Angry Joe Threatens To Sue CBS Over Continued DMCA Claims On ‘Halo’ TV Show Review Videos
from the fair-abuse dept
Angry Joe, real name Jose Antonio Vargas, has appeared on our pages several times in the past. In addition to being a famed YouTube creator with a huge following, Angry Joe also regularly rages against the DMCA machine. Whether he’s criticizing Twitch’s takedown policies, swearing off Nintendo for being bullies, or battling CBS over television show reviews that were taken down, he tends to fight the good fight.
And speaking of his fighting with CBS, he’s been at it again recently over the Halo TV show. Angry Joe was given screeners of upcoming episodes and has been reviewing them on YouTube, as per his usual gig. CBS, it seems, keeps claiming the monetization for those videos via copyright claims. Notably, these appear to be manual copyright claims, so can’t be blamed on overaggressive algorithms. Angry Joe then edits the videos down to limit the amount of footage from the show he’s using, but the claims keep coming. There’s even a Reddit megathread tracking all of this stupid drama.
CBS has issued copyright claims on certain bits of the footage from the Halo TV show on multiple occasions, which means the ad revenue is then transferred to the copyright creator rather than Joe himself. He demonstrates how difficult it’s proving for him to get around this, and states that CBS is “completely ignoring and abusing” the fair use policy, which is “a US law that allows the reuse of copyright-protected material under certain circumstances without getting permission from the copyright owner.”
And he’s right about that. Using clips of a show the content producer invited him to watch in order to review the product lands the footage use squarely in fair use territory. Especially given all the efforts he’s undergone to limit the amount of footage he’s using. He’s had to go through this editing exercise five times thus far. The latest version of the review appears to be holding, though, either because the folks at CBS have decided this version is okay… or perhaps because Angry Joe opens the video with a direct threat to take this all to court, where he would almost certainly win.
CBS, meanwhile, gets to look like a bullying jerk that either doesn’t know how fair use works, or simply doesn’t like the content in some of Angry Joe’s reviews, which are fairly negative when it comes to the quality of the show. As he’s noted in some of his videos, this didn’t seem to happen when he was being positive in his reviews, suggesting that it’s not purely about the “copyright” issue.
Either way, this is all clearly fair use. Given how intently at least one person at CBS watches these videos, the opening monologue has now ensured that CBS, too, should know it’s fair use. But, that doesn’t mean it won’t keep claiming the videos.
I’m not going to pretend, though, that part of me wouldn’t love to cover such a court case….
Filed Under: angry joe, copyright, copyright claims, dmca, fair use, halo
Companies: cbs
Comments on “Angry Joe Threatens To Sue CBS Over Continued DMCA Claims On ‘Halo’ TV Show Review Videos”
Because why not?
CBS, meanwhile, gets to look like a bullying jerk that either doesn’t know how fair use works, or simply doesn’t like the content in some of Angry Joe’s reviews, which are fairly negative when it comes to the quality of the show. As he’s noted in some of his videos, this didn’t seem to happen when he was being positive in his reviews, suggesting that it’s not purely about the “copyright” issue.
While I certainly wouldn’t discount vindictive spite it seems a third option was left out: They’re claiming the vids simply because they can and it’s no-effort and risk-free money from their perspective.
Without a penalty for bogus claims there’s really no reason not to claim everything as all the problems are on the other side of the equation, felt by the recipient rather than the sender even if the claims are blatantly bogus and in violation of fair use.
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This is such a weird case, though, because they seem to have realized Angry Joe’s reviews have some value to them. If he gets Angry enough, he could just sell the screeners and post a “review” telling his fans not to watch this show. Why go through the trouble of suing CBS for the right to help CBS?
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…I mean “help” in the sense of refusing to praise the actually-good shows, obviously, since it seems he’s already telling his viewers not to watch this one.
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Why go through the trouble of suing CBS for the right to help CBS?
As far as I’m aware that channel is his job, if companies start stealing his income then he’s screwed so it’s very much in his best interests to make clear that they do so at their own risk and he will fight back if pushed far enough.
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That’s a reasonable point, though the whole thing still feels perverse. It’s rather unfortunate that these MAFIAA companies are so big that people making, buying, and reviewing art have little choice but to put up with these abusive relationships. Every once in a while we see some “independent” party pretend to be “nice”, but it’s not generally in any legally binding way, and then they get bought out and become no different from what they “rebelled” against.
(One formerly-independent band had a song referring to the “Recording Industry Assholes of America”; some years later, they were telling angry fans, basically, “well, yeah, some of your money will be going to the RIAA if you buy our album, but only a tiny amount of it!” And I’ll bet some fans did buy it, just like some people who once boycotted the MPAA ended up with Netflix subscriptions.)
