Video 1: How My Account Was Suspended
I was wrongfully suspended last December for violating YT’s copyright policy. My suspension was a result of the unconstitutional Digital Millenium Copyright Act and Youtube’s unconscionable and needlessly overzealous enforcement of that law. This is the first of six or seven videos I will be making explaining why I was suspended, how Youtube’s policy rewards perjury, and how you can get anyone’s account permanently suspended from Youtube. I am not telling you this because I want to see mass wrongful suspensions, but there are already bad guys out there who have already figured out how to make the folks at Youtube dance like marionettes and do their censoring for them. I am doing this to make you aware that no one’s account is safe and Youtube MUST change the way it enforces its policy. I also want to raise awareness of how the DMCA has been turned into a tool for censorship and how it is being used in a manner that is exactly opposite of what copyright law was originally designed to do. I will also be discussing whether the staff of Youtube are too venal or too incompetent to be running such an important site, and whether the government should regulate Youtube because those in charge have demonstrated that they do not take their role as guardians of the World’s biggest Town Hall seriously.
What I am going to discuss is important and it affects everyone on Youtube. Nobody’s account is safe. You may be the most conscientious vlogger, you may do everything humanly possible to stay within Youtube’s Terms of Service, and still you may lose your account and be barred from Youtube forever if someone with no moral scruples takes a dislike to you.
I encourage you to comment on my videos and do whatever you can to draw the attention of others to the issues that I am raising. There needs to be a mass outcry toward Congress to get them to change the DMCA, and there needs to be a mass outcry towards Youtube to get them to change the way they enforce their policy. I also give you permission to repost my videos, but you should read the warning that I have posted in the sidebar before doing so.
Before I go on I want to give a shoutout to some people who have supported me in one way or another. I have already given a shout out to several people in a video posted on Fakesagan’s channel about Tommyfromthebron and Inmendham. I want to now give a shoutout to some people that I missed on the first shoutout. I’d like to thank Melsbasketcase and Trevor Rieger for being the first to report my suspension. Make sure you check out Trevor’s Utubedarama.com website for his unique perspective on Youtube events. I’d also like to thank Leafdude and Whattheck124 for their videos about me. I thought Whattheck’s video about me was hysterical and I would have favorited it had my account not been suspended. I’d like to thank Tommyfromthebronx and Fernandomares for their support as well. I wish I could spend more time on the shoutout, but there is a lot to cover, so I am posting a link to a shoutout page on my website in the sidebar.
Oh, did I just say website? Yes, that’s what has been keeping me busy while I was away from Youtube. I have spent a lot of time reading up on copyright law and I have put up a pretty extensive website explaining why I think the DMCA is unconstitutional. I’ll talk more about it later, but for now I just want to explain in detail why my account was suspended.
Let me state at the outset, I was banned for copyright abuse—but I have not violated copyright law. Let me repeat. I do not violate copyright law. Unfortunately, Youtube’s policy is more stringent than copyright law requires since Youtube does not honor Fair Use. Fair Use is a very important concept to understand, but I don’t want to get into that here, so I will post a link in the sidebar to my site where I give a rather detailed explanation of it. It is also important for you to understand the DMCA and how it works, but I will go into this in detail later. For now all you have to know is that Youtube has a policy of removing videos when the get a DMCA complaint because the DMCA provides a strong incentive for them to do so.
Youtube also has a policy of three strikes and you’re out when it comes to copyright violations. My first two violations clearly fell within Fair Use. And my third “violation” was not a violation at all. I had the permission of the copyright holder to post his video. However a user by the name of “redskull” committed perjury by filing a false DMCA complaint with the specific intention of getting my account suspended.
Let my explain my violations briefly. Back in November 2006, someone revealed the real life identity of the person behind the redskull account. Redskull reacted by putting up a video in which he claimed that he was receiving death threats at his house over the phone. He speculated that the calls were probably coming from renetto fans or boheme fans. He was a very good actor, and he did his best to make it look like he really was getting death threats. Well, I doubted this very much, and I made a video proving this was a lie. I had to use some clips from his video to prove he was lying and redskull didn’t like being exposed. So he sent a DMCA complaint to Youtube and Youtube took down my video. Incidentally, redskull later sent me a pm admitting that he had lied and that he didn’t really receive death threats over the phone.
I didn’t use any video clips in my second violation. Here is what happened. I had been receiving annoying pms and channel comments from a series of sock puppet accounts. One of those sockpuppets—poopmiesterjunior-- even made a video about me falsely claiming that I was responsible for the release of Circarigel’s information personal information. He also claimed that he had my personal information, and he encouraged people who watched his video to email him and he would tell them where I lived. Another sockpuppet account named bendovergirl made a video in which he threw a picture of Hardcaseownsyou into a toilet and took a piss on it. Now, you couldn’t actually see who was pissing since they were off camera. But you could see the stream of urine flowing into the toilet where the camera was aimed. And bendovergirl swiped the audio soundtrack of a video by Firefly515 to make it seem like Firefly515 was the person who was pissing on a picture of Hardcase. Bendovergirl did not have Firefly’s permission to do this, and Firefly was quite upset by the theft of his audio track to make it look like he was responsible for this childish prank. Bendovergirl then sent me a pm asking me my opinion of the video.
