YouTube Copyright Issues -- Fair Use

So I'm having some trouble with the video I uploaded the other day of my talk about aliens. As many have learned, YouTube is in an odd legal position because people can and do upload copyrighted materials by people who do not own the copyright. Obviously, if I was to upload a video I did not make but I try to profit from it, that is all sorts of wrong, both legally and morally. But there are also points when you should be allowed to use another's material without their express permission. The most obvious way is with parody and commentary/criticism (some useful comments can be found here, including statements in my favor when using clips). I'm doing more of the latter in my talk, so I will focus on that.

If I had to have express permission to use the materials of another person to criticize it, you can see an obvious issue: that person probably doesn't want to have that criticism of their work out there, so giving them the power to stop critics from using their material becomes a method of censorship (something creationists have done, for example). And there is legal provision for this under the Digital Millennium Copyright Acts (DMCA). In the legal code 17 UCS Section 107, this considers the nature of the work, and there is the understanding of Fair Use. There is a lot of legalism to it, but one thing generally recognized is the use of materials for commentary/criticism. For example, there are websites pretty much devoted to critiquing movies, such as at That Guy With the Glasses. Such Internet shows could not exist without the Fair Use clause.

Now, in my presentation, I use a bit from the opening of the original Battlestar Galactica (1978), namely the part about how some believing ancient humans may have descended from people from other planets, peoples that may still fight for survival beyond what we know. Since my presentation was about ancient aliens, including in popular culture, I believed this to fall under Fair Use. However, YouTube has an automated system for finding copyrighted materials.

Obviously the algorithm YouTube uses is great for copyright holders; the work is done for them in finding materials they own so they can make sure their property is not used without proper provision. However, the automatic nature of the system means two things: it can make mistakes, and it does not consider the context it is in. That's a significant problem. On the first part, I had uploaded a video about the Star of Bethlehem as used in Zeitgeist, and YouTube said it used copyrighted materials. However, it did not say what material was copyrighted, and the company I had never heard of (La Red, I just double-checked). Best I could tell, YouTube claimed I used materials from a Chilean TV network, though I didn't use anything in Spanish, and the music was public domain.

So I appealed that copyright claim. And how does this work? They send the claim to the company/owner that YouTube says owns the material, and that company decides if in fact I violated their copyright. Oh, WOW is that a lot of power given over to copyright owners, and that makes both censorship and taking another video maker's money away. La Red could have held to the copyright claim, and any ads on my video would have given money to them rather than to me who made the video. This had happened to one person recently; he recorded some things in his backyard along with bird song, and YouTube identified the sounds as a song from the company Rumblefish. This was difficult since there was no song used by the video maker, other than the ambient bird song. So that video maker make a counterclaim, but Rumblefish still claimed one of their songs was being used without permission! One could call that a lie in order to make profit. However, the Internet spoke, and Rumblefish said they made a mistake and lifted the copyright claim.

Mistakes can be made, but it is strange nonetheless to give the prosecuting party the power to also declare guilt. That is so contrary to how a courtroom is: in the above example, Rumblefish should have been the prosecutor, the video maker the defendant, and there would need to be some other entity as judge and/or jury. But Rumblefish was judge and prosecutor, and obvious conflict of interest, especially when no party was wronged except for the defendant.

Now, in my case, the company La Red responded faster than the YouTube team, and more helpfully. In about a day's time, La Red let go of any copyright claim. I only wish I could thank them for being so honest and efficient.

