I just came across this and wanted to just spread it around. I've been following the 'wheres the fair use" message started by doug walker, and he's not brought attention to the fact of the DMCA abuse used against content creators on youtube and other sites,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoIL5qUI1p8
https://www.takedownabuse.org/
All you have to do is go onto the address above, scroll down, put in your details and have it sent a copy of the petition letter.
I signed it.
From what doug said he asked those who were effected by the DMCAs to write in how it effected them. I've not been effected since I'm not a content creator, but it pisses me off such an abuse of system happens and seeing some of my fav youtubers having videos and content destroyed because of it.
Just leaving this here:
www.techdirt.com
They follow issues related to copyright, fair use, privacy, and lots of other related stuff. This site likely had alot to do with stopping SOPA.
Lobbyists never go away ... and with the new "free trade" pacts for Europe/N America/Asia ... this has been implicitly imposed ...
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2974054/patents/sopa-again-force-isps-to-block-websites.html
National governments like China seek to filter all Internet within their borders, the US is no different. One excuse will be to deter cyber-crime .. the greatest part of which are done by the national intelligence agencies. The revolution will not be tweeted.
People weaponizing DMCA takedowns due to ideological differences or anything that is not a valid copyright claim is a perfect example why aggressive copyright law enforcement is shit. Fuck youtube for taking videos down first then investigating later and fuck the copyright lobbyists for doubling down on their ineffective laws. The digital age calls for a new conception of copyright, but ask a smarter person than me how is that supposed to look like.
One of the underlying problems is the overwhelming grip on the video content distribution market youtube has. In my opinion they are eligible for antitrust prosecution, especially after their acquisition by Google.
If content creators had even one other viable alternative this problem would be far, far less severe and the competition might even prompt youtube do actually do something about the situation. As it stands right now youtube has no incentive to improve anything.
"Don't like it? Fuck you". If you hear that from a successful company, its time to break out the antitrust violation chainsaw and start cutting.
Google is like Air America ... it is a CIA company. Google buying YouTube not only legitimized YouTube, it provided them legal cover. Nobody sues a CIA front company, least of all the US government. There are no anti-trust lawsuits today, because the government is fully on-side with business.