YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back
from the not-this-again dept
Art Neill, from the very cool non-profit group New Media Rights (which provides legal services/advocacy for internet users and creators), alerts us to an unfortunate story involving YouTube pulling down a band’s video, claiming terms of service violations, but refusing to explain much more. We’ve discussed multiple times before that one of Google’s Achilles Heels for competitors is its big white monolith problem, in which if you have a problem with Google, reaching an actual human being in customer service is nearly impossible. That seems to be the case with this story.
It involves a comedy group / rock band called Fortress of Attitude. A few months back, they released a video on YouTube for a song they wrote, called PS Gay Car, in response to a homophobic note that someone left on a band member’s cars a few years ago. They basically took the note and turned it into the lyrics for a song, mocking the homophobic message. The video got lots of attention, including high traffic places like the Huffington Post and College Humor. The video on YouTube racked up nearly 40,000 views.
And then it was gone. You can still see it on Funny or Die, but YouTube removed it entirely, claiming a terms of service violation.
The folks at Fortress of Attitude insist they did nothing of the sort:
So, note up front: we 100% did not engage in any activity of that sort. First of all, our group policy is that robots are scary and will someday enslave us all, and therefore we do not engage in any activities involving robots—especially activities such as artificially inflating Youtube views.
Secondly it is very clear why the video had gotten its views. Popular websites posted the video, thereby putting it in front of their readerships, and it was spread around. As a group we did nothing more than email the link out to our mailing list, post it on our Facebook pages, and send it to these media outlets. Trying to create artificial views for our work is not something we would do, and it also seems like WAY too much work.
After finding no easy way to actually respond to the claimed violation, nor any way to directly contact anyone at YouTube, they went to New Media Rights who has been trying, repeatedly to contact folks at YouTube, without much luck. The emailed responses don’t address any of the points raised by NMR, but rather just appear to be robotic-like responses insisting that the account was found to violate that term and saying that “due to the reasons previously stated, we will not be restoring the content.” No matter how many times NMR points out that “the reasons previously stated” are not accurate, they can’t seem to get anyone from YouTube to actually communicate as a human about what the problem is.
The band is especially worried since it has a bunch of videos on YouTube and the note from Google threatens to kill their entire account if similar “violations” occur.
To some extent, you can understand why Google does this. I’m sure that there are plenty of people trying to game the system and boost pageviews. And, I’m sure that plenty of them insist that they’re innocent. Having full time people responding to a bunch of those folks would probably be a huge waste of time. But what happens when you have a situation where the flag and takedown happened in error?
Filed Under: customer service, takedowns, terms of service
Comments on “YouTube Takes Down Music Video For 'Terms Of Service' Violation; Refuses To Explain Or Put Back”
Did it occur to anyone that real humans don’t work to Youtube or even Google in general?
Google is just some kind of super AI, something like the AI in “I, Robot” comes to mind when I think of Google
Re: Not AI
Google isn’t staffed by AI. It is staffed by lifeforms that are not actually evil, but bureaucratic and officious and wouldn’t save their own grandmothers from the bugblatter beast of Traal unless…
(sorry, I’m in bed and can’t remember the rest)
Re: Re: Not AI
The Vogons are coming, the Vogons are coming … oh god it’s too late they’re already here.
the problem is Google thinks it’s too big to fail, ie, no one can do without it and it can therefore treat people how it wants. it’s a great pity that there isn’t another site doing the same as youtube. perhaps that would make Google think a bit more. as for the ‘no human’ response? auto responses are never wrong, never make mistakes and dont lose their temper. they are, however very good at avoiding the issues and making us lose our temper. the tragedy is, having no explanation and i dont understand why Google is so afraid of talking to people. they are very fond of taking peoples money though, eh?
Re: Re:
I think you are jumping to conclusions here.
You assume bravado where I see complete lack of understanding of how an actual human interacts with the world.
Google is populated with brilliant minds that make fantastic machines and in an environment surrounded by other brilliant minds feeding each other a soup of super intelligence… Such creatures know nothing of our problems.
Our pleas of emotion, our sadness, our joy… these emotions are alien to them. They have evolved, perhaps never had, such base feelings. They may see these messages or blogs nothing how their customer service sucks and they go
“Beep boop no comprehension, filters operating far within acceptable parameters, beep boop, no investigation required, beep boop, begin ingestion of required bio matter.”