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Not me. I get all my movies on pre-owned DVDs. The exhaustion of rights principle means I get to watch everything I want and the companies that made them don’t make one thin cent out of me.
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Not directly, which is decent. Not perfect: the existence of a secondary market likely encourages people to buy the things in the first place, and purchasing them means that another person looking for them might end up buying them new.
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Actually, the pre-owned market only exists because it’s there. If it wasn’t, people would just throw out all their old discs and buy new ones anyway.
Re: Re: Re:4 Facetious argument debunked.
“[P]urchasing [second-hand DVDs] means that another person looking for them might end up buying them new.”
LOLwut? By that logic, no one should buy TVs, smartphones, or soda just in case someone else has to buy them from a store that the first purchaser is boycotting.
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I don’t really get the analogy, but the second-hand market is of finite size. If depleted, many people will consider using the primary market as a substitute. (If one still exists; I suppose this doesn’t apply to out-of-print stuff, unless it’s just out of print to increase demand à la the “Disney Vault”.) Buying something only when it’s cheap isn’t quite a boycott, but might be a good half-measure.
I don’t think anyone buys soda with the hopes they’ll resell any unused portion. But for things like cars and phones, the ability to resell it later does make them more attractive. If you want to “strictly” boycott Ford or Apple, don’t buy their stuff used; if you’re fine with just sticking it to them a little, feel free, but don’t delude yourself into thinking it gives zero value to those companies.
By the way, if you’re ever buying electronics on sale, and the quantity is limited, it’s considered polite to price-match it at a more expensive store, if possible. ‘Cause as soon as Best Buy and them find out that Joe-Bob’s Computers has sold the 10 cheap hard drives they ordered, that deal’s over for everyone in the area.
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Actually, it’s an excellent analogy. One example is when there were two supermarkets selling a particular product I like that is imported from the States. After Tesco stopped selling it, people began getting it from Asda instead. Should I not have purchased the product from Tesco in order to delay people obtaining it from Asda, which I’m boycotting because its parent company donates scads of money to Autism $peaks?
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Actually, it’s considered sensible to price match to ensure you’re getting the best deal possible. If Best Buy decide to end a sale early just because Joe-Bob’s Computers are undercutting them, then that’s on Best Buy for being petty, not random customer X for not going out of their way to spend more money than they have to.
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You might be misunderstanding. I’m saying Best Buy is selling a product at full price, but is willing to price match any local store who has stock. If everyone buys at Joe-Bob’s, that’s 10 hard drives sold at a discount (because these small stores aren’t willing or able to sell hundreds at that price). If most people go to Best Buy or Staples or somewhere that will match, they could get hundreds of discounted drives before the smaller store runs out.
You can call it petty, but I don’t know any store willing to price match a competitor that has no stock. You’ll get away with it for cheap things, because no grocery cashier is willing to call another grocer to ask “do have have any of those $1 egg cartons left?” From experience, Best Buy will make that phone call for a multi-hundred-dollar product, if the competitor doesn’t show stock online. If there are two left, Best Buy will sell you two (but you can go to another cashier or store and repeat the process, or the people behind you can buy at that discount, till they’re gone). So I get very slightly annoyed at someone who buys up the last remaining product at the retailer advertising a discount.
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Well, if you’d given me more info to go on in the first place… Besides, no store is forced to price match at all, never mind a sales price, as you well know. Cpngratulations on losing the debate.
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Meanwhile, my favorite artist (Wrekonize) had his band get famous basically by going viral on YouTube, gets a lot of his money these days from Patreon, and is signed to Strange Music, a fairly mainstream label which, as far as I can tell, as absolutely zero affiliation with those RIAA scumbags. They sell a lot of music on Bandcamp too which generally seems pretty good (at least before the recent acquisition…we’ll see how that turns out.) And he got his start by winning a contest on MTV about twenty years ago where the prize was a record contract…but he didn’t agree to the terms and told the record company to go F- themselves. And he does not seem to have any regrets over that…he got picked up by someone else pretty quick, there’s always another label.
There are so many alternatives these days…from small creator cooperatives like Nebula pushing out some excellent exclusive (but admittedly lower budget) content to the big guys like Netflix and Hulu and a few hundred more traditional networks…
It is surely possible to do the job that he does while telling asshats like CBS to go F- off. Problem is most people would rather have a Tesla than integrity…
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You didn’t look closely enough. Wikipedia lists INgrooves as their distributor, and claims both that INgrooves is “independent” and that they’re owned by Universal Music Group. Which is only the biggest music company in the world, and absolutely an RIAA member. (Also, one of the 3 divisions of INgrooves is apparently “rights removal”. WTF?)