Well, I made a video using comments left on my channel and pms sent to me by these sockpuppets and I tied them into redskull. Redskull left my video up for a while, but eventually he sent a DMCA and got it removed. Now mind you, I only used screenshots of pms and channel comments. I did not use any video footage at all.
Now, you’d better sit down when I tell you about my third violation. After my second violation I was very careful not to host any copyrighted material. I never used ANY music in the soundtrack of my videos. I removed several videos that made fair use of clips from other people just to avoid even the remote possibility that someone would DMCA those videos. But I made two exceptions. A while back renetto featured a clip from Casey Nunez in which Casey begged to be allowed back onto Youtube. Casey had been suspended because he went over the line with his Psycho Hurricane act and he begged that if he was allowed back onto Youtube, he would be a changed man. Well, I believe in second chances, so I wrote to Casey Nunez and asked him if I could upload a video of his onto my channel in which he pledged to give up his Psycho Hurricane act if Youtube allowed him back on. He gave me his permission, and I believe he appreciated my uploading his video in support of him.
I hosted one other video on my channel, and it is this video that got me banned. Firefly515 was suspended and he made a video in which he asked to be given a second chance on Youtube. In this video, Firefly asked—no, he begged, for those who were watching his video to repost it to our channels. All you had to do was watch the video for three minutes and you would KNOW that I had his permission to repost his video. Fortunately, several other Youtubers posted a copy of Firefly’s video so you can watch it yourself. I will post a link to another copy of the video in the sidebar.
Well, redsull created a Yahoo email account named Firefly5155 and he sent Youtube a DMCA notice from that account, claiming to own the copyright on that video. He was pretending to be Firefly515, but note the extra 5 in the email address. He had no legal right to claim copyright ownership of that video and he committed perjury by sending in this false DMCA.
I informed Youtube’s copyright department of my situation and they were extremely unresponsive. They told me the only way I could get my account back was to file a DMCA counternotice. I refused to do that and I explained to them why. I told them that redskull had made a veiled death threat against me last July, and that if I fill out a DMCA counternotice then he will obtain my name and address. Even though I think the odds of him acting on his threat are small, I do not want him having that information
I strongly urge you to read through my correspondence with Youtube’s copyright department and decide for yourself just how much Youtube cares about its users. To say they were unresponsive is an understatement.
Youtube certainly tries to make it appear like they appreciate those of us who contribute to their site. Their logo says “Broadcast Yourself”. They host Presidential candidates and invite us to submit questions to them. They at least pretend to listen to the Yourtubeadvocate and they created a Youtube Community Council to pass the concerns of Youtubers on to Youtube staff. They have even made it a violation of the Terms of Service to reveal personal information of other Youtubers, and if you do reveal the identity of another Youtuber you will be forever banned from Youtube. I suppose that they adapted this rule to at least make it appear like they have some minimum concern for the welfare and safety of their users.
But the way they have behaved towards me and other Youtubers calls into question their commitment to fairness, decency, and respect towards their contributors. Their behavior shocks the conscience. Their refusal to restore my account, even when they know damn well that I did not violate copyright law makes a mockery of their policy against revealing personal information of other Youtubers. The only way I can get my account back is to file a DMCA counternotice, and unless I want to commit perjury by signing a false name to the countenotice, I must sign my real name on a document which Youtube will then send to redskull—a man who has made a veiled threat to kill me and who has threatened harm to several other Youtubers. If Youtube wonders why so many people—even people who were once prominent Youtube supporters like renetto—are questioning Youtube’s judgment and commitment to the well being of its users, they have only to look at their copyright enforcement team.
This is not all Youtube’s fault. I lay about half the blame on a bad and unconstitutional law and half the blame on Youtube. Youtube might try to lay all the blame on the DMCA’s requirements, but that dog won’t hunt. The DMCA does NOT require them to follow an inflexible three strikes and your out policy, even in situations where it is obvious that no copyright violation has occurred. I will explain what the DMCA requires Youtube to do and why the DMCA is unconstitutional in future videos. I will also explain why even if I filed a counternotice, redskull could still get Youtube to dance like his marionette and suspend my account. And I will explain how each and every one of you could have your account suspended if the DMCA is not reformed and if Youtube continues to maintain its inflexible policy.
This has been the masked analyst. Under and In.
Video 2
Hello, I’m the Masked Analyst
This is the second video I am making in a series discussing how my account was suspended and how the DMCA can be used to suspend anyone’s account. If you haven’t watched my first video, do so now before you view this one.
In this video, I will explain what the DMCA is and what it requires Youtube to do. In the next video that I make, I will discuss how the interaction of the DMCA’s requirements and Youtube’s enforcement policy endangers your account.
Before I go on, let me state that I am not a lawyer. There are many things that make more sense than taking legal advice from me. Like running with scissors down the side of Mount Everest. But I’ve studied the relevant portion DMCA and I think I have a better grasp of it than most people. If I state anything that is incorrect I urge any of you, or any representatives of Youtube, to correct me. Show me where I’m wrong. If you can provide case law to back up your argument then I will be happy to learn from you.
Now, if you haven’t done so already, watch the first video in my series and read my correspondence with Youtube’s legal department. It is necessary background for you to understand this video. Do this now, before watching the rest of this video.
