by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Film, Law, Music, Piracy, Tech
Megalomaniac Kim Dotcom is at it again. With a launch of a new campaign announced via an all caps headline screaming that “THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT!” on his website, he’s ratcheted up his assault on the big, bad U.S. government, the so-called “copyright lobby” bogeyman and everyone else who views him as the criminal thug that he is.
As part of his campaign to get out his (version of the) truth he’s published a “white paper” called “Megaupload the Copyright Lobby and the Future of Digital Rights.”
In it he claims the case against him “represents one of the clearest examples of prosecutorial overreach in recent history.” He takes particular aim at the White House, claiming his arrest was “propelled by the White House’s desire to mollify the motion picture industry in exchange for campaign contributions and political support.”
He goes on to claim that it’s a case of him and “digital rights advocates, technology innovators and ordinary information consumers on the one side, and Hollywood and the rest of the Copyright Lobby on the other.” He characterizes his highly profitable pirate website as a wonderful public service, with piracy only a minor concern.
Megaupload operated for seven years as a successful cloud storage business that enabled tens of millions of users around the world to upload and download content of the users’ own choosing and initiative. The spectrum of content ran from (to name just a few) family photos, artistic designs, business archives, academic coursework, legitimately purchased files, videos and music, and – as with any other cloud storage service – some potentially infringing material. [emphasis added]
How about some real truth about Megaupload? Until its takedown in January of 2012 it was the largest and most profitable repository of pirated content in the world. Contrary to claims made in his “white paper” Dotcom’s business model was dependent on content theft to drive traffic to, and generate income for, the site. The pirated content on Megaupload included music, movies, e-books and more–and represented the creative work of artists, filmmakers, authors and musicians across the spectrum.
For Kim Dotcom it’s easy to create propaganda that points to the big, bad MPAA or RIAA as the enemy…after all they are in the business of making money right? Well, the fact is, so is Mr. Dotcom and, unlike Hollywood, he doesn’t play by the rules. Why invest in content (and employ thousands to make it) if you can just steal it?
As an independent filmmaker I’ve had plenty of opportunities to witness first hand the piracy supported by Mr. Dotcom’s illegal enterprise, and it wasn’t pretty. Our film, like thousands of others, was easy to find on Megaupload as a free download or streaming in HD, complete with subtitles in various languages. Meanwhile it could be also be streamed or downloaded (with subtitled versions) on legit sites like iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Busk Films and others portals worldwide.
The difference between these legit online distributors and Dotcom’s Megaupload was that we earned income from our film’s distribution on the legit sites while it was Mr. Dotcom (and his uploading minions) that profited from our film on Megaupload. For indie filmmakers like us who don’t have theatrical releases, back-end distribution is the only way to recoup expenses. Megaupload’s pirated offerings forced filmmakers like us and other content creators to compete against FREE versions of their own creations. How crazy is that?
Despite his splashy spin minimizing the amount of “infringing material” disseminated through Megaupload (and Megavideo), the fact is that without stolen content, he would not be the “Mega” millionaire he is today.
How did the illicit Megaupload business model become a profit machine? Well, it’s helpful to think of a company like Amway. Amway’s business success popularized the multi-level marketing style pyramid business model (or scheme ) whereby the operators at the top of the pyramid recruit people to work for them. They, in turn, recruit more workers who, in turn, sell products to the public. Those at the top make money only if they can recruit, and keep, enough people below to do the actual work. Those doing the bulk of the work earn money, but at a much lower rate than those at the top. It’s the trickle up theory of profits.
Megaupload’s business was predicated on offering enticements to users (uploaders) to join this type of piracy-4-profit pyramid. This approach was essential to maximizing the number of visitors to the site. Another essential part of this equation was making sure the UCG (user generated content) that would attract eyeballs. Sorry, but your ” family photos, artistic designs, business archives” wouldn’t do the trick. No what better UGC carrots than popular movies, books or music? Dotcom didn’t seem too worried about copyright thanks to the “safe harbor” provision of the DMCA that allow UGC sites to easily look the other way (plead ignorance) when it came to vetting infringing content.
In order to set this eco-system into motion, Megaupload lured its worker bees. Simply put, the more downloads users generated for each file, the more money/rewards they earned. These rewards precipitated the next, and most insidious stage of piracy—the viral spread of infringing links. With dollar signs in their eyes, Megaupload’s affiliate armies took their links and posted them on web Warez forums far and wide. The more Megaupload links they “shared” across the web, the more money they made.
Pirate forum search results for new indie film showing more than 300 posts “sharing” download links.
In other words, Megaupload created, and was dependent on, an army of affiliates to do the dirty work for them. The scenario enabled Megaupload (and dozens of cyberlockers modeled after them) to shield themselves from legal liability, while their servers were simultaneously receiving thousands of (stolen) files every day–fresh content sure to attract new (and returning) customers.
Though the site claimed to respond to takedown requests, Megaupload was in fact playing a shell game, by not removing the actual infringing files and instead generating fresh links to replace those removed via the DMCA process. When Megaupload was first taken down in 2012 I wrote a blog post about this and put together a short video demonstrating how this worked (below).
[vimeo 35648310 w=500 h=375]
Megaupload Unmasked from fastgirlfilms on Vimeo.
It’s also important to remember the impact Megaupload’s business model had on encouraging and sustaining piracy profiteering across the web. It’s takedown marked a significant turning point in the fight against online piracy profiteering. As I wrote in an earlier post in response to the launch of Kim Dotcom’s new site Mega:
…when U.S. law enforcement took his popular Megaupload offline a year ago, it marked a significant turning point in the battle against online piracy. Since then real progress has been made. Copy-cat sites that modeled the success of Dotcom’s business model closed their doors. At the same time, more options for timely and legitimate online distribution of movies and music emerged–options both profitable for creators and affordable for consumers. Advertisers and payment processors have also stopped partnering with some remaining pirate cyberlocker sites, diminishing their profits and popularity. Other companies, such as Google, have also had to address their role in aiding, abetting and profiting from piracy. Overall, the lure of online piracy as a cottage industry has been greatly diminished.
Kim Dotcom is not Robin Hood and he’s not a hero. He’s a (wealthy) thief who, thanks to technical know-how and a black market business acumen, was able to exploit the work of content creators across the globe for his own, personal gain. Dotcom’s lies cloaked as “truth” may gain him sympathy from his acolytes, but it won’t change the fact that stealing from others isn’t sharing, it’s theft.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Film, Google, Music, Piracy, Tech
YouTube Content ID isn’t perfect, but it’s something.
When Google recently announced a change to its search rankings algorithm--lowering results for known pirate sites–critics asked why the company would not do the same for YouTube , despite the site’s popularity as a repository for pirated films and music.
Such criticism seems justified. After all, Google-owned YouTube, like the pirate sites being penalized, receives thousands of DMCA notices each day. If they’re serious about re-ranking pirate site search results, how can Google justify YouTube’s exclusion from this self-imposed pirate penalty?
As I see it, there’s really only one way that Google/YouTube can justify this apparent contradiction. Unlike the penalized pirate sites, YouTube distinguishes itself in one significant way—by offering rights holders access to a “Content ID” system. Imperfect though it may be, YouTube Content ID technology is a feature that all indie musicians and filmmakers should understand and utilize.
Here’s YouTube’s short video that explains how Content ID works:
As YouTube explains it:
Rights holders deliver YouTube reference files (audio-only or video) of content they own, metadata describing that content, and policies on what they want YouTube to do when we find a match. We compare videos uploaded to YouTube against those reference files.Our technology automatically identifies your content and applies your preferred policy: monetize, track, or block.
According to Youtube, here are reasons you should use Content ID:
- Make Money. Hundreds of media companies have signed up already, multiplying their inventory of monetizeable videos.
- Fan Interaction. Turn your fans into marketers and distributors of your content—while letting them interact with their favorite content.
- Reduce Infringement. Educate your fans about your copyright preferences and prevent your content from being distributed on YouTube without your permission.
- Fully Automated. Once you’re set up, Content ID will identify, claim, and apply policies to YouTube videos for you.
- Market Data. Access snapshots of your content profile on YouTube, anytime. See how your videos are performing, monetizing, being blocked—at a glance.
Sounds too good to be true right? Well, kinda….but, despite overblown claims and systemic weaknesses, it’s better than the alternative (rampant piracy). With a Content ID account, you’ll gain some control over your content that’s uploaded to YouTube and can determine its fate. Based on what rights you hold, you can remove it, monetize it (share ad revenue with YouTube) or block it (worldwide or by territory) via a fairly straightforward dashboard-a welcome alternative to wasting precious time sending YouTube multiple DMCA notices. As with DMCA takedowns, uploaders retain the right to dispute a file’s removal via a counter-notice, but if you have removed legitimately infringing content, this is usually moot.
You can apply for a Content ID account here. Once you’ve been approved, you all have access to a “Content Management” dashboard that looks like this:
The process is actually relatively straightforward. In order to “deliver” content to YouTube, technically all you really have to do is “claim it” when you upload it. Even if you don’t plan to post a public file on YouTube, you can upload a copy of your song or film just as a reference copy for the Content ID system to use as a “fingerprint.” Below is an example of what the claiming options look like when you upload a file (and have an approved Content ID account).
If the file is for reference purposes only, make sure to make it “private” so that it won’t be accessible to the public. Once you have a copy of your work (video or audio) uploaded and claimed, you can use the search option, and search for your work by title or other associated key words that uploaders might use. For demonstration purposes, I searched using the term “Hunger Games Full Movie” by date to demonstrate what results could look like.
Note the search results showed dozens of pirate links uploaded within the last hour, something not uncommon for large Hollywood features. Most of these files are uploads made by pirates seeking to publicize (illegal) download links on other, non-YouTube sites. For pirates, uploading these bogus files is a free and easy way to advertise and direct users to their pirates websites. Unfortunately, while it appears that thousands of these are pirate clips are uploaded daily, The YouTube Content ID program can’t detect them, so you’ll have to use search to find. In the example below, you can see how using a keyword search can detect these infringing uploads.
Once you have a list like the one above, you can sort through it and see how you want to handle each file. I recommend making multiple searches using various keyword combinations. If you are searching for bogus pirate film files, including the word “full” or “full movie” are helpful. When you find illegal copies of your work, take note of what keywords the uploader used as it may provide insight into what search terms to use.
There’s also an option to send the entire list to “automated review.” That can be helpful if the clips include snippets of your film or music, but in the example above, most of the results point to dummy uploads (i.e. 10 minutes of black video with a single frame from pirated film). As I mentioned, YouTube Content ID cannot match these to any content, users are forced to look at each one by one and remove them. It’s tedious and time-consuming, but necessary.
Another option on your CMS dashboard is the option to view all “claims” that have been generated, either through manual search (shown above) or via YouTube Content ID. In terms of the latter, when a file is uploaded that matches your claimed content, it’s automatically added to your claims list. You can predetermine what happens to any matches (blocking or monetization) but if you choose to remove a file entirely, you must manually change the designation to “takedown.” Here’s an example from our CMS dashboard claims page that lists a number of recent pirate uploads linking to our film and some fan tributes/mashups.
In either case, whether discovering a questionable upload via search results or the claims list, if you find a file that contains your copyrighted content you can select it, and claim it based on your original reference version (note the bogus “Dreamworks” logo on this example used to make it look legit).
We tend to monetize the fan videos and remove (takedown) the pirate links. In the example below (pirate link to offsite version of our film) we chose “takedown.
Once you’ve taken down a video, viewers visiting the link will see this:
If a clip is discovered through video match, you can open the claim and change the default selection. This clip was monetized automatically, but had we wanted to, we could have blocked the clip or removed it. In this case, since it was a fan mashup, we chose to leave the default setting in place.
The dashboard also provides users with the ability to view income and drill down into analytics to determine the demographics and locations of your viewers. (Who knew lesbian rom-coms would be so popular in Saudi Arabia?)
You can also keep track of income, though, not surprisingly, this is the weakest and most opaque part of this system.
In order to actually be paid for any income accrued through monetization of your content, you must also have an active Google AdSense account. Fortunately, applying for an AdSense account is not all that difficult. Once approved, you must link your YouTube Content ID account with your AdSense account and receive payouts once your income exceeds $100. Depending on the type and amount of content you claim on YouTube, this can happen quickly or take months.
Is this system perfect? The short answer is NO. As mentioned previously, Content ID cannot catch the dozens or, in some cases, thousands of pirate uploads that contain dummy content but link to offsite downloads. You’ll have to ferret these out using search and remove them manually, but it’s still a thousand times more efficient than having to send DMCA notices.
The Content ID system also seems to have a harder time finding clips that were previously uploaded to the site (before you claimed your content). When you create a new account, it’s advisable use search option on a regular basis to double-check for uploaded content, rather than depend entirely on Content ID’s automatic matching capabilities. If you do both, you can feel pretty good about having your bases covered when it comes to keeping pirated copies of your work off YouTube.
The other grey area with regard to the YouTube Content ID system and monetization is the utter lack of transparency. How much does Google actually make off the ads that appear next to your content? It’s not entirely clear and something Google should fix. One can only assume it’s to Google’s benefit, and not the artist’s, to keep this part of the system as opaque as possible.
When you start claiming and monetizing your content online you may also have uploaders who protest, citing the oft-used “fair use” excuse. If you have selected the option to monetize the content they uploaded, it’s usually as simple as writing them a short, polite message explaining that you own the rights to the material, but are not removing it, just monetizing it. However I’ve also had instances where someone uploads 10-minute sections of our film in multiple parts and claim “fair use” when I remove the clips. Again, I send a polite note explaining “fair use” does not allow one to upload 10 minutes excerpts of a feature film. It’s not a bad idea to include a link to Youtube’s copyright information/education pages as well. Once I send a note, I generally never hear back.
Whether or not you earn much income from your claimed content depends on the volume of material present, and the number of views generated. However, even if you won’t earn much in the way of income, it’s still worthwhile to take advantage of Content ID, if only to safeguard your work from piracy. The analytics can also offer some useful information as to the demographics and reach of your uploaded work and perhaps help guide you in developing effective new alternative approaches to online distribution.
Given today’s technology, there’s no reason websites around the globe can’t institute similar systems. Megaupload’s embattled Kim Dotcom likes to pontificate (to anyone who will listen) and claims he’s “…at the forefront of creating the cool stuff that will allow creative works to thrive in an Internet age. I have the solutions to your problems. I am not your enemy.”
Were that really true, why didn’t Mr. Dotcom use technology to transform Megaupload.com into legitimate UGC (user-generated content) by implementing a Content ID system like YouTube’s? Oh right, he would have had to share the profits. Despite his disingenuous rhetoric to the contrary, for him, theft for profit trumps technology any day of the week.
For sites that hope to create a legitimate business model to “share” creative work, providing content creators with technological tools to control online access to their work should be mandatory. If and when Congress revisits the antiquated DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) why not make such fingerprinting technology a requirement for meeting the “safe harbor” provisions of the law. Such a requirement wouldn’t “break” the internet, but could go a long way in mitigating piracy’s negative impact.
As online distribution options grow and improve, hopefully indie artists can say goodbye to the opaque revenue “sharing” model imposed by YouTube and take their content to sites/businesses where formulas for compensation are more transparent, and more generous to those who actually create the content.
For now, however, something is a whole lot better than nothing….
Update 12/13/13: See what’s happening with YouTube changes to Content ID on Multi Channel Networks and their affiliates on Plagiarism Today here: http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2013/12/10/great-youtube-gaming-copyright-shakeup/
Megalomaniac Kim Dotcom is at it again. With a launch of a new campaign announced via an all caps headline screaming that “THE TRUTH WILL COME OUT!” on his website, he’s ratcheted up his assault on the big, bad U.S. government, the so-called “copyright lobby” bogeyman and everyone else who views him as the criminal thug that he is.
Megaupload’s business was predicated on offering enticements to users (uploaders) to join this type of piracy-4-profit pyramid. This approach was essential to maximizing the number of visitors to the site. Another essential part of this equation was making sure the UCG (user generated content) that would attract eyeballs. Sorry, but your ” family photos, artistic designs, business archives” wouldn’t do the trick. No what better UGC carrots than popular movies, books or music? Dotcom didn’t seem too worried about copyright thanks to the “safe harbor” provision of the DMCA that allow UGC sites to easily look the other way (plead ignorance) when it came to vetting infringing content.