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Also, Netflix and Hulu, seriously? Netflix joined the MPAA in 2019, and Hulu is 67% owned by fucking Disney (the remaining 33% by Universal). Certainly not independent of “asshats”.
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And sometimes when there is a penalty, they will keep doing it anyways.
See also: Every troll still rolling after the fall of Prenda & the exodus of former players from the shakedown game.
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That I’d chalk up to penalties being inconsistently applied and much, much less than the gains from the activity in question. If a court slaps you with a $10,000 fine for something that netted you $100,000 that’s not a penalty, it’s a cost of doing business.
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I wondered why there hadn’t been any articles about Prenda (out)Law in recent years!
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Not for a lack of trying. Unfortunately, while copyright trolls getting their comeuppance is very pleasant to read, even relevant websites aren’t keen to cover every oopsy moment made by these entities. As early as 2014, Popehat posted an article which essentially said he was sick and tired of writing about Prenda Law, purely because lawyers generally weren’t that dumb or incompetent and there was only so much you can write about how Steele and Hansmeier were a disgrace to their profession.
It’s also hard to come up with news about Prenda when one of the team is dead and the other two are in jail, of whom Steele has supposedly reformed. Hansmeier, at least, has kept up with his shenanigans with multiple attempts to argue himself out of prison, even threatening to sue Bill Barr at one point, which Torrentfreak has been covering.
Its only fair use if you sing our praises, if you don’t give us a glowing review we will crush you.
While Angry Joe is ready to go to court for this, the average person isn’t going to bother because its not worth the hassle.
So SuperHaloFanBoi69 will not start his channel giving uncritical fandom serving reviews, others will notice that reviewing CBS properties can result in legal bullying so why the fsck should I bother trying?
CBS will be left trying to reach people as they always have, with advertising that 99% of the web blocks & commercials on their own networks that people might not even be watching because there was no hype about a show to pull in eyes. CBS then will cry about how they aren’t doing so well in the market place and blame everything but their own shortsighted plan to kill reviews they disliked.
On a side note, Pablo has an amazing ass.
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One thing I don’t really get: “go to court” based on what? The title of this post mentions “DMCA Claims”, but the body says CBS is “claiming the monetization”—which is not a thing the DMCA allows. Is the DMCA actually involved at all, or is this just Youtube and CBS making a private agreement to take money that would’ve otherwise gone to Joe? …something Joe would’ve almost certainly authorized when agreeing to the Youtube terms, so what jurisdiction would any court have?
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AFAIR, YouTube’s terms allow big companies to receive ad revenue from your videos if 1) they contain company’s content; 2) they are infringing; and 3) the company is happy to let them stay up and make money from them. Since Angry Joe’s use of the screeners sent to him by CBS is arguably licenced, then the second part of the terms I quoted don’t come into it and CBS is violating YouTube’s terms in order to steal Angry Joe’s ad revenue. Simples!
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Alright. What would be the legal claim then? Interference with a contract?
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No because only YouTube can sue for that. The closest thing Angry Joe can sue for is copyfraud, but I don’t think that’s yet the thing it should be.
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That’s part of the problem, but another part is that we don’t even know what was actually claimed. What, exactly, does CBS have to claim to Youtube to monetize a video? As far as I know, that’s a private agreement whose text we don’t have access to. I doubt it’s a “DMCA Claim” as the subject says. I don’t know whether these claimants even have to make a declaration of infringement, or consider fair use. If CBS simply has to say “this video has something copyrighted by us”, it wouldn’t be fraud; just a shitty deal betweeen Youtube and the people making its videos (who could strike, perhaps, but have shown little appetite for that so far; archive.org has been trying to attract uploaders for years, but has only had success with certain niche groups like speedrunners).
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“What, exactly, does CBS have to claim to Youtube to monetize a video?”
That the particular YouTube video is infringing on CBS’s copyright. And yes, the claim is very often received by YouTube by way of a DMCA notification.
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What are you basing it on? Did Youtube actually say CBS claimed this?
Hmm. Techdirt has pointed out before that ContentID is separate from DMCA takedowns. A DMCA takedown notice makes the thing go away, not stay up but transfer ad revenue elsewhere. So I have my doubts about this.
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Also, big company gaining ad revenue from infringing videos is an option provided by YouTube in response to a DMCA notice. The DMCA itself doesn’t contain such a provision, but YouTube provides it anyway, just as the Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, but the cops and the Feds often take legally obtained money and property on the basis that they are the ‘proceeds of crime’ anyway.
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This seems a bit of a confused message. The DMCA says nothing about copyright infringers or holders getting ad revenue, because it doesn’t matter. The copyright holder can grant Youtube a license under whatever terms they want, and if “give us all the ad revenue” is the deal, why should the law care? No law says the uploader should get the revenue, and Youtube didn’t originally pay them at all.