Harry, from Youtube’s copyright enforcement department is so unresponsive that I wonder why they even bother hiring him. Actually, I’m not even sure he is a human being. He seems only capable of making statements of the obvious and of parroting back their policy, which I am quite capable of reading on my own, thank you very much. Judging from my correspondence with him, he seems void of human empathy and incapable of judgment or independent thought. Trying to get Harry to respond to logic or evidence that Youtube made a mistake is as likely to be successful as trying to destroy a black hole with a fly swatter. I think Harry is not a human… he is just an AI program running on a computer. AI, for those of you who don’t know, stands for Artificial Idiocy.
If you read Harry’s September 11 letter to me, you will see that he states that the law REQUIRES Youtube to remove a video when Youtube receives a complaint. This is a DIRTY STINKIN’ LIE!!! Let me say that again. This is a DIRTY STINKIN’ LIE! Well, maybe it isn’t a lie. Maybe Harry really believes what he says, in which case he is merely incompetent and not a liar. But it feels so good saying that it is a DIRTY Stinkin’ LIE.
But despite the fact that if feels good to call Harry a DIRTY, STINKIN LIAR, it is more likely that he is either incompetent or that he was just following orders like a good little German circa 1940. If he is incompetent then it is certainly not the first time that Youtube’s copyright department has acted incompetently. I devoted a page of my website to discuss the time when Youtube closed down Liberal Viewer’s account and Liberal Viewer had to instruct Youtube’s copyright department about how the DMCA works. I’ll post a link in the sidebar to this page. Read it, and tell me whether you think Youtube staffs its copyright division with competent legal experts, or whether they have outsourced this function to Curly, Larry, and Moe in order to save a few bucks.
Now, despite what Harry says, the law does not REQUIRE Youtube to remove videos in response to DMCA complaints. If they don’t remove a video after receiving a complaint, the Internet Police aren’t going to be busting down the doors of corporate officers at 3 am and dragging them off to jail. And if anyone at Youtube tells you that the law REQUIRES them to shut down accounts of repeat offenders and permanently prevent them from returning to Youtube, that too is either a lie or evidence of gross ignorance of the law.
The DMCA doesn’t REQUIRE them to do any of this. And if you don’t believe me, just go and visit Gawker.com. They are hosting the infamous Tom Cruise Scientology video despite a DMCA complaint about the video from the Church of Scientology. I will be posting a link to the Tom Cruise video as well as to the Church’s threat of litigation because Gawker was using their copyrighted material against their will. Despite this DMCA takedown notice, Gawker recognized that it was important to keep this video up on the internet because it was newsworthy, and they ignored the DMCA notice. Last I heard, no one at Gawker was sent to jail over this.
http://gawker.com/5002269/the-cruise-indoctrination-video-scientology-tried-to-suppress
http://gawker.com/5002319/church-of-scientology-claims-copyright-infringement
The fact of the matter is THE DMCA DOES NOT REQUIRE SITES TO TAKE DOWN VIDEOS. Let me say that again, so even if the folks at Youtube are a bit slow, they can get this through their heads. THE DMCA DOES NOT REQUIRE YOUTUBE TO TAKE DOWN VIDEOS. YOU ARE NOT BEING COERCED BY THE LAW TO REMOVE VIDEOS. It is your POLICY to remove videos upon receiving DMCA notices. It is your POLICY that causes you to suspend accounts automatically whether the accused is guilty or not after three copyright complaints. You should not try to portray yourselves as helpless victims who are only doing what the law requires, when your actions go well beyond what the law DEMANDS.
I will explain what the DMCA demands of Youtube, but first I want to say a quick word about the purpose of Copyright Law and the Fair Use Doctrine. What is copyright law and why was it created? If you answer that copyright law was invented in order to allow authors, musicians, and videomakers to have control over their works and profit from them, then you are WRONG. Copyright law does give creators the right to profit and control their works to a certain extent. But this is only the means that is used to obtain the ends intended by copyright law. If you want to discover the REAL purpose of copyright law, you will need to turn to Aricle 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Copyright law was invented not to enrich creators, but to provide an environment conducive to the creation of new works that will advance our knowledge and understanding of the world and society. Copyright law does, as I have said, reward creators and gives them limited control over what they produce in order to give them an incentive to produce new works. But copyright law also recognizes that very few works are produced out of thin air. Many, if not most, works build upon works that have come before them. New literature often references themes or characters produced in previous works. New scientific findings often build upon what has been previously discovered. New commentaries and parodies must borrow from the works that they are commenting on. And in order to allow a creator to comment, to build on, or to deconstruct previous works, copyright law has never given authors total control over what they have produced. If anyone was given total control over their works they could prevent others from using what they had discovered in order to make new discoveries. They could also prevent others from criticizing their works and pointing out their flaws. This would defeat the purpose of copyright law. There is a fundamental tension within copyright law. On the one hand, it wants to give authors an incentive to create new works by giving them an opportunity to profit from their works and have control over how their works are used. On the other hand, it wants to foster an environment where others can build upon the works that have come before them. Copyright law has always been a balancing act between these two objectives, and this balancing act is embodied in the Fair Use Doctrine. If you want to learn more about the purpose of copyright law and the Fair Use Doctrine then I encourage you to visit my website. I am posting two links in the sidebar of this video to articles I wrote that discuses this in much more detail.