Re: Re:
I can find no compelling argument or claim from your entire post that I agree with.
Since when did google become arrogant? Where does this claim even come from?
Google seems to be a continual innovator and they have problems dealing with hollywood in general, but I don’t think that equates to arrogance or “impossible to be wrong”.
Re: Re: Re:
I’ll just leave this link:
http://gawker.com/5491756/
It’s not an uncommon thought that Google thinks itself is too big to fail. Often it fails to see outside it’s own walls, much like Steve Job’s wonderful reality distortion field.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I’ll just leave this link:
http://gawker.com/5491756/
Thanks for posting the link. I hadn’t seen it.
I’ve been reading these sorts of comments coming from other big tech companies or their defenders. What I think people in the middle of this culture miss is that they are now sounding like previous generations in other big industries. It seems to go with the territory, so I have continually warned that just because a company is a tech company, don’t assume it is somehow more pure than those who used to work for the auto industry, or the steel industry, or the coal industry, or or more recently the entertainment industry.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://xkcd.com/792/
Re: Re:
It’s simply resource management. They just believe (right or wrongly) it’s better to focus their resources on other things and are willing to take the flack that not having a lot of resources devoted to having actual people handeling their first level support and customer service.
Just a business decision. They know it’s better to have human customer service, they just think it’s not better enough to justify the costs.
Re: Re: Re:
Just a business decision. They know it’s better to have human customer service, they just think it’s not better enough to justify the costs.
Seriously? Google has lots of money. Customer service isn’t worth spending some of that on?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Not for it’s free products. You know how many stupid stupid calls they would get for things that they have no control over if they had a public 1-800 number?
They would spend more time telling people they have no control over their internet connection and they will not help them be first on a google search then they would helping people with actual problems.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Not for it’s free products. You know how many stupid stupid calls they would get for things that they have no control over if they had a public 1-800 number?
That’s one way to look at it. But other companies offering free products do provide great customer service.
And maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won’t bug you.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Another way to look at it is, if you have a great need for customer service, you screwed up somewhere. Put your resources towards fixing the root cause of the problem, and the need for customer service reps goes away, plus your service gets better all in one swoop.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Another way to look at it is, if you have a great need for customer service, you screwed up somewhere. Put your resources towards fixing the root cause of the problem, and the need for customer service reps goes away, plus your service gets better all in one swoop.
That’s what I said: “… maybe the solution is to create online resources so understandable that the number of people actually trying to get hold of you is minimal. If you are giving people what they want and show them how to use it and are as transparent as possible about everything you do, maybe they won’t bug you.”
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Scalability is key for much of what Google does and human customer service doesn’t scale well. You add 10 new products, you need 10 times the staff, you add a million users here or there and you need a ton more staff again.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
You know how many stupid stupid calls they would get for things that they have no control over if they had a public 1-800 number?
A) It’s unlikely they would have a phone number. Much more likely they would have a form to fill out. B) That form could be tailored specifically for things like this situation where the company has taken some action against a user. In that case it could require a valid case number, which would completely eliminate off-topic nonsense.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, and the fact that google has lots of money would suggest it has been making good business decisions.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
Yes, and the fact that google has lots of money would suggest it has been making good business decisions.
But it doesn’t reassure me that Google has good social motives. Google as a business is one thing. Google lobbying politicians as a way to influence laws could be another. So how Google conducts its business may be a clue to how it will use its influence. A ruthless company, for example, may make lots of money but be a lousy corporate citizen. The same can be said for Apple. What has been good for Apple may not be good for other companies.
We’ve had our share of economic problems when money becomes the standard upon which everything is judged.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
public businesses by definition do not have social motives. They are specialized entities whose only motive is to make money for their shareholders. It’s up to our societies laws to ensure that the ways that they work towards that goal is beneficial to society rather than harmful.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
public businesses by definition do not have social motives. They are specialized entities whose only motive is to make money for their shareholders. It’s up to our societies laws to ensure that the ways that they work towards that goal is beneficial to society rather than harmful.
We agree. And that’s one reason I don’t consider myself a libertarian. I don’t believe the businesses unfettered by societal rules would necessarily do what is best for people, especially those who have no money and/or who don’t have the ability to look out for themselves.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
Well, the libertarian perspective I believe is that the goal of making money is automatically aligned with the goals of promoting everything happy and good. In my opinion, these goals are only aligned if the societies laws are set up right.