If Youtube is violating some contract with the uploader, then courts could get involved, but the Youtube people have expensive lawyers and probably make it clear that no uploaders have any rights whatsoever.
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Reading comprehension check-up required.
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“On a side note, Pablo has an amazing ass.”
Not as amazing as his brother’s, even if Liev is eleven years older.
Simple fix
Fuck CBS. Stop giving them publicity and/or an angle to pilfer your money.
Legacy media are worse vampires than Macdonalds for stealing labor. I don’t pay them any more, if I can help it.
That we are back to to as state where it is easier to pirate than to comply just makes that easier.
And not to the content (video) creator.
I love it when David points out Goliath has an Achilles’ heel. And that David has big stones in his sling and is willing to use them.
And “copyright creator” should be “copyright holder”. The copyright holder files for copyrights. The author(s) of Copyright Clause in the Constitution is the closest thing to the “creator” of copyright in the US.
CBS is a big company maybe the dept that sends him screener is not the dept that sends dmca notices, he’s a very popular youtuber who reviews many TV shows most youtubers will simply give up if they get dmca notices on reviews even if it’s obviously fair use as they don’t have the time or money to go to court
he’ could actually afford to go to court he makes most of his money reviewing video games
This case is unusual in that he gets the screeners from CBS they realise he has a big influence on young viewers and halo is based on a video game
The point of fair use is you don’t have to ask for permission from the ip
owner to show short video clips for the purposes of reviews
EVERY TV company uses fair use in news and review programs
If he went to court he would very like win
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Actually, I don’t see much of a fair use angle on this case. Given the fact that CBS sent Angry Joe screeners of upcoming episodes, knowing full well how he was likely to use them, he has a better argument that he had a royalty-free licence from the company to use those screeners in his YouTube reviews.
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The “implied license” angle is a good one, but what makes you sceptical of fair use? Commentary and criticism are probably the canonical examples, and called out explicitly in 17 U.S.C. § 107. Plus, of the 4 “standard” factors enumerated there, all are in Joe’s favor as I see it.
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TBH, it’s not so much that I’m sceptical of the fair use angle, I’m just saying that Angry Joe would be much better off going on the implied licence angle, then claiming fair use should the first argument fail, which is very unlikely. Remember the Blurred Lines decision where a court declared that using unprotected elements of something else amounts to copyright infringement? We really don’t need another bad decision like that one.
Interesting...
Now I’m just waiting for CBS to serve Bungie with a DMCA notice for trademark ‘infringement’.
CBS/Paramount is a stuffy old network that still thinks it is the pre-internet days where they can control everything. IMO they are among the worst copyright law abusers out there in terms of TV networks.
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NoOneCares
Angry Joe…. Who?
Who cares! These “content” creators can all drop dead and the world would go on and no one would miss any of them.
Making narcissistic videos of yourself and then whining that your “work” is unpaid. Get a job and STfU already.
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The people who watch the content he works to produce obviously care.
Anyone can drop dead and the world will still go on. What’s your point? Project much?
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There is no difference in being self-employed doing reviews and being employed at media company X doing reviews.
But thank you for showing everyone what an ignorant fool you are.
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Actually, the self-employed reviewer holds the copyright in their own reviews, whereas media company X holds the copyright in reviews produced by their employees. Apart from that, though, you’re right that there’s no difference.
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You are explicitly wrong.
Positive reviews of a video game translate into additional sales. That’s why companies spend millions on review events where they give handpicked, trusted reviewers hands on access to a game only in a controlled environment where they get a free trip with free food and a swag bag, and create a very positive atmosphere. It all influences perception, by making the critics comfortable, they will be more positive about the game.
Companies pay bonuses based on reviews.
Companies bribe reviewers for good scores.
Reviews can make or break niche content, like a video game based tv show on on a 2nd string streaming service. Hell Joe is the only reason i knew a Halo tv show finally got out of development hell.
If these creators went away, we’d see the atari or nes days where you had nothing but a blurb in a magazine (or on a storefront) to tell you what to expect. and that would lead right into publishers creating reviewers to ‘help consumers make choices in a crowded market’.
Your issue is the conflation of your opinions and those of your circle with the opinion of everyone. And the market shows reviews impact the willingness of consumers to shell out, and the benefit of positive reviews is so high they can manipulate reviews to make a word of mouth flop into an release day sales record.
Fair Use
Most of you who talk about fair use have no idea what it is. Angry Joe isn’t getting ‘bullied’ by CBS. CBS doesn’t have a clue who Angry Joe is. Most of youtube have no idea who he is.