The Fair Use Doctrine is not totally dead, but Congress nearsightedly crippled it in the shortsighted DMCA. If you are ever sued in Court for copyright infringement, then you can still use the Fair Use doctrine as a defense. And you are not doing anything illegal if your copying of another person’s work falls within Fair Use. Fair Use is still the rule of the land in theory. But in practice, it is on life support and fading fast, thanks to the DMCA. The DMCA is so far removed from the original intent of copyright law that I’m sure the Founding Fathers would be appalled by it.
So now it is time to get into what the DMCA requires of Youtube. Actually it requires very little. It does not, as I said REQUIRE Youtube to pull videos or suspend accounts. What it does do is provide powerful economic incentives for Youtube to act in the way it is doing. The DMCA says in effect to Youtube and other sites that if person A posts a video or an article that violates person B’s copyright, then person B can sue both person A AND Youtube for copyright infringement. However, if you, Youtube, follow these steps outlined in the DMCA, you will be immune from a lawsuit. The DMCA protects Youtube, or any other ISP from a copyright lawsuit provided they follow the procedures outlined in the DMCA.
I am posting a link in the sidebar to an article I wrote explaining what the DMCA requires and how it can be used to censor others. But I will explain the DMCA in this video as well because it is so important for you to understand it. I am using Youtube in my example, but the process holds for other websites as well.
Let’s say I took excerpts from videos that you produced and posted them to Youtube without your permission. If you don’t like my use of your videos then you can send Youtube a DMCA notice… a complaint if you will. Your complaint is a legal document which you must sign your name to. In the complaint you must sign a statement stating that you own the copyright to the work that I posted. You must identify the work that was infringed upon, and you must provide a URL of the infringing video that Youtube should remove. You must provide information that will allow Youtube to contact you, and you must sign a statement that the information you have provided is accurate under penalty of perjury.
When Youtube gets your complaint, they must remove the video I posted in order to get the protection from lawsuits offered by the DMCA. Youtube must also notify me that the video that I posted was removed and they must tell me where I can file a counternotice if I want to challenge your complaint.
Now the ball is in my court. I can either do nothing, in which case the video stays removed. Or I can file a DMCA counternotice in order to get the video restored.
If I file a counternotice then I must identify the video that was removed. I must make a statement under perjury that the video was removed as a result of a mistake or misidentification. That is what the law says, but if I posted clips of yours that fell within Fair Use, its removal could reasonably be called a mistake. Then I must sign a statement saying in effect, that you may sue me in Federal Court if you don’t like the fact that I am filing a counternotice and making Youtube restore the video. I must sign this with my name, address, and phone number.
Youtube must then send you a copy of my counternotice and inform you that it will restore the video in 10 business days unless you file a lawsuit against me. It will then have to restore the video within 10 – 14 business days, UNLESS it receives a notice from you that you have filed a lawsuit against me. If you notify Youtube that you are suing me then Youtube must refrain from restoring my videos. And if you really do sue me, then the Fair Use Doctrine might exonerate me, depending on how much of your video I posted and the circumstances surrounding its posting.
The DMCA also requires that Youtube must adopt and reasonably implement “a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers . . .who are repeat infringers.” Note that the DMCA does not specifically spell out what a reasonable policy for termination process would look like. It does not dictate how many times someone should be allowed to infringe before she is classified as a repeat infringer. Nor does it spell out what an appropriate circumstance for termination is. It only states that Youtube must adopt a reasonably implemented policy for termination. Youtube COULD for example, adopt a policy that it will only terminate people who have, in their opinion, violated Fair Use and they would still be protected by the DMCA. At the very least, they could and SHOULD adopt a policy of refusing to suspend an account unless there is clear evidence that at least SOME unauthorized copying has taken place. They could adapt a policy allowing a suspended user to write to them and state “I never copied ANYTHING in the video that got me suspended.” And then they should examine the video that was DMCAd and compare it to the video which it allegedly copied from and determine whether any copying had taken place at all. Or they could let a suspended person provide evidence that they had permission to copy another person’s video. And once they received evidence that no unauthorized copying had taken place they should restore the account.
Indeed, the policy that Youtube has adopted that you may never come back once you are suspended is not forced upon them by the DMCA. Wendy Seltzer is the founder of the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse and a former lawyer for the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. I am posting a link in the sidebar to a blog entry by Wendy Seltzer which suggests that the DMCA does not require permanent banishment.
Now, the blog entry was made in 2003 and she wasn’t talking about Youtube, but I doubt that the DMCA requires permanent banishment. If someone from Youtube can point to caselaw that says DMCA suspensions must be permanent, if someone from Youtube can point out where the DMCA says that someone who has committed copyright infringement must suffer a punishment that is longer in duration than the punishment given to a rapist or some murderers, then I will happily retract what I have just said.
In my next video I will explain why I have not filed a DMCA counternotice, why the DMCA is unconstitutional, and how anyone can abuse the DMCA to get your account suspended, and short of going to court, there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. And even if you do go to court, there still might not be a damn thing you can do about it.
Video 3
This is the third video I am making in a series discussing how my account was suspended and how the DMCA can be used to suspend anyone’s account. If you haven’t watched my first two videos, do so now before you view this one.
