement under penalty of perjury
that the material was removed or disabled through mistake or misidentification...
Not sure what you're disagreeing with me on here, since you go on to restate my point at greater length. There are penalties for falsely filing a counternotice; there are no penalties to me if I send Alphabet a DMCA claim about Google.com (or if WhiteHatJr files notice to YouTube).
Edit: Ah, I see. It's correct that there is no need to provide evidence at the counter-notice stage, but it introduces a sentence of up to five years in prison just for lying in the counter-notice, which does not exist for the filer. Also, even if the everything is filed and processed in a matter of hours from notice to counter-notice, there is a 14-day period during which your material remains offline regardless.
It is indeed lopsided that the counter notice must include "A statement under penalty of perjury that the subscriber has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled." The initial notice only has "under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed", but everything else like "A statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law" has no threat of penalty.
But you don't have to be right about the mistaken removal, just honestly believing you're right about it at the time you file the counter notice.
Oh, and you'd be surprised on how many people perjure themselves in the initial takedown notice, knowing they are not in fact authorized by copyright owners, often even claiming they own the copyright when they know they do not.
Big tech has basically monopolized all the attention and all the talent. Some of the smartest people of our time are working on ad delivery platforms, aka propaganda machines.
Not only that, in this case it looks like a big advertiser can just call a senior exec at YouTube and yell at him and magically a channel that's critical of the advertiser will vanish. I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong.
The prosecution made a few decent points - I suspect he may have gotten carried away in some of his videos and crossed a line somewhere which was very foolish.
Now the legal system is being used to maliciously prosecute him. There is little hope for this man in India given the level of corruption and rot in the system. If there are well connected folks in the west who want to spend their time on actual injustice as opposed to casting in Hollywood movies and other first world problems, I'd invite them to speak up for this man and contact the investors / folks at Disney and other Byju's investors.
Also if you know folks at Reddit or YouTube congratulate them on having such a trash tier DMCA review process where a decent man with the intention of protecting a gullible population of poor folks can't stand up to a scam corporation backed by a mammoth like Disney, on your platform.