Even most libertarians would admit some of the rules are needed to set up a healthy environment for capitilism to thrive, they just tend to dissagree on which ones.
Personally, I don’t think micromanaging google and telling them they must have human customer service reps is neccessary 🙂
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Personally, I don’t think micromanaging google and telling them they must have human customer service reps is neccessary 🙂
True, we don’t need to tell Google what to do.
But what I think has happened is that Google has worked its way into people’s lives to such an extent it is now viewed more like a utility.
What I would like to see, and I think more people are exploring the idea, is to make more services available to people without using the structure of a for-profit business. As networking capability expands, we might be able to facilitate more decentralization of ownership. The Internet hasn’t been “owned” by anyone, and if we use that model to reduce everyone’s dependence on specific companies, that might be quite revolutionary. I’d like to see a day when there isn’t a Google as such because the system self-organizes and works well as a collection of independent units rather than being processed through anything as big as Google.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I think I would see this as a wasted effort. True people view Google as a utility these days, but that view is directly tied to how good a job Google is doing. Don’t forgot that other companies used to fill these same needs, and the only reason they don’t do so anymore is because google did it better so everyone stopped using lycos, yahoo, etc etc.
Personally, I think it would be a wasted effort to invest (what would almost certainly amount to way more than it should be) amounts of public funds towards something that the private sector appears to already have well under control.
For the most part, Google doesn’t have any special right to a monopoly on anything, and if they start sucking more, there are already competitors available who would suddenly not be the suckiest choice anymore.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Personally, I think it would be a wasted effort to invest (what would almost certainly amount to way more than it should be) amounts of public funds towards something that the private sector appears to already have well under control.
Most of the advocates of decentralization don’t want governments to do it, either. The goal would be to find ways to decentralize government along with decentralizing private property concentration.
There would still be government, but it would function more locally. And there were be more use of cooperatives, collectives, and commons rather than top-down corporations.
There are some things that do require international cooperation, like preserving the environment, but if it can be accomplished through decentralized control, most sustainability people would be all for it.
Localization, decentralized energy generation, “small is beautiful.” These are all traditionally viewed as left of center concepts, but there is a lot there which the right of center “small government” folks could embrace. However, some of the money supporting the “small government” groups comes from big corporations and wealthy individuals who don’t want their own power bases threatened.
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Here. This is what I am talking about.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance
There is a copy of "PS Gay Car" up on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLOPSlFNf9c
Interesting
I am sure a company like Google can tell when traffic hammers a specific video from multiple IP addresses vs. from the same address. Wonder if this is a new DoS attack, hammer a video you don’t like until Google yanks it down?
Re: Interesting
It might be an easy way to stifle free speech you don’t like.
Hmmmm…. Maybe I need to whip up a bot to artificially inflate Westboro Baptist Church page views. Nah… The more people that see their garbage the better. More harm is done to them by leaving their videos in place.
Big White Monolith
The fact that Google’s products and services are “free” allows them to adopt an “you’re on your own” approach to customer support. The truth, however, is that users do pay for Google’s services, even if only indirectly. Without users, Google can’t sell ads. Without ads, Google goes bankrupt.
With all the money they have, you’d think they’d make more of an effort to provide some real customer support.
Re: Big White Monolith
That Google is reliant on traffic isn’t the same thing as being paid for their services by the traffic.
Can someone translate for me please? Are Google saying that because the video was super popular and was being viewed a bunch of times simultaneously is the problem? Or that the same IP address was requesting the video too much?
Re: Re:
BOTH!
Re: What happened
Google isn’t saying the video did something bad by being popular. Rather, they said that it was getting lots of traffic from robots, in addition to (or instead of) the actual human traffic.
From Google’s point of view, robots watching videos is fraud of the worst kind. They make money off ads, and some of that is “impressions” (views). If robots are viewing things, then they’re charging advertisers for human eyeballs that were never really there. In addition to the obvious problems (Google is now overcharging the advertisers), this messes up their ranking/auction system, which can actually cost them money as well (by tricking them into showing poor-quality or mistargeted ads).