There are two reasons why being able to speak anonymously is vitally important. First, some people may want to put forth their ideas without attaching their name to them because they may have some notoriety that would distract their potential audience from focusing on what they have to say. They may not want to use their real names if they think others will not give their ideas a fair hearing once they have discovered who was behind the ideas.
And second, maintaining anonymity may be vital for security. Many of you have been harassed by haters on Youtube, and your anonymity may protect you from that harassment crossing into real life. Anonymity allows you to speak your mind without fear of harassment in real life, and it is especially important for those who have a politically unpopular point of view. Maintaining your anonymity may even be the difference between life and death. It could make the difference between having to censor yourself or being able to speak out without having to worry about whether you are endangering your relatives.
Redskull once made video in which he made a veiled threat to kill me. He later contacted me and stated that he has no intentions of killing me, but he is a pathological liar, so I can never know for sure what his intentions are. In any case, I do not want him to know my name and find out where I live. Now though the threat against me is not negligible, it is relatively small. There are other people whose need for anonymity is far greater than mine. A Tibetan in the U.S. could not feel free to speak out against the Chinese Government without anonymity because doing so could result in persecution against his relatives back home. A critic of a certain religion may face harassment or death if he uses his own name while mocking that religion. A critic of a certain criminal enterprise that masquerades as a religion may be harassed, framed for crimes she did not do, or targeted for murder. An employee may be fired from his or her job or she may not get a promotion if she uses her real name while publicly supporting a politician or a cause that her boss can’t stand. So being able to maintain anonymity is absolutely vital for many people if they want to exercise their right to free speech.
Not only is the right to speak anonymously vital, it is a Constitutional right. Anonymous free speech has a long history in our country, going back to the days of our Founding Fathers. Benjamin Franklin wrote under such pseudonyms as "Silence Dogood", "Alice Addertongue", "Fanny Mournful", and "Obadiah Plainman". John Adams wrote under names such as "Vindex the Avenger", "Populus", "An American", and "A Son of Liberty". And Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison wrote under the name of Publius when they published the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers were a series of essays that persuaded the people to adopt our current Constitution. Had it not been for those anonymously written essays, the United States as we know it might not exist today.
Now, don’t take my word for it when I say that the ability to speak is a constitutionally guaranteed right. There is a series of cases decided by the Supreme Court and by various Courts of Appeals that clearly spell out this right. And the Supreme Court has also said in Reno v. ACLU that this right extends into cyberspace as well. There is also another set of cases that says that Congress may make a law that curtails a constitutionally protected right such as the freedom to speak anonymously only if the legislation it passes is narrowly tailored and is necessary to serve a compelling state interest. The DMCA is unconstitutional because it curtails our right to speak anonymously and it is as narrowly tailored as John Goodman’s pants. I could easily spend an hour or two discussing these cases, but I’m droning on long enough as it is, so I’ll post a link in the sidebar to my website where I present analysis and highlights from a dozen of them. When you read through my website you should keep in mind that I am not a lawyer and that swallowing a live skunk makes more sense than accepting legal advice from me.
Some of you who have watched my last video discussing the mechanics of the DMCA will already have figured out exactly why it is unconstitutional. So forgive me if you’ve already made the connections, but I want to spell this out explicitly so that everyone can understand. I will also spell out exactly how the DMCA, along with Youtube’s perverse and overzealous implementation of the DMCA gives you the power to suspend anyone’s account, and it gives everyone else the power to suspend your account.
With great knowledge comes great power, and with great power comes great responsibility. Do not, and I can’t state this strongly enough, do not abuse this knowledge I am giving you. I state this for two reasons. Abusing the system to get someone else’s account suspended just because you don’t like them and want to censor them is immoral. Only the lowest, most worthless, sniveling little scumbag would do this. Only someone who is so incompetent that he couldn’t hold his own in a debate using facts and logic would have to resort to such a bitch move. So don’t abuse this information because it is an immoral thing to do.
And if that isn’t reason enough, then don’t abuse this information by filing a false DMCA because doing so would be committing perjury. You also could get your ass sued off if the person who you censored wants to put the time and energy into taking you to court. Section 512 (f)(1) of the DMCA states that if you falsely claim that you own the copyright to a video and if someone sues you because of this, then you will have to pay any damages, including their legal expenses. You might be able to get away with it if the person you victimized decides to let it go and decides not to go after you. You might also be able to get away with it if your victim can’t find you because you have been careful to cover your electronic tracks. But it is possible that your victim could be angry enough to sue you and you may have gotten sloppy along the way and left an electronic footprint that can be used to track you down. So even if you are good at hiding your tracks, you are taking at least a small risk that you will be discovered.
So here’s how to get someone’s account suspended. You can start out by behaving like an insane psycho and make death threats against your victim. Then sign up under an anonymous email account and send Youtube DMCAs demanding that they take down your target’s videos. Youtube isn’t going to bother to check whether your victim really copied from your work. They don’t check to see if you are a whacked out psycho before taking your word as if it is gospel handed down from heavens above. They just delete videos. And it doesn’t matter if you have no legal right to demand that the video be taken down. Hey, if you are a psycho who makes death threats, then you’re not going to let a little perjury stop you.
Now you have your victim in a quandary. The only way she can get her videos put back up is to sign a DMCA counternotice with her real name, address, and phone number which Youtube will immediately give you. Your victim must choose between doing nothing, in which case her video won’t be restored, jeopardizing her safety by signing a DMCA counternotice, or perjuring herself by signing a counternotice with a false name.
