US Air Force Issues DMCA Takedown Notice 93
palegray.net writes "Threat Level brings us the story of the US Air Force's use of the DMCA to forcibly remove a 'Cyber Command' recruitment video that they had previously thanked Threat Level for running. The article notes that US government works are not even subject to copyright, but this fact didn't stop YouTube from caving and taking down the video."
New Air Force Tactic? (Score:5, Funny)
I could see it... (Score:3, Funny)
Indeed. (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there someone who'd like to provide an insightful comment and then proclaim IANAL on this one?
Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the Wikipedia entry the OP posted. It says: "The federal government can hold copyrights to works when they are transferred to it, as can happen with work produced by contractors."
The Air Force almost certainly paid a contractor to make the video. Thus (assuming Wikipedia is correct) they could legally own the copyright.
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I'm not sure it would "muddy the copyright waters." If the video had Air Force employees acting, their performances were public domain. And the contractor took those public domain performances, arranged them and added stuff to create a copyrighted video. That copyrighted video was subsequently sold to the Air Force and had its copyright transfered over to them.
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Now of course the US Air Force might be backing away from the video because in hindsight it makes them look stupid and childish but, it still exists and the US public is legally entitled to know what the US Air Force has in mind when it comes to disrupting and endangering their computer networks.
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While that is one way of imagining the public domain, I suppose, it's very convoluted and even then not really accurate. In fact, for public domain works, there is no copyright at all. Such is the case for uncopyrightable works, as well as works that were copyrighted, but where the copyright term has expired. In the case of US government works, they are uncopyrightable ab initio; there is never a copyright, ever.
Of course, without knowing some more det
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Spoken like somebody who has little experience working on government contracts ;-) Without reading the full details of the contract, it could be almost anything.
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Just to add a bit of detail to the above... the FAR [arnet.gov] and a US government FAQ [cendi.gov] indicate that while individual contracts can vary, the normal situation seems to be that the contractor retains copyright while the government gets a license to "reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute, perform and display the copyrighted work". It is also true that the federal government can become a copyright owner if someone who owns a copyright assigns it to the government. So there are three possibilities:
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Now, someone get GigaNews to carry alt.binaries.multimedia.commercials.
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Quite the contrary.
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Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Informative)
"Information presented on the Air Force Recruiting website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied."
In which case the copy was valid and licensed even it if was under copyright. Which means the notice seems to be false either way.
Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Informative)
Is there someone who'd like to provide an insightful comment and then proclaim IANAL on this one?
This letter is written in response to your notification to me of a complaint received about my web page(s). The pages in question are:
(insert list of URLs here)
My response to this complaint is as follows:
Allegations of Copyright Violation / Digital Millennium Copyright Act
The claims of copyright violation should be rejected because the material in question is not copyrighted. It is in the public domain and may be reproduced by anyone.
This communication to you is a DMCA counter notification letter as defined in 17 USC 512(g)(3):
I declare, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the complaint of copyright violation is based on mistaken information, misidentification of the material in question, or deliberate misreading of the law.
My name, address, and telephone number are as follows:
(address here)
I hereby consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which I reside (or, if my address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which you, the ISP, may be found).
I agree to accept service of process from the complainant.
My actual or electronic signature follows:
(electronic or actual signature here)
Having received this counter notification, you are now obligated under 17 USC 512(g)(2)(B) to advise the complainant of this notice, and to restore the material in dispute (or not take the material down in the first place), unless the complainant files suit against me within 10 days.
IANAL, I got this form letter from this site [cmu.edu].
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Somewhat related (Score:5, Interesting)
Depictions of people are restricted by their rights of privacy and publicity. You may object to the unrestricted release of your picture or video into the public domain, even if you consented to be in a video released by the US government for a particular purpose.
This is not precisely on point because the notice was from the government and not the actors, but it's an issue for people who would republish US government works so I thought I'd point this gotcha out to everyone here.
The US government publishes an amazing quantity of content that enriches us all. I use some of it in web design. But not pictures of people without their permission.
Re:Isn't this against the law? (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, yes, many people will avoid quibbling over legal details when dealing with a heavily armed organisation that thinks it's above the law.
In the same way, it takes bravery to say no when mafia or radical religious groups issue a "take down notice".
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As for the rest, I was going to reply a little bit to say that there's no reason to assume (from the summary) that the air force does not actually hold the copyright - plenty of works are copyrighted and held by the government, it's just that, with some exceptions, the default is that they pass into the public domain automatically (as used to be the case with private works as well). But this topic has already been attacked by countless other individuals, so instead I just want to r
Copyright (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Copyright (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not ONE
SHEESH
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And as a bonus, if you are a politician, you can probably manage to get a seat on the board of a company that contracts for the goverment, giving you some extra pocket money.
I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
- it's best to keep these recruitment videos classified.
Or worse, what happens when a recruit realises (Score:2)
I'm sorry but the military strikes me has never having enough funds for that fancy Hollywood stuff.
That's probably the real reason why.
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Apart from that, I wonder why the Air Force is so keen on keeping people from watching their commercial.
Another link or two. (Score:5, Informative)
Contracted work? (Score:5, Informative)
AFAIK, that's the only exception.
If it's work "prepared by an officer or employee of the US Gov't as part of that person's official duties", it's not copyrighted.
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According to TFA, the notice was issued by the Air Force's lawyers, without the consultation or authorisation of the guy who deals with all IP issues.
According to Wikipedia, they are meant to be good enough lawyers to know better, but the talk page had been deleted, so maybe there's just been a big slanging match.
What did you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Overblown issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Overblown issue (Score:4, Interesting)
IANAL, if you hadn't guessed...
