Youtube: DMCA vs Content Creators

Maveric here.

Youtube has been caught in an uproar lately. With content creators rambling about how Youtube is a scary place? The Fair Use, DMCA, etc? Let's See what Fair Use looks like:

Fair Use: 17 U.S.C. § 107 Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. § 106 and 17 U.S.C. § 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include: 1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work. The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

This could be used as a defense by the content creators as long as they follow the premises of the given law, but in Youtube? They never recognize Fair Use.

Since 2010, Youtube's landscape has changed quickly. It was bought by Google, and it became a that multi-media platform. Soon, studios began looking at Youtube's potential. Millions of viewers go to Youtube every single day. This is what advertisers are looking for and suddenly, ads popped everywhere. Because Youtube has difficulty of monitoring their site manually, they assigned robots, which does the automated system. These robots also respond to the complaints too, but the responses are nothing but arranged walls of text that doesn't even answer your questions. They are also responsible for taking videos and channels down. And this is just the surface. And this system? Broken. The Youtube customer service is also crap, which adds oil to the fire. Remember when I talked about DMCA?  To summarize DMCA, Youtube is not liable to such copyright claims by other companies as long as they take the videos down with no legal trial involved. Broken automated system + DMCA = You obviously know where this one goes.

This is where it is terrible for the content creators. Youtube tends to have this "GUILTY until proven INNOCENT" philosophy. Youtube tends to side with the complainant at hand. If you are the complainant, and you lost the battle, you get no consequences whatsoever. If you are the defendant however? Not only you lose the ability to monetize your content, you may also get your video taken down, much worse, if you hit three strikes, your channel will be terminated. Some even go as far as transferring the monetization of the video to the complainant if Youtube or the complainant deems so worthy. Most content creators stay at Youtube because they earn for a living. And hearing all the news here and there, these content creators that want to entertain a wide audience are scared. Scared because they might hit a certain company, or step on a landmine or something. Worse case scenario? lose their jobs.

It just hurts to see how Youtube went to a website where video sharing was made for fun and entertainment and now, we are filled with scumbags that work behind the scenes and do nothing to solve the problem. DMCA is flawed, the automated system is broken. Once the companies raise the bar and seek legal trial, the average content creator cannot defend himself/herself because lawyers are very expensive.

Is this the downfall of Youtube? I hope not.

This has been Maveric, see you next time.

I love New York

 City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States.[1]Located at the southern tip of the State of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world.[9][10] A global power city,[11] New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace[12] defining the termNew York minute.[13] Home to the headquarters of the United Nations,[14] New York is an important center for international diplomacy[15] and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world.[16][17][18][19][20][21]

^{This is one of my dream places where my best option of place to travel and get a regular job. My friend told me and she is currently living their, you can't feel the sense of belongingness to USA of you can't visit New York City. This place is incredibly fascinating to live and travel with. God willing I will apply work there together with my husband and to start a family there. I’ve been praying this all my life to have an opportunity to go there if God permits. I want to try if their city and mall will not sleep at night, or I want to try their time square how big and how many people will go there everyday if its numerous or just a few one. In God’s time,I’m looking forward to go there soon….} 

Rant: Anime

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Hey! Maveric here. 

Today I want to address one topic that not everyone talks about; anime, and how we live in a society where being an anime fan is more of a stereotype, rather than a brand we could be proud of. For starters, anyone of you, reading this now surely knows what anime is. "Japanese cartoons right?", well... You kinda somewhat get it. Kids from the 90's sure experienced how anime dominated the television during their time, and I am no exemption. True anime fans go beyond that. Watching anime to the extent of being obsessed with it, not just one genre alone, but the expansive medium as much as possible, and becoming a nerd in some cases may qualify one as an anime fan.

Now here comes the issues that go on with being a true anime fan. You could go around and be fanboys/fangirls of a mainstream celebrity and not get that much hate from society... Well except from a few haters that swing in a few times that might get on your nerves. Being an anime fan is a challenge. You have to put up with haters and flamers calling you "weaboo", stupid grown ups that claim to know anime but only watched one show their entire life, mainstream fanboys that roam everywhere claiming their anime is the "best", fellow anime fans, and this society's branding where "Anime is for kids". Being an anime fan instantly creates this virtual wall that separates you from the norms of this society. And by those "norms", you could see some people that "screwed" themselves up, disconnecting the links to this reality totally dedicating their lives to anime.

Mobile Suit: Gundam Seed Destiny

Being immersed in anime is a totally different experience. You get to see somebody's imagination at play expressed in the most astounding possible way of story telling that art has never seen in any other medium. That may be an exaggeration... But you get the idea. Well, not totally ignoring western cartoons and those big-ass studios with multi-million budgets at hand, but I could never care any less. They were meant to be targetted for kids, with weak plot and poor narratives to back up that poor concept and heavily milked theme compressed altogether. And seeing how this music industry is slowly crumbling in their standards(see my previous rant), even that aspect of musicality among these films gets its quality lost out of nowhere, making the effectiveness of our films drastically fall. And this is no joke. Everytime I listen to the main theme songs and BGM's of these "new" cartoons, all I could say is "meh..." . Now let's get back to the topic shall we?

Now this is where anime hits any medium hard. DIVERSITY. The anime medium as a whole is as diverse as the music medium, and can be executed with more freedom than actual films. The genres range from the tearjerking Drama stories that may spring Romance here and there, gruesome Horror and soul-taking Suspense, the ever-common Sci-Fi, Comedy, Military and Fantasy, the gender specific Shoujo and oversaturated Shounen, the hormone-stimulating bizarre Yuri(girl-to-girl) and Yaoi(men-to-men), and the brain-wrecking Psychological animes that make you question what you are watching. Pretty weird actually...

And when I say "weird", oh boy, we are just touching the surface. You have to handle some "anime tropes" and brace yourself from the Japanese culture shock. Even I was baffled when I first encountered Harems(one character, multiple "partners"), Tsundere, Yandere etc... And you have to prepare yourself from the Japanese vocabulary overload that gets repeated over and over, and you have no choice but to remember these terms for your convenience.

Plastic Memories

This anime wrecked my life. I cried so much from this scene.

And the next trouble is, what anime do you really want to watch? You could browse the web, listen to anime elitists and trust their suggestions and recommendations, but honestly, anime is so subjective that all of us has different tastes. That's one thing I could assure.

If your brain hasn't exploded yet, then I invite you all to watch anime... Oh no, not the most common and mainstream ones, rather, try watching one that is heavily regarded as a masterpiece. Never get intimidated by the usual branding "it's for kids" rather, watch it for that experience. My experience with anime has lead me to a roller coaster ride, from moments that made me sit at the edge of my seat raising my adrenaline to the highest degree, screaming "HELL YEAH!!!", getting my mind blown from the protagonists' cunning and genius mind, having myself educated from the culture of not just Japan, but other countries' practices as well, and down to covering my face with a huge pillow and a thick blanket sheet because my heart can't handle the too much sadness that's going on.

Umm.... Kindly give way to the shonen fanboys?

If you're still not sold, I don't know what will. I hope you too get involved with the medium. You might be surprised.