As you may or may not already be aware, on October 30, 2007 (apparently) my YouTube account was closed due to a "three strikes" policy that I was completely unaware of. Not only did YouTube fail to inform me of this policy (to be fair, they don't inform anyone of it), but they failed to even send me an e-mail to let me know that my account was closed! What's more insulting is that the three strikes that lead to my account being closed are all mistakes.

1. Date: November 6, 2006.
   Video: Ghostbusters (1984) - Are You A God?
   Complainer: Sony Pictures Entertainment
   On the surface this looks like a legitimate complaint, but in the context of what the video showed and what other videos I had, this is clearly a mistake. You see, the video in question was a video file that Sony provided for online promotion of the Ghostbusters 1 & 2 DVD box set in 2005. It had ads at the beginning and end for the box set. This was one of 16 videos they provided for that purpose, and I had all 16 in my YouTube account. So, clearly, if Sony felt that they were in the right about the copyright infringement, they would have requested that all 16 videos be removed (the other 15 videos all had the same naming convention so they would have shown up as easily as the flagged video did). It is obvious to me that Sony realized after they flagged this video that the video was to benefit them by promoting the box set, so they decided NOT to flag the remaining 15 videos. Of course, they either neglected to retract their claim, or they couldn't, and thus I got my first strike.

2. Date: February 2007
   Video: Ghostbusters II (1989) - Uh, Your Honor?
   Complainer: Viacom
   Anyone even remotely familiar with the Ghostbusters franchise, or in this particular case, the movie Ghostbusters II can see the obvious error here. Heck, if you read the notes for the first strike you'll see the obvious error. Simply put, Viacom does not own Ghostbusters II!!! Sony is the copyright owner of Ghostbusters II, as well as the rest of the Ghostbusters franchise. As if it wasn't insulting enough that I got a strike from someone who had as much copyright claim to the video in question as I did, YouTube failed to send me the standard "Video Rejected/Removed: Copyright Infringement" e-mail about this video. I didn't even know that it was taken down until I received an e-mail from a fellow YouTube user asking where the video was. When I went to view the video, that's when I saw the "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Viacom" notice. Of course, since they didn't own the video either, I was wondering what the hell was going on. So I did a little research and found out that Viacom flagged THOUSANDS of videos even if they didn't own them - as was the case with several hundred, including mine (though I didn't own it either). Thus my second strike was complete bullshit, but there was nothing I could do about it since I didn't own the video.

3. Date: October 30, 2007
   Video: Ghostbusters Music Video The Trammps - Disco Inferno (Studio)
   Complainer: Top Pop BV
   This one is almost as perplexing as the Ghostbusters II video claim. For starters, just who in the hell is "Top Pop BV"? A Google search reveals just one result: a magician's forum thread where one of the magicians notes that a video of him demonstrating a card trick entitled "Top Pop" was removed by YouTube on July 19, 2007 due to a copyright claim by Top Pop BV. So this obviously isn't the first time that Top Pop BV has forced YouTube to remove videos that they don't own. How do I know that Top Pop BV doesn't own The Trammps music video? Well, because I actually took from MTV's iFilm account! So if anyone should have complained about the clip, it should have been Viacom (parent company of MTV). Thus this third strike is an error.

I've done a little research, and apparently YouTube had this "three strikes" policy for quite some time.

Of course, don't expect to find that information in the documentation on the YouTube site. At most you'll find this: Repeat infringers' videos are removed and their accounts are terminated and permanently blocked from using YouTube. You'll notice that they don't specify exactly how many constitutes "repeat" infringements. By definition, "repeat" is more than one, but common sense would say that in this context, "repeat" would be SEVERAL instances over a VERY SHORT period of time. For YouTube's purposes, those three strikes could occur in a week, a month, a year, or even over a period of five years, and the effect would still be the same. It's three strikes for the life of your account, regardless of how often they occur. You'll notice that my third strike was almost a year after the first and eight months after the second. So even though I could not be seen as a "serial offender" in any sense of the term, I was still punished.

Why does YouTube behave in such a manner? Well, it's not because they want to. Clearly they could give a shit less what you upload to the site as it brings them traffic, and traffic equals eyeballs for their ads. The reason they delete videos left and right at the whim of big business is due to an evil piece of U.S. legislation known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA for short). The DMCA was enacted to protect the interests of big business and reduce the fair use rights of consumers. To quote Wikipedia, one of the many faults of the DMCA is that it makes "it too easy for copyright owners to encourage website owners to take down infringing content and links when it may not in fact be infringing. When website owners receive a takedown notice it is in their interest not to challenge it, even if it is not clear if infringement is taking place, because if the potentially infringing content is taken down the website will not be held liable." So all big business has to do is send a notice to YouTube saying that an infringement is taking place, and YouTube will take the video down for fear of being held liable should the content actually be infringing. The person who uploaded the content then has the burden of proof, and must submit paperwork to YouTube to prove that they own the content and not the entity that sent YouTube the takedown notice. (If the uploader can provide proof, I guess the strike would be taken off their YouTube account and the video restored - but I don't know for sure.) So, yeah, the DMCA is crooked, as were the politicians who enacted it. The burden of proof should be on the entity that makes the claim of infringement. Right now anyone could claim that anything is infringing, and YouTube will gladly take it down no questions asked.