Intimidate your enemy and send in DMCA notices on three videos, and voila, her account will be terminated.
But even if you fail to intimidate your enemy, even if your victim sends in counternotices… whether she signs her real name or not, you can still get your opponent suspended. You see, the way the DMCA is written and the way Youtube enforces their policy makes the death threat optional. Here is how you do it. Use a fake name and email account to send in a DMCA complaint about your enemy’s video. Youtube will delete the video. Then, if your enemy sends a counternotice, Youtube will forward the counternotice to you along with a note saying that they will restore the video in 10 days unless you file a copyright lawsuit against your target. Write back to Youtube and tell them that you have indeed filed a lawsuit against the person who posted “your” video. You don’t actually have to prove to Youtube that you really did file a lawsuit. They aren’t going to take the time to verify that you are telling the truth. They will just refrain from reposting the video and your opponent has one strike against her. Now repeat this process two more times. It would be a good idea to switch aliases each time. If you use the same alias to tell them three different times that you are suing the same person, maybe even the dim bulbs in Youtube’s copyright department would catch on that something isn’t right. But even if they caught on, I’d imagine they would suspend your enemy’s account anyway because I doubt really care. After all, I provided them ample evidence that my account was improperly suspended. I told them to watch the video that got my account suspended that was allegedly infringing and they would know within minutes that the DMCA complaint against me was bogus. If Youtube’s copyright department had the least bit of interest in doing the right thing then they would have restored my account within days. They did not, so I can only conclude that they don’t care if their content providers get screwed.
Of course, there is a risk in doing this. Should your victim decide to sue you then you will be providing her with lots of ammo. But if you are careful to hide your tracks then you might get away with it.
In my next video I will ask some questions that I don’t think the folks at Youtube will want to answer.
This has been themaskedanalyst. Under and In.
Video 4: An Irony, and Four Questions
Hello, I’m themaskedanalyst, This is the fourth in a series of videos on Youtube’s flawed implementation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you don’t have a thorough understanding of how the DMCA works and how Youtube implements the DMCA, then I strongly suggest you watch my previous three videos first.
In this video I will note an ironic and probably unintended side effect of how the DMCA interacts with Youtube’s policy, and I will present four scenarios to illustrate just how morally wrong Youtube’s implementation of the DMCA really is.
Youtube values your privacy. They value it so much that if someone uses their site to reveal personal information about you then they will suspend your account. They value your privacy so much that their community guidelines state:
“There is zero tolerance for predatory behavior, stalking, threats, harassment, invading privacy, or the revealing of other members' personal information. Anyone caught doing these things may be permanently banned from YouTube.”
So Youtube values your safety and your right to remain anonymous. Or so they would have you believe. But my situation makes me question just how deep their commitment to their users really is.
As I mentioned in previous videos, a user named redskull threatened several other Youtubers with rape and violence or death. I believe we all have a right to post anonymously, but we lose that right once we threaten to rape or kill others. No one should have the right to remain anonymous once they cross that line.
I know redskull’s real name because someone else had discovered it and posted it on Youtube. The account of the person who dropped redskull’s docs was soon suspended. Though I believe I should have the right to state redskull’s real name on Youtube because he has crossed over the line, doing so would have resulted in my account being suspended.
Redskull’s account was eventually suspended. I’m not sure exactly why Youtube suspended him. He has committed so many TOS violations that it is impossible to know for sure which one finally did him in. It looks like he was suspended for dropping someone else’s docs, but there were so many grounds on which Youtube could have suspended him it is hard to know for sure. In any case, redskull didn’t let his suspension stop him from returning to Youtube. He must have come back at least half a dozen times under new, illicit accounts. Sometimes he made videos that were fun to watch, and sometimes he was just here to fight others. I don’t want to rehash old battles that few people care about, but I believe his behavior toward me can only be characterized as stalking and harassing.
On July 26, 2007 redskull told a third party to pass the word on to me that he had learned my identity and that he knew my address. Just four days later he made a video in which he made a veiled death threat against me. I determined within a few days of this that he was bluffing and that he didn’t really know who I am. But there is no other way to characterize his behavior as an attempt to harass and terrorize. And this wasn’t his first attempt to intimidate others to get off of Youtube. He once made a video in which he made an explicit death threat against rkane, the person who was probably responsible for revealing redskull’s identity in the first place. And he also made a video containing a veiled death threat against mgpapas. As far as I can tell, both these people left Youtube after redskull made his threats.
So here is the irony of the situation. Redskull got Youtube to suspend my account by sending a totally bogus DMCA complaint, and Youtube will not give me back my account unless I file a counternotice. And if I file a counternotice then I must either sign my own name and address, which Youtube will turn over to redskull, or I must sign a fake name and address and commit perjury. In other words, Youtube is forcing me to give up my own anonymity to a stalker and harasser if I want to return to their site. Youtube’s own actions violate their own policy against revealing personal information. Well, maybe they don’t violate the letter of the policy since they aren’t dropping my docs. But they are putting me in a position where I must drop my own docs or commit perjury. They don’t violate the letter of their policy protecting the anonymity of their users, but they violate its spirit. They don’t just violate the spirit of the policy. They fold it, they spindle it, and they mutilate it. They kick the shit out of it. They choke it with mustard gas and bomb it with napalm.
