Latest video upload blocked

M

Mark Briscoe

New Member
Hi, We uploaded several videos in 2007 of spoofs we had made using original film footage from Lord of the Rings movie, dubbing over it with our own audio nonsense.

These videos are still there. but the other day we uploaded a recent spoof we made of the 2013 TV political drama series “House of Cards”

We almost immediately got an email from Youtube saying it had been blocked (the email was in spanish because we live in spain) with words that roughly translate as “Author’s rights” and Sony pictures (who I think produced the series). I am assuming this was not an automatic response but rather a team of people checking each and every video being uploaded (must be a huge team)

My question is. Is there anyway forward for us producing other spoofs dubbing over original film footage as we have done with these? Yes I know it’s not strictly legal but there have been loads of similar spoofs done on YT and they are pretty harmless really…

If we started some other projects using the Lord of the Rings, do you think YT would turn a blind eye as they did in 2007. Or would we be likely to find ourselves blocked again? Or perhaps we should use footage from much older movies/TV series. from the 1970’s or something, or is there zero tolerance now? It’s a shame really, one of our vids got nearly half a million hits.

Thanks
Hope to get some insight/advice from you guys :)
 
Thanks for your response Chris. All the clips we used came to about 9 minutes. Do you think if we split it up into 2 videos of 4.5 mins we would be okay?
 
There isn't a way to do it that is guaranteed success. The length of clip used has little to no effect.

Here's the thing. If you're doing work that would be classified as fair use, you can try to fight it if you feel the need. However, YouTube doesn't have to comply with fair use as it is a private organization and can pick and choose what is on its' service at all times. The "there are plenty of these on YouTube" argument won't get you very far though.
 
Thanks Tarmack, This is a very interesting video that you may have already seen about fair use. Sorry I can't paste the url link here. you would have to search on YT for "Fair Use Simply Explained" uploaded by user amy2x

It would suggest that our blocked parody/remix using original video content would qualify for fair use. I'm just a bit nervous about starting a dispute, I guess it's very unlikely that Sony would bother taking it to a legal level. But there's always that doubt in our minds.

Do you think that the worst that could happen is that our video just remains blocked. Or are there many cases of "small folk" such as ourselves getting dragged into court? Would you recommend us not to proceed?
 
Parody is a very iffy area because so many people equate it to "funny" which is simply not the case. A great example is Weird Al Yankovic. Take two songs as an example. Smells like Nirvana, where he uses a Nirvana song (Smells like Teen Spirit) to poke fun at and ridicule