When the Feds can come kick your doors down and haul your servers out for non-compliance, what choice do you have? Not to say Google is good either, but the content mess isn't really their making. In fact, their technology has helped more than hindered the spread of content.
That's not what I consider in general, and I don't know how you came up with that reading. I agree that it's not the worst action ever in the history of evil (and most was just stupid), but you're not even arguing the right point: the content was not removed, it was a case of automated copyright abuse for profit:
> "Youtube informed me that I was using Rumblefish’s copyrighted content, and so ads would be placed on my video, with the proceeds going to said company" http://c4sif.org/2012/02/youtube-identifies-birdsong-as-copy...
Second, how is Youtube evil for doing whatever they want with the ads in their own website? Sure, they claimed it was due to copyright reasons, but that doesn't make the action in itself "evil".
Google has done a lot of crap, from the obvious privacy problems to outright fraud in Kenya. Picking on that seems ridiculous.
Youtube decided to enter into this agreement with Rumblefish. If Youtube outsouces this abuse, does that put Youtube in the clear? See also: US Army outsourcing to Blackwater, etc. It's too easy to avoid responsibility this way.
Is Reddit evil because they don't share the ad income from a particular thread with the submitter? Doesn't make much sense to me.
The only thing YT did was:
1. Add ads to a video hosted on their website
2. Take part of their ad income and give it to some company
I fail to see what exactly is evil about this.
The basic question that I asked was: Why is MS held to a different standard to the big guys of the internet (chiefly Apple, Facebook, Google, Oracle, paypal/ebay)? What recent actions do we have to compare them on?
Why does it have to be recent? Should we just whitewash the past? It was ten years ago, not in the 19th century. They even have the same CEO.
But in any case, they're still extorting companies using their grotesque FAT patents.
That's recent and it is evil. Microsoft never was completely evil they just put the mighty dollar above everything else including software quality.
I agree that MS is profit-driven. I just don't see how that puts them on a different plane from Facebook, Google, Apple, Oracle, Paypal et al.
If Microsoft uses their power to force future hardware to be unable to boot linux / other FOSS OSes, then that affects me WAY MORE.
So much more that I consider such actions to be on a different plane.
Funny thing, I thought that the DMCA was the legal path. This was not used. And this alarms some lawyers: http://waxy.org/2012/03/youtube_bypasses_the_dmca/
And the "review", supposedly by a human being which failed to spot that this birdsong was not the same copyrighted recording was also an exact legal requirement? And the lack of any appeals process after that too?
I said, after you put nasty words in my mouth, that there were other options, and there are. You're not thinking this through.
The DMCA wasn't used because Google negotiated a separate agreement. Without that agreement -- in which Google also had to give things up -- the DMCA would control, dictating both immediate compliance and a ten-day waiting period before the video could be returned.
You arrogantly behave as if you know better than me. Put up or shut up.
What's a "Coder in London" doing trying to educate a US citizen and resident on US law, anyway?
The argument they "have to comply" due to third parties and presumption-of-infringement laws may be true. If it is, that is beside the point; that doesn't make it a good action.