Now, Youtube will probably tell you that they have no choice. They will tell you that they have to follow the DMCA and it is the DMCA which mandates that they give redskull a copy of my counternotice which bears my name. As I discussed in my second video, this is bullshit. The DMCA does not MANDATE that they do this. If they don’t follow this procedure, no one is going to send anyone from Youtube to jail. Youtube isn’t like a radio station that is risking having its operating license removed. And in my particular case, Youtube risks absolutely nothing by restoring my account. The DMCA gives Youtube immunity from being sued for copyright infringement. If Youtube follows the steps outlined by the DMCA then they can not be sued for copyright infringement. But in my case it is obvious that no copyright infringing activity took place. I will post a link in the sidebar to the video that I reposted that got me suspended. Watch the first three and a half minutes and you will realize that there could not have been any infringement. Moreover, redskull has informed me in writing that he sent in the DMCA. There is no way that he is going sue Youtube over a video he has no copyright interest in and put himself into the position of having to admit in court that he perjured himself by sending in a false DMCA. Youtube risks nothing by ignoring this false DMCA and restoring my account. Failing to do this sends a message that emboldens internet bullies and that Youtube will reward this behavior.
Now, I’d like to paint three scenarios that illustrate the folly of Youtube’s policy even more clearly.
- Our Founding Fathers valued the right to speak anonymously. In fact, had they not had the ability to speak anonymously, the United States as we know it might not exist today. The Federalist Papers was a series of essays that were pivotal in explaining the newly written Constitution and instrumental in persuading the people to adapt it. The authors of the Papers, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison chose to remain anonymous by publishing their work under the name "Publius". Your guess as to why they wanted to remain anonymous is as good as mine. Perhaps they were afraid of recriminations from political enemies, but it seems more likely that they wanted their essays to be judged by the ideas they contained, rather than by the identity of the authors. Indeed, one reason to remain anonymous is to prevent people from dismissing your ideas based on who you are before they even give them a fair hearing. I suspect that this is the reason why Benjamin Franklin wrote under pseudonyms such as "Silence Dogood", "Alice Addertongue", "Fanny Mournful", and "Obadiah Plainman", and why John Adams wrote under names such as "Vindex the Avenger", "Populus", "An American", and "A Son of Liberty".
So let's imagine that the internet was around in 1787, and that Hamilton, Jay, and Madison decided the best way to propagate their ideas was through videos posted on Youtube. Suppose some anti-Federalists filed false DMCAs to try to censor these ideas. Suppose they trumped DMCA counternotices filed by Hamilton, Jay, and Madison by telling Youtube that they had filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement. Would the staff at Youtube keep the videos pulled, and would they have suspended our Founding Father's accounts? Would their attitude be, "Tsk, tsk, what a shame. But at least WE aren't being sued for copyright infringement"?
- Let’s suppose someone was in a position similar to mine. Suppose they had received a death threat from an internet bully, and the bully got Youtube to suspend his account by filing false DMCAs. Suppose the victim informed Youtube of his situation, but Youtube refused to restore his account unless he filed a counternotice. Suppose the victim sent in a counternotice bearing his real signature because he didn’t want to commit perjury and because he thought the bully was just bluffing. Now, suppose after the bully receives the victim’s docs from Youtube, he uses that information to murder his victim. What would Youtube’s attitude be? “Tsk, tsk, what as shame, but at least we aren't going to be sued for copyright violation?” Also, keeping in mind that the victim had told Youtube that the bully had threatened to kill him, would Youtube’s turning over his information make Youtube vulnerable to a lawsuit for negligence filed by his heir’s estate. The DMCA would protect Youtube from copyright lawsuits. But does it provide protection from negligence lawsuits? Does copyright law trump negligence law. I don’t know the answer, but I would love to hear the opinion of some real lawyers on this.
- The presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Mccain all have Youtube accounts. So does Oprah Winfrey. What would Youtube do if someone launched a false DMCA campaign to get them suspended? Would Youtube take down their videos and permanently suspend them if someone filed three false DMCAs and sent Youtube a letter saying he was suing them for copyright infringement? Would they be treated like everybody else? Or would Youtube say:
These are the Golden Ones, Anointed by Heaven's Kiss. Lilacs bloom where they step. They have been sent to Earth to Enlighten us and they must not be encumbered by laws made by mere mortals. They are Above the Law, and above Youtube sanction. Their praises must be sung, and special Dispensation must be given unto them. All Hail the Mighty Ones, and let no harm come upon Them.
And if an ordinary Youtuber objected to this double standard, what would Youtube's response be?
You DARE question US , you insignificant blot on the Internet? You don't like the way we run things? You think you shouldn't have your videos pulled and your account suspended when someone files false DMCAs against you??? YOU MAKE US WRETCH, you putrescent, fetid, bane of humanity. You don't like the way we run things? THEN CRAWL BACK THROUGH THE MUCK TO THE MIASMICSWAMP FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!