But now I have a new copyright issue, and this time with a company I do know: NBC. As I mentioned, I used part of the opening to BSG 1978, and here things are not so cut and dry and the examples I gave. Indeed, NBC owns the copyright on BSG 1978, I used the opening to that show, and the content match by YouTube was correct. So that part of the process is not at fault at all. So now I have written a copyright counterclaim, stating how my video about ancient aliens falls under Fair Use. This has now been sent to NBC, and someone there has to decide if in fact I fall under Fair Use. Again, YouTube is giving all the power to the copyright holder in judging Fair Use. I doubt NBC will hire a thousand lawyers to check every complaint sent their way for Fair Use, so more likely some clerk or secretary will have to watch some bit of my video and make a quick decision (poor bloke, by the way). In the mean time, I cannot monetize that video (which is looking to become one of my most trafficked), and I have a strike against my account; too many strikes, and I am gone from YouTube (and perhaps other legal trouble?).

So I am in the hands now of NBC. I can't say how they will judge things, though I think I am in the right. My clip is about 30 seconds out of a over one hour video, and the clip is part of the presentation for commentary and criticism. If I may say, I doubt I reduced the number of views of BSG 1978, and from the audience I showed the clip to it was generally unknown, so if anything I should have increased the number of views of the show (in case you haven't seen the original Battlestar Galactica, it's on Netflix and very entertaining; the new series is also awesome; go watch it now!).

By your command.

Let's see what happens in the next few days, though NBC has until mid-October to decide. That means fewer monetizable views, but I suspect most of the views will come later; it's not like my talk has gone viral. And I still don't know if other copyright claims will come up with my video, especially from ancient astronaut evangelists (again, I claim Fair Use). Again, we'll see.

Crime Doesn't Pay

I will be going to the airport soon, and this not long after coming from a trans-Atlantic round-trip a couple of weeks ago. I don't mind plane rides other than it's impossible to lay back far enough to sleep well. At least that's the case in coach. A few hundred more dollars, maybe I'll enjoy a higher class seat. As long as I have a book and an occasional drink, all if fine.

But what kills me is waiting for getting on the plane. Obviously between connecting flights you need some layover time or potentially miss a flight. On my most recent round-trip, I had a seven hour layover in Chicago. I knew that going in, but the plane had mechanical problems. This added another two hours or so of waiting. This waiting period became longer than the actual flight! You can't read anything that long without your eyes burning out. And with $9 crappy beer in a plastic cup, it's hard to make the time go well.

It almost feels criminal, and in fact I think it is. The airports are literally killing. Killing time.

The shear level of chronocide is astounding. There has to be a better way. Unfortunately, with the complexity of the machines involved and the large numbers of people to operate and who need to travel, it's hard to get past the problem. Other than everyone gets flying cars or teleporters, I don't know what can solve this.

What can make mass transit more efficient?

I can think of one thing: make chronocide criminal. That is, if you have to wait longer for a plane than you should, that should be compensated financially. Perhaps this will give an incentive to airlines to find ways of minimizing delays. Inter-airline competition obviously has not eliminated such delays, probably since all airlines are willing to accept delays and so creates a plateau of wasted time no one can avoid. But if chronocide becomes too expensive for airports and airlines, maybe that could change it.

The UN and Religion

Apparently, yesterday the United Nations passed a resolution in the General Assembly that included an amendment to combat the "defamation of religion". Such a title already seems more broad than should be desired by any nation with freedom of speech. When it comes to discrimination of people because of religion, this should easily be called unjust, and the UN already passed such a resolution some time ago.

Okay, first to put this in perspective. The UN has no real teeth. Money and troops come under UN control if other nations are willing to give such things. Much of the money comes from the United States and troops are many from the US and Europe, but hardly exclusively (perhaps not even in the majority?). This resolution was also passed in the General Assembly, not the Security Council which producing much more binding statements. The GA can only produce "symbolic" statements for other nations to take heart, but such resolutions certainly cannot change member-state constitutions. The US can ignore this resolution as it can most things the UN throws out, or as did Iraq according to the run-up statements before the war began in 2003. However, the existence of such a resolution passed by the majority of nations in the United Nations does send out a diplomatic shield to those it would protect. The question is, does the resolution protect those unfairly maligned by the prejudices of kooks and bigots, or does this give cover to nations and organizations with religious zealotry which do harm to citizens of the world?