After learning of my account closure, I decided to see if I could find anything documented on the internet about YouTube having a "three strikes" policy (as that was the only reason I could surmise that my account was closed and ALL of my videos were deleted). As I previously mentioned, you'll find nothing on the YouTube site about it (search their Help section for "three" and nothing shows up regarding this matter). I found a few mentions of the policy in the blogs of some former YouTube users who also got their three strikes.

At least he was lucky enough to not only get a second notice, but one that actually mentioned the "three strikes" policy. I totally agree with what he says in the last few sentences. You CAN'T link to videos on YouTube without fear of having broken links in the not-too-distant future. I already have many broken YouTube links on my site, and they were only added a few months ago. I've shortened Nathan's blog to the above large paragraph, but you should definitely read the whole thing. Jim Thompson commented on Nathan and the "three strikes" policy in his blog:

A more recent blog post mentioning the "three strikes" policy was written by Clyde on November 3, 2007: When I began posting the Olbermann Videos on a daily basis just over a month ago, I already had two strikes on me at Youtube and its a three strikes and you're out law, regardless of whether it's right or wrong, fair or unfair, or if any of the deletions were fair or not.

Now you might be thinking, "Why don't you just create a new account and reupload all of the videos?" That's a bit easier said than done thanks to this:

I have actually tested this out, and it is true! I got a public YouTube account from BugMeNot (alt url), and tried to upload the watermarked FLV file that gave me my third strike (the first two were on unwatermarked RM files, same content but not the same files). Well, the Disco Inferno video was near-instantly rejected upon upload...

          Added: November 04, 2007, 01:49 AM
          Broadcast: Public Rejected (terms of use violation)
          Raw File: mark_music_disco_vid_stu.flv

...even though I didn't give a description that indicated at all what the content was (my title description and keywords were random letters I typed without looking). I tried by renaming the file, and it was still near-instantly rejected (there was a slight one minute waiting period):

          Added: November 04, 2007, 01:56 AM
          Broadcast: Public Rejected (duplicate upload)
          Raw File: fuck_youtube.flv

Since it is obvious that they've recorded a hash of this file, I tried to see what would happen if I transcoded it into a NEW FLV file. Since my desktop program was being wonky, I used the online Media Convert service. This worked! The banned video was now back online, though it has since been deleted by someone else who used that public account. So to get a banned file reposted you just need to reencode it to a new file. Quality will undoubtedly be lost in the process, so don't upload your master copies. Convert your masters to temps and uploaded those. Then if you need to re-upload a banned video, you just make a new temp from your master and upload that new temp.

Since they took down all of my videos after the third strike, and obviously kept hashes of the three files that were stricken, I wanted to see if they kept hashes of ALL of my video files that they deleted when they deleted my account. I had no problem uploading a copy of my Real Ghostbusters Original Promo watermarked FLV file, though it has since been deleted by someone else who used that public account. This proves that YouTube only keeps hashes of the three specific videos that notices were sent for. All others are not noted in their system and can be reuploaded without having to turn them into new files. Still, to be on the safe side, you're better off not uploading your originals, and following my advise regarding master and temp files.

I've said quite a lot, so to be fair, I'll let YouTube speak:

If I ask, will they let me take their "automated takedown tool" for a spin? I like to play with new toys. Anyway, let's give YouTube another chance to speak their mind. Here's an excerpt from a February 13, 2007 BusinessWeek article which gives YouTube's official stance on the matters at hand:

Ok, so right there in black and white YouTube admits to the hashing of flagged files and of the "three strikes" policy. That's great... too bad they don't choose to disclose that on their own site as well. The most important part of that excerpt is the quote from the YouTube spokesman in the last paragraph. Sony, the content owner of the Ghostbusters movie and DVD clips, DID provide those video clips for marketing and promotional purposes. So I was squarely within my rights to upload those videos to help with the promotion of the DVD box set.

The most insulting part of this whole incident is that, unlike the majority of YouTube users who upload videos (whether they own the content or not), I didn't upload any videos to "share" them. I uploaded them to promote my website, just as Sony created many of the clips to promote the DVD box set. I added text watermarks ("Ghostbusters - http://spookcentral.cjb.net") to every video so viewers would know where the video came from, and thus come to my site to see more Ghostbusters goodness. Every single one of the videos I had in my YouTube account can be found in higher quality, sans watermarks, right here on Spook Central. (The film clips provided by Sony for promotion of the 2005 box set are linked and require a special program to be downloadable.)

So the infringement notices and account shutdown accomplished squat in regards to removing the content from the net. All it did was take away the "ads" I was using to drive traffic to my site.

When I have the time I will create several new YouTube accounts and reupload the videos to them, with personal videos going into one account, and the rest being divided amongst the other accounts in a scheme I will determine later.

As a way of thanking YouTube for the great job they're doing taking down copyright infringing videos, get yourself a cold beverage and some popcorn, and enjoy the ENTIRE MOVIE of Ghostbusters in twelve parts, and dubbed in Italian, courtesy of YouTube user Maravilha7:

Thanks for keeping the world safe from those evil copyright infringers, YouTube.