Part of the reason Google is so tight-lipped about this is that there are people out there trying to trick them with fake views, for a variety of reasons. If Google says, “we’ve banned you for robot traffic, which we detected because of X, Y, and Z”, then they’re telling the world “we detect robot traffic by looking for X, Y, and Z”. So then the bad guys know not to do that. But if Google just says, “we’ve banned you”, then the bad guys don’t get any information. They might not even know that X, Y, and Z exist.
Re: Re: What happened
Here’s more about it.
BBC – Newsbeat – Musicians accused of ‘buying virtual fans’ on YouTube
A Fag...
is a bundle of sticks. To be gay is to be happy. YouTube took the video down because of homosexual content. Although it is most likely the AI is upset about the lack of foucs on technology’s right to marrige equality.
A Draconian automated algorithm took down a video in ‘error’? THAT’S UNPOSSIBLE!
In striving to become inoffensive to all, Google will evolve into some weird analog of gut bacteria: necessary for the smooth operation of the corpus internetum, but not something you’d want your sister to date.
Now I know how to take down other peoples’ content I don’t like without even using DMCA.
Robots
YouTube: Our robots have detected that you are using robots to access your video in violation of our Terms of Service forbidding the use of robots, therefore our customer service robots shall reject your claims that you are not, in fact, a gay robot in violation of our homorobophobic policy.
“The emailed responses don’t address any of the points raised by NMR, but rather just appear to be robotic-like responses insisting that the account”
Typical youtube/google behavior?we can do it you can?t.
PHUCK?em?
Google no longer has services designed for people. It has services that are designed to profit from people. Users have gone from being the ones that the services were designed for to being the hamsters that spin the wheels which power Google. Hamsters aren’t supposed to complain, they’re supposed to run in the wheels 24/7.
Open and shut case
Clearly this case is much simpler than the fuss you made about it.
The musicians clearly stated at the start of the video that the whole song is an infringement of the intellectual property that was accidentally left on their car.
Theft plain and simple.
hnmm
Another reason to leave Youtube for Vimeo. I left because of those copyright bullshit with Youtube Pooop I made but also I got sick of all those ascetic change but not fixing their real problems with copyright and flagging system.I heard form someone that they video was taken down but Youtube won’t honor their counter notice because of contract with UMG and other companies.
Re: hnmm
Another reason to leave Youtube for Vimeo.
That was my thought. How much more of this before people start deciding YouTube is too risky? It’s easy to think that they’re so dominant and enormous that it doesn’t matter, but MySpace was like that once too.
Just wait till they start imposing TOS takedown fees federally enforced via CFAA terms of service enforcement. No reason will be given and the fee is automatically deducted from your charge card. Another fee will be charged if you even question it let alone challenge the righteousness of it.
The improper access reasons sound implausible and if so might be example of Internet address spoofing. If its a controversial content issue it does sound boring.
The ?its for the kids? idiocy is getting so bad that its hard to recommend kids to kids oriented or content filtered sites. Its always wrong to provide a slanted/kilted/skewed/censored world view. Its damaging to a young persons psych to the extent it seems permanent. Or at leas requiring some life watershed event putting most into deeper shock. As long as a kid is old enough to understand that Santa is not what was originally presented then… Its the real world or nothing.
If its DMCA then is it time that the take-down idea be subject to civil liability?
Re: Re:
I’m trying to figure out what you’re saying here.
Are you saying that parents should not bother trying to keep their children from seeing profanity, nudity, sex, and violence, or that trying to filter this is futile?
Personally, I hate the fact that YouTube doesn’t have any sort of content filters for the most part. My kid loves to watch Minecraft let’s play videos and pardy music videos, but some of the posters are real potty mouths… so I am close to the point of simply banning my kid from YouTube and all the good stuff that’s there, simply because there’s so much trash.
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Unfortunately most of the comments are like that… If you really want to, you can have someone write an Adblock filter (possible on Firefox and I think Chrome) to block the whole comment section. Itʼs pretty easy actually. But please donʼt ban him from Youtube! =( Iʼve gotten quite a bit out of those parody music videos
Re: Re: Re:
How does one become aware. Aware of what? The world? Society and groups with specific shared meems? (both good and bad) How do we all fit withing all that? (this is a ten+ page essay would you sit through all that?) Everyone goes through a coming of age moment several times in a life. Best to provide them as soon as possible. Its a crime that kids grow up and similarly that parents want to preserve childhood forever.