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It's becoming all too common that they remove videos without apparently needing verification though. I realise that under the DMCA a company has to act when notified that they're hosting infringing material, but ever since they were bought by Google they've become the most tread-lightly-offend-none company around. Surely with the huge resources available to Youtube they'd be able to actually double check these DMCA requests to make sure they actually have merit?
Speaking as a Googler, I find the tone of TFA unwarranted, though to be sure your own comment is pretty mild. But how about just drawing attention to the problem and see what happens? Speaking for Googlers in general, doing the right thing really is a big deal for us. That don't be evil motto is not just PR spin, it is real.
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It's becoming all too common that they remove videos without apparently needing verification though. I realise that under the DMCA a company has to act when notified that they're hosting infringing material, but ever since they were bought by Google they've become the most tread-lightly-offend-none company around. Surely with the huge resources available to Youtube they'd be able to actually double check these DMCA requests to make sure they actually have merit?
;)
IANAL, if you hadn't guessed...
The problem with that is, if youtube/google/whoever decides NOT to use the safe harbor clause in the DMCA, and not take the video down & contact the poster, then they instantly lose all protection under the safe harbor clause.
At this point, if youtube/google/whoever makes ANY mistake in their double checking the request, they are automatically liable for any damages to the copyright holder if it turns out the take down notice was correct.
In other words, they can take on the legal responsibility (and co
Let's Ask the Lawyer! (Score:2, Informative)
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I, for one, think we should ask Ms. Pikser (the lawyer who filed the complaint) why she thinks the work is copyrightable, even though it was made by the government. The DMCA notice conveniently says her email address is mpikser@reedsmith.com. For good measure we should probably all ask her. You know, just so we can compare responses...
You can certainly ask, but its most likely she thinks so because she knows the law and you don't. Government can and does own copyright on many works. Why do you assume this video was made by the government? It is very unlikely it was. It was most probably contracted out to a non-government entity, which places the copyright ownership squarely and legally in Air Force's hands.
-Em
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True -- it's an icky loophole that the taxpayers can be shafted out of what they paid for by the government using contractors as a level of indirection. Works produced by contractors for the U.S. government should be considered "works of the U.S. government" and thus also automatically in the public domain as well, but there's a snowball's chance that'll ever happen given the endemic corruption of both major parties and the judiciary.
But is it icky? Consider this: if this "loophole" is closed, any GPL licensed code used by government will no longer be covered by GPL, since GPL, in its core, is a restriction of rights under the copyright act. If there is no copyright - no more GPL. So this "loophole" actually is an attempt at protection of civilian copy rights.
-Em
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That's a good point, but I think that it would be unlikely that the government would commission a work that would have otherwise been under the GPL --so unlikely that I would accept that risk.
Do you really mean to say the government is unlikely to build anything using, say, Linux??? I suggest Googling "Linux in military applications" or "Open Source Software in Government". So, now that the government IS using Linux, does that mean anyone should be able to grab Linux code and embed it in their own applications/os's without releasing the modifications or ever attributing authorship?
And the whole "GPL depends on copyright thing" is because the GPL is a brilliant hack *against* copyright--for the GPL to be invalid, so must be copyright.
Thats all just marketing hype. GPL is a copyright license just like any other license or drm. It restricts what yo
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When I refer to "they", "them" etc. I refer to the US Government and not the Illuminati or the Bilderberg Group
1) If GPL Code is merely "used" by the US Government, who cares? According to 0th term of the GPL
2) As I understand it, as a non-lawyer, if the government th
Fraud much? (Score:5, Interesting)
This sound like a PHB move that does not know what (Score:2)
Is the lawyer an intern? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody says that because the law doesn't require it. The law only requires the lawyer to state under penalty of perjury that they represent the person/organization they claim to represent. The rest of the notice only has to be made with a good-faith belief that it is accurate.
She also states:
The Air Force actually asked Wired to publish the video. Their own website even claims it may be copied and distributed. The takedown notice was supposed to go through the Air Force marketing cheif's office but never did. I suspect Ms Pikser isn't the most qualified of lawyers.
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Whachutalkinabout Willace!
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AFI confusion (Score:1, Interesting)
Crazy, but true.
Govt != Public domain ? (Score:1, Interesting)
Brilliant use of the streisand effect! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nowadays, the popular term for this phenomenon is "Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org]", after what happened when Barbara Streisand sued researchers who were photographing the entire California coastline to document coastal erosion. The ensuing fuss led to copies of the photo of her house appearing all over the Internet.
I wonder if anyone copied this video? Has it appeared on any servers outside the
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Fun stuff.
(Besides, whoever reads article titles? Isn't that as bad as reading the articles?)
LaskoVortex Effect (Score:2)
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Is this the video? (Score:2)
What's so embarrassing? Apart from the Minority Style touch screen and flashing "BADDIE HERE" style targets... Isn't that how the Air Force find their targets? I figured that's why they kept hitting their allies [wikipedia.org].
It's OK guys. My touchpad sucks too.
I don't know... (Score:2)
PS. YOU GUYS ARE LOONS!
Don't use YouTube (Score:2)
Don't use YouTube. It's not normal video. Just release the video file as a normal video file (such as MPEG4 and Ogg Theora formats) and everyone can get it and see it without having to borg their browsers with a Trash plugin.
Youtube erases everyone, they don't care about you (Score:2, Interesting)
Where I can see this Video? (Score:3, Funny)
Of course youTube caved! (Score:1)
It's a pretty crappy process but youTube are just following the law, and the law is inherently rubbish, not inherently evil, so there's no good reason for them not to obey it.
Cyber Attacks! (Score:2)
Classified? (Score:1)
I've got a feeling some lawyer's got them by the balls to stop them from doing just that.