So, what does the statement even say? Is it going to hinder free speech? I thought that perhaps some had over-hyped the nature of this resolution, making seem worse than it is. I first learned of it through sources such as Christopher Hitchens, a well known opponent of religion, an "anti-theist" by his own admission, so perhaps he was biased in his report for Slate.com. But is he right? Does the resolution want to limit free speech and criticism of religion? Well, yes.

For example, Paragraph 100, Section 5 says that states should

take serious steps to address the contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and in this context to take firm action against negative stereotyping of religions and defamation of religious personalities, holy books, scriptures and symbols.

So, I'm not supposed to defame religious personalities, holy books, and so on. Of course, I can defame politicians all I want. Why can't I say bad things about the Pope or certain Ayatollahs? Does this mean biblical criticism is off now? Bye-bye Documentary Hypothesis.

The resolution also points the blame at right-wingers against Islam who try to use xenophobia to rack up political points. That ignores liberals that attack this religion, such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc. (I would probably add myself, since I'm no right-winger, but I'm not a hippy as well.) The Dutch MP Geert Wilders seems to be in view of the UN resolution, whose documentary "Fitna" created a large stir on the Internet. I agree with critics of the film that it is more anti-immigrant than a proper critic of Islam, but we don't need to look far to find a Dutch MP producing a documentary critical of Islam.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali created a documentary years ago with a decendent of Van Goeth, and the director was killed! Ali has been under protection of years from a similar fate in the US. Ali is also part of a liberal party in the Netherlands, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD); Geert used to be a member of this same part, but changed in 2006 to a right-wing group called the "Party of Freedom". Geert left the VVD because it was favorable to Turkey's inclusion into the EU, so he was much more against Islamic nations than the VVD in general. Ali can also give more valid criticism of Islam having been Muslim for much of her life and even chanted death threats to Salmon Rushdie.

Apparently now, if Ali, who was abused under Islam, dares criticize, she can be called a xenophobe because of this resolution. How different from the case of the murdering and raping monster in Austria. Should he be given protections if he declared that his actions were part of his religious tradition? Would criticism of his actions be "backward" and "elitist"? If not, then why not the forced circumsizion of women, the stoning of rape victims, the beheading of homosexuals, the death of apostates? Why does religion get a pass?

Obviously, this resolution is truly backward from what any sensible enlightened institution should produce. Imagine if this was passed in the days of Hume; his discourses on natural religion and human reason would have to be outlawed according to this nonsense. Bertrand Russel would have been sent to jail. The intellectual tradition of Western thought would be against the law, the tradition of free inquiry and the ability of all ideas coming to the free market to see what wins out. Apparently, religion has to be protected. Perhaps because it cannot stand up?

Fortunately, I live in the USA, and my country voted against this resolution, along with Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and even Israel, along with many other European nations. It's odd that nations such as Japan did not vote, and Russia voted in favor. I'm betting any nation I end up living in will most likely be against this piece of tripe. Well, as a citizen of the Red, White, and Blue, I must say, God bless . . . er, good goin', the USA.

Moderate Muslims

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the former Dutch parliament member and Muslim apostate, has written an amazing op-ed for the New York Times the other day. This woman, who at one time condemned to death Salman Rushdie, who left the Islamic faith on her own will, seems to make the excellent and knock-down point about the nature of the Islamic religion and justice system. The question that I beg to have answered: Where are the moderate Muslims that do not agree with the fanatics and fundamentalists? When some Christian fundamentalist, such as Jerry Falwell, makes insane statements many moderate or liberal Christians are more than willing to distance themselves from such people and even demand apologies. A majority of Christians are not in favor of killing abortion doctors even if they are totally opposed to the practice.