So what will it be Youtube? What would happen if someone files DMCA notices against Clinton's or Obama's or McCain's videos nine business days before elections? Let’s assume that they file countenotices immediately and let us also assume that no one sends you a notice stating they are suing the candidates for copyright infringement. The DMCA states that you must restore the videos between 10 and 14 business days of receiving the countenotices. You can’t restore the videos 3 days or 5 days or 7 days after receiving the counternotice and remain compliant with the DMCA. You must wait at least 10 business days before restoring the videos. So what are you going to do, Youtube? Are you going to take the videos down and refuse to restore them until after the? Or will you look into the matter and make sure their rights weren't being violated? And if you will safeguard their rights, why not extend those safeguards to the average Youtuber who provides evidence that he or she has been the target of false DMCAs?
I would be delighted if a member of the Youtube staff made a video addressing these questions. I'm sure the Youtube Community would love to hear their response as well.
In my next video I will discuss whether Youtube should be regulated by the government. And in my final video, I would like to suggest some changes in Youtube’s policy and some changes in the law that would prevent people from being silenced unjustly.
This has been themaskedanalyst. Under and In.
Video 5: Should Youtube be Regulated by the Government?
Hello, I’m themaskedanalyst, This is the fifth in a series of videos on Youtube’s flawed implementation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I strongly recommend watching my first four videos if you haven’t already done so in order to have the background to fully understand this video.
Should Youtbe be regulated by the government? I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, youtube is a private enterprise and we don’t pay anything for it. We don’t pay for the cost of the servers or the cost of running or administrating their web site. Since they are the ones who own it and they are the ones who run it, they should be able to do anything they want with their site. They should even have the right to kick people off arbitrarily and prevent people from posting on Youtube for any damn reason they want. It’s a cut and dried case that the government shouldn’t be looking over Youtube’s shoulder and telling them what to do. Right?
Well, not so fast. There are two reasons one can argue why the government should step in and regulate Youtube. First, the government gives them, and all internet sites, an indirect subsidy. If you were publishing a newspaper and someone wrote a libelous story, your newspaper could be sued for libel. If you were publishing a book, and if it contained a libelous statement, expect to have your ass hauled into Court. However, Congress wanted the internet to flourish as a forum for free speech, and they knew that message boards could not flourish unless given immunity from lawsuits for libel due to postings by third paties. They knew that message boards could be flooded with hundreds, if not thousands of messages a day, and that operators of those message boards could not possibly verify the accuracy of what was posted on them. Hence, Congress passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in order to give message boards and other internet sites, including Youtube, immunity from libelous statements posted by third parties on their sites. They explicitly spelled out that they did this for the purpose of promoting development of the internet and I am quoting now—“ to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet”. Reading this in the context of part (a) of Section 230, it is clear that Congress intended the internet to be a playing field where free speech could flourish. , and so they granted ISPs immunity not granted to traditional publishers. So I view this as an indirect government subsidy granted for the express purpose of fostering an environment where people can post without unreasonable restrictions.
The second reason that I say that people have a right to post on Youtube is because of Youtube’s unique and dominant position in the internet. It consistently ranks in the top 5 sites on the internet. It is the only place, as far as I know, where there is even a potential for an open dialog between Presidential candidates and the electorate. (Remember, the CNN debates where candidates took video questions happened on Youtube, not Myspace.) Youtube is the place that attracts key luminaries who seek to interact with the common folk. Queen Rania of Jordan came to Youtube to engage the world community in a dialog on stereotypes of Arabs.
http://www.youtube.com/user/QueenRania
Youtube has also set up a livinglegend channel where the world’s elite will engage with the Youtube community.
http://www.youtube.com/user/livinglegend
And if you look at the March 31, 2008 entry of Youtube’s blog, their own editor states:
“We often describe our You Choose '08 platform as "the world's
largest town hall" for political discussion.”
To be locked out of Youtube forever is to be locked out of the world’s most important forum for political discussion. It is almost as bad as being disenfranchised.
Youtube has earned a unique spot on the internet, and because of its uniqueness, there is a strong argument to be made that we have a right to post on Youtube unless we have committed a gross infraction. There is a powerful reason why Youtube should not have the right to suspend accounts capriciously and arbitrarily.
So I have mixed feelings on whether the government should regulate Youtube. Of course, just because Youtube is a private industry doesn’t mean it should be free from government regulation. After all, the government regulates the airline industry, the food industry and the power companies. The government regulates how much pollution can be put into the environment and to a limited extent, what can be broadcast over the radio. The people who run Youtube are stewards for our right to speak to the world’s largest town hall. If they are irresponsible in how they handle their stewardship, then perhaps the government will need to step in and regulate how they do their jobs.I’ve done a lot of hedging and I haven’t made up my mind yet over whether the government should step in. How Youtube reacts to my criticism will greatly influence my opinion. If they take my criticisms to heart and they change the way they enforce their policies—if they make a genuine effort not to curtail people’s rights needlessly, then I will be against the government regulating Youtube. If they do nothing and do not clean up their act, the I will be inclined to favor government regulation. And if they respond to my videos by deleting them in order to hide criticism of the way they run their site, then I will be strongly in favor of the government stepping in, and their suppression of my ideas will be Exhibit A as to why they need to be regulated. If they delete my videos then they will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not mature enough to be the gatekeepers to the most important site on the internet.
In my next, and last video in this series, I will explain why I haven’t committed perjury and suggest possible changes in the DMCA and in Youtube’s policy.
This has been themaskedanalyst. Under and In.