Brain Handles

Just found out from a friend of mine, that his YouTube account got closed after three DMCA takedown notices. Thing is, none of them were valid, all were made by major media corporations, and Viacom isn't the only one.

According to Gary's blog entry at "Developer Dispatch", the three separate DMCA takedown notices came from Universal Music Group, Comedy Central, and Viacom.

The oldest one, a DMCA takedown from Comedy Central, refers to an episode where Gary and two friends sit on a couch and talk about favorite TV shows that got cancelled before their time. There are no clips from those shows, no music, not even quotes. Furthermore, not only is there no Comedy Central content, they don't even discuss any Comedy Central shows.

The one cited by Viacom... again, just three guys sitting on a couch. This one seems to be more scripted, but doesn't use any quotes, clips, or music from any TV show or any other Viacom IP. It's completely original content.

The last, from November, has potential infringing content. They say the words "Manic Monday" which happens to be the name of a Bangles song. And since the complaint was from Universal Music Publishing Group, you'd think that they might have at least an excuse for the false positive. Only problem is that the Bangles albums that contain the song were put out by Sony. Furthermore, the term is not used in context of the song and you can't copyright a title. Best they could do is file a Lanham Act complaint if they'd trademarked it and felt that Gary was violating their trademark, but this wouldn't qualify.

So there you have it, three completely invalid complaints from three different major media organizations. The complaints have no merit whatsoever, but because these careless corporations fired shotgun blasts that winged an innocent party three times, the party has not only had that content taken off YouTube, he's had his account yanked.

And when he filed counterclaims, YouTube said they'd have to pass them back to the original parties for review, so Gary has to wait until these corporations feel like responding.

I'm not a lawyer, but I want to introduce you to a legal term... Tortious Interference. According to the Wikipedia entry, one definition is: "Tortious interference with business relationships occurs where the tortfeasor acts to prevent the plaintiff from successfully establishing or maintaining business relationships."

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but it looks like all three of these corporations are in for huge, class action tortious interference lawsuits. I don't know if punitive damages can be awarded in tortious interference lawsuits, but I hope so, because although I'm normally opposed to "jackpot justice", these corporations need to be smacked hard for their complete and utter disregard for all the small business owners they've hurt with their slipshod, negligent actions. A judgement of a few hundred million against each would not be a bad idea.