Then where, pray tell, are those in the Islamic world condemning or distancing from those that inspire hate? Because of the recent cases of unreasonable "justice," such as the arrest of a woman that allowed a teddy bear to be named Muhammad, another woman sentences to a severe beating for being raped after being with another man who was not a relative of hers, and so on, one would hope that there would be some faction of Islam that would make clear that this is not representative of the faith (be that true or not). Instead . . .

. . . silence.

Nothing.

Does not such passivity mean that the majority, the moderates, are just hunky-dory with these decisions? Worse, the only protests that are heard are of those that demand even harsher treatments. Apparently, the only problem that people have is the majority of the Islamic world is that their system is not barbaric enough.

It would appear to me that "moderate" has a different meaning that it does here. After all, moderates seem to be in the middle of positions; if the positions are all skewed in one direction, then so is the middle. Hence, the middle in the Islamic world would appear to be far away from anything those in the West would call just or fair or reasonable. Some may of course jump to the cultural relativism bandwagon, but as far as I care to think about it relativism is self-defeating and inherently self-contradicting--the outs of the philosophy seem like nothing but sophistry to me. If the words such as "justice" are supposed to be meaningful then they must be applied to all cultures and all parts of the world.

What has been happening is obviously silly at best, cruel in other cases, and disgusting at worst. (Actually, it may still be worse.) Mind you, also, that these are just recent examples. In the late 1980s, there was the call for the death of Salman Rushdie; a few years ago a similar call was for Danish cartoonists. There are the many years of terrorist attacks all around the world, including the Middle East and Israel, Africa, Asia, and lest we every forget, America. There was also the killing of a film-maker in the Netherlands because one faithful Muslim didn't care for its contents, which has kept Ali on the run and under protection since. I must agree with Sam Harris that this all cannot be related so simply to Western policy but must be something to do with the greater mindset of those that have accepted this religion.

Of course, other belief structures can be equally dangerous. Christianity cannot rid itself of its deeds of the Crusades, the Inquisition, the eradication of Native Americans (especially apparent with the Inca), the numerous within-Christian wars and conflicts. Yet, such things have become extremely rare. Sure, Ireland has issues today, but that it rather modest compared to the 12th century. But it seems that there still exists much of this issue in nations that profess Allah and Muhammad as his profit/prophet (Freudian slip?). Why?

The most obvious answer would seem to be that Enlightenment values have to come to fruition in the Islamic world. Why this is the case, I don't know. One suspicion of mine is that because there had not existed a great, single authority on the religion, such as the Pope and Catholic Church for Christianity, there was no such body to revolt against and attempt to have an independent way of looking at the same body of work or belief structure. Now, I would not say that Protestantism is responsible for the Enlightenment, at least not directly, but that sort of spirit of searching for answers outside of single authoritative figures and instead by one's own reasoning, a step away from submission, helped propel Europe into the philosophical powerhouse it is today with a history thinkers like Descartes, Spinoza, Bacon, Hume, Hobbes, Kant, Locke, and so many others that opened the way to freer thoughts.

The trail away from submission to authority, especially authority that is only supported by the shear fact that it says it is the authority, is a good one. I don't know if the Islamic faith can follow the trail. This is because of the word "Islam" itself. Many say it means peace. But peace by what? Submission! Sure, things will be okay in the future because no one will dare raise a finger against the despot--just look at how wonderful North Korea is!

But it should at least be possible to convince the faithful en masse to embrace Enlightenment values. After all, I have met those of such a faith and they in fact can accept the philosophies of equality and reason over dogma. And even when there are Christians in the U.S. today that seem to forget these things in pushing for a "Christian Nation," they still don't seem to go out of their way to kill homosexuals, and neither do orthodox rabbis in Israel. Obviously better sense makes such actions difficult, even if that simply be obedience/fear to/of the law. Sure, it seems that cognitive dissonance would be required to keep both mindsets in the same head, but humans seem to be very good at that. I prefer clear thinking, but progress is progress.

Please read Ali's essay. It is more than just "Islamophobia."