LogFAQs > #967511415

banananor posted...

I apologize for asking this, but could you provide a short summary?

Certainly.

Content creator, Business Casual (BC), makes original videos on history. One of the signature elements of their videos is the way they recreate images out of a pastiche of other images to create 3-D moving imagery. The original images are probably publicly available, but given the amount of work they do to restore those images before even combining them, it's pretty obvious that they are creating their own work.

Channels run by Russia Today (RT), which is funded directly by the Russian government, ripped off some segments of BC's videos. It's also heavily implied that they do this routinely with other content creators, but this isn't addressed. RT made it obvious that they knew full well what they were doing, considering they scrubbed the watermark and desaturated the image to avoid filters. It was only by chance BC became aware. BC finds initially one, and later two more instances that explicitly use their videography and also excerpts from their script. They file a copyright strike on the first video. RT accepts this. Then they file strikes for the other two, and the fireworks begin.

Crude timeline that follows:

• Youtube takes down the channel, which is part of a network of 39 channels in different languages
• All hell breaks lose in Russia, claiming this is American propaganda and politically motivated
• Russia strongarms Google into reinstating the channel; Google caves
• From that point forward, Google subtlety works to support RT against BC despite BC doing everything to work within the law and Google's own system
• RT files counterclaims for the DMCA strikes, and Google says "welp, kay then. We dunno who's right" and uses that as a shield to hide behind, leaving the channel up until BC can win in court -- which is explicitly not what the DMCA law states
• RT won't work things out and thought they would just go away. In email exchanges they literally admit they only counterfiled to prevent the channel being banned. BC is forced to file in court.
• BC also ends up filing suit against Google, who is supposed to maintain neutrality, but is doing all they can to support RT, including attempting to arbitrate, having their lawyers talk to the judges on behalf of RT, and creating covert rule changes that allow RT to need 35 (!) copy-right strikes to be taken down.
• Due to the legal blockade, this goes on for almost two years and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. During this, both RT and Google are evidently trying to exhaust BC into giving up.
• The initial date in court against RT comes, and their motion to dismiss along laughable grounds (mostly concerning fair use) is denied. So the real court battle will go through.
• The initial hearing against Google comes, but their lawyers lie their ass off about the circumstances and use a bazillion red herrings and misdirections -- which BC includes at the end of the video by talking through their argument and how absurd it was in actuality -- but Google gets the case against them dismissed.

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Obviously, due to the length, tons of subtext is missing here. The TLDR is that Google sides with profiting from Russia state media whose sole purpose for existing is to misinform people outside of Russia, rather than following the law or what is obviously the ethical thing to do. RT performed the same act in all three cases, and not only conceded to the first strike, but have directly admitted it in emails that will easily cost them their case (among other things). One of these other strikes involves literally the same exact material being DMCA'ed in another upload, and Google washes their hands of that simply because RT has a counterclaim. Google also dragged their feet in even processing these later two claims because if 90 days can pass, a channel loses one of their copyright strikes, and doing so would enable RT to exist with just two strikes.

The irony is that RT's entire network is temporarily blocked now because of the war in Ukraine, however the videos are not gone, the account is still very much alive, and there was a one-year period between when the channels should have been banned and this block being instated for completely independent reasons.

During the entire fiasco, a variety of internal members of Alphabet responded to BC, have revealed that these high-ranking members have reviewed the case themselves, and in many cases tried to persuade BC and others that what RT did isn't so bad, despite the rather black-and-white nature of the DMCA law and the blatant violations of their own site policy. At one point, he was even contacted by an official from Youtube Russia out of the blue who literally used to work for Russian state media.

I could go on, but the point was to summarize. In the end, BC intends to appeal the Google case, and are looking for tacit support from the community to spread the word about what should justifiably amount to a scandal that could lead to Google losing a lot of their protections against pirating and harmful content on their platforms.