I can't believe this needs to be said literally every time one of these types of articles gets posted on HN: if you build your business on top of someone else's platform, and have no contracts in place to protect your interests, your business's existence is completely at the whim of the platform owners.
I wish we lived in a world where the Googles of the internet had sane, transparent, easily-appealable processes for these sorts of things. But we don't, and absent government regulation, we probably aren't going to. People need to take these sorts of risks into account when deciding how to run their businesses, and have contingency plans.
It's interesting to note that in the landlord/tenant analogy, most jurisdictions have laws in place that prevent tenants from agreeing to such unbalanced, predatory contracts, and give tenants rights even in the absence of any agreement at all. Perhaps we do need something like that on the internet, for some things.
Even the web is a platform now. You won't do well running a website if Google Search and Chrome don't favour it. Depending on how you plan to get your initial customers, you may hit a sizeable roadblock if Google Ads or Facebook Ads decide that they don't want to run your ads.
Windows and MacOS are also platforms.
Even pretty big companies depend upon platforms. Take the example of Epic getting booted from Apple's app store. Facebook have not been able to get Apple to approve Facebook Gaming.
If you want to start an ecommerce business, are you meant to build your own rather than using Amazon & Shopify?
It doesn't make sense to not participate on platforms. What does make sense is to consider what it means for your business. In certain extreme cases like YouTube or Apple's app store, it seems like some degree of regulation may be necessary to prevent the platforms from abusing their position.
One small caveat - the small business owner had no choice in the matter when they moved in 10 years ago. There was only one mall people would actually visit across the entire world. And that mall has a clickwrap agreement for all their rentals, one which includes a clause that says "and we can change this agreement at will and without notice."
You use a platform, that’s on you. It’s never been cheaper or easier to run a website, make videos, and host them.
A regulator tends to lock the status quo into place, it's almost always incumbent friendly... like banking, casinos, tobacco, etc. Remember that Philip Morris benefits greatly from tobacco regulation.
What "good" would be is wrenching video out of YouTube's Kafkaesque hands.
Have we given up on decentralisation?
Youtube has its own "extra jurisdictional" copyright system.
YouTube can't just "opt out" of the law. YouTube absolutely responds to DMCA notices, and per the video he issued counter-claims already - that's a core part of responding to DMCA.
https://www.youtube.com/howyoutubeworks/policies/copyright/#...
And you don't have to go through youtube's webtools to submit one, either (which of course you don't - the law doesn't require that). You can mail, fax, or email the DMCA takedown notice: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6005908?hl=en&ref_...
Sure, but these aren't proper DMCA claims. As kristofferR pointed out there are other extra jurisdictional mechanisms that Google employ to make your life difficult as a creator.
And then, which laws apply? US, UK, EU, Russian, Indian....
Now sure, it's a private platform and they can shut you down any time. I recognise there ain't no free speech on private platforms.
But if they've been making a tidy sum of lots of ad money due to your apparent infringement (and much, much more than you the creator) along the way then I'm sure we might see a well funded case against this practice, maybe not in the US, but other jurisdictions that still recognise the limits and powers of private companies and the right not to be fucked over by them.
> there are other extra jurisdictional mechanisms that Google employ to make your life difficult as a creator.
That's not quite true. The DMCA is a very strict mechanism. You get a notice, you take down the content, and if the uploader isn't happy with that, they have to sue the claimant.
Of course, Youtubes process is streamlined for its own interests and the interests of big corporate copyright hoarders. But it's not designed to bully creators.
The problem isn't really the process in itself, it's how Google applies it and the fact that Youtube doesn't seem to care that much for its creators.
A creator can have up to three strikes, with them disappearing over the course of time if they don't get more strikes. Contested copyright strikes may be elevated to DMCA requests if YouTube finds in favor of the creator, but it's not required.
If you run out of those strikes, your channel is immediately shut down. It's possible (especially with a large backlog of videos) to exceed this strike count before you can use their tools to argue against the strikes. When this happens, your account is shut down, and a "grace" timer is enabled to allow you to try and challenge the copyright strikes (one at a time). If that grace period passes and you're still out of strikes (don't dare to take a vacation), the only remaining choice is to appeal to the public.
No DMCA claims necessary.
Youtube does allow DMCA counter claims because they legally have to. Youtube has absolutely no wiggle room with DMCA. No amount of complaining to them can ever change that, either. You have to get the laws changed.
Do you understand that the content in the submission is infringing? And not just to the civil level but to the criminal level? And so YouTube losing safe harbor would be huge.
No, it wouldn't, because YouTube is actually removing the content. So they're not going to get sued for infringement, and other parts of the DMCA still protect them even when they operate outside the bounds of the takedown notice procedure.
All signs therefore point to this being a DMCA notice. If you have evidence to the contrary please provide it.
And the video itself is identified. He does have that information.