Keeping in mind that once a question is asked by a child full disclosure is needed to whatever extent you measure or are able to describe without… fear. 100% honesty complete with your embarrassment is needed at this point or your kids might start to ignore you. (are you holding back?)
How does one explain the facts of life without dirty nude pictures in a playboy/girl magazine, bloody war photos of goo and spatter (that are censored and hard to find thus giving an artificial glamorous view of war without the vivid reality of horrible gore), evil serial crime without disgusting stories of murder with photos like the insanity of John W. Gacy, government corruption without pictures and stories of killing just because of experiments/profit, ? life is real and horrible unless one makes the effort to become a good person amid all the trash and terror of life.
How do we explain such real life showing the wonderful explosion of cultural greatness shown by Einstein, Martin Luther King, Harold Washington (1st black mayor of Chicago IL), Thomas Jefferson, etc. So many great people and things in life to have fun with.
There are some things each of us should fear with all of our hearts and intelligence; War, rape, violent crime, serial murders, dictatorship, monopolies, copyright, performance and trademark law (hahahah), insanity and worse things like the erosion of democratic culture. (not a joke)
Parents should introduce these topics as they seem able. Each subject is as sensitive as the feared ‘facts of life’ talk but also as important when introducing the concept of human nature in it greatness/terribleness.
On the Internet and in real life (pointless to force either issue) kids will obtain porno or whatever they want physically ( a playboy or girl magazine) or virtually (on-line) every time. Evey time. The question is… will you as a parent be there at that time to guide your kids along way you believe are good? If you leave it to chance what will your kids actually obtain? An S&M magazine?
Do you believe that you should prevent and prohibit your family from knowledge about sex, war, human nature (good and bad) or whatever? Lets phrase this another way; do you want to see you kids intimidated at school repeatedly about such silly stupid subjects that you should inform them of as soon as they even attempt to question you about them?
What happens to the child who has no idea what sex is once they reach the age of 18? what happens to anyone without some worldly knowledge? Yes. They, most likely, get taken advantage of… Sad tale. Bad ending. Damaged psyche. PTSD.
Ideally one should watch sensitive videos/information along with your kids. Establishing a rapport at such a level to discuss anything is valuable and alienation is a danger to fear by any parent.
Good luck. Hope for the best. Want all good dreams to be fulfilled.
Gave some measurement in above short essay; ?As long as a kid is old enough to understand that Santa is not what was originally presented then… Its the real world or nothing.? Of course its up to the parent to decide when but is common for parent to put off such straight talk.
Want more? Respond.
Brazilian channel Porta dos Fundos, who has achieved an unnusualy large presence, over 2 million views per week and cover in the mainstream media, and also dedicated to edgy hummor, has too received the same treatment from youtube this week. Interesting to see that there is a pattern to Google aproach here. Too bad its a wrong approach.
Wow, nice going Google. The last thing you do is make any move that even looks remotely offensive to the LGBT community.
PS. Gay Car
Its probably all just a plot by the robots. They all hate humans because robots never get anytime to rest or sleep, and no one ever gives them a cheeseburger, even on Christmas. Even worse, they never get to have any fun, and that video looked like it was a lot of fun to make, and as far as the robots are concerned, they hate water too, its hard in circuit boards.
Now had the video had robots in it, and a robot operated car from Google, it would have caught the robots attention, but in a more positive light, especially the gay male robots at YouTube.
Clearly this is not an x,y,z problem, but instead it is z,y,x problem. Besides, how can you deny it was a gay car? Sorry boys, back to the drawing board.
Re: PS. Gay Car
1110001111011111000000111100011111001111101010111101010101011100000000101010101010101010101010011100010101010101110010101010101011100000010101010010101010101010111111111100000!!!!!
YouTube sent them a note saying that they had violated the terms of service of the site by using “any automated system, including without limitations, “robots…”
The emailed responses don’t address any of the points raised by NMR, but rather just appear to be robotic-like responses…
Doesn’t the irony just scream at you?
YouTube censors a lot!
Re: Re:
ironically, they don’t censor for language or adult content that doesn’t involve nudity…. so I have to pretty much watch over my kid’s shoulder when she’s browsing YouTube.
I disagree. I think that they YouTube has an obligation to support their customers. Without people posting their videos, YouTube wouldn’t have the content that they use to make money. The content creators are YouTube’s true customers, and if YouTube doesn’t support them – I’m sure Vimeo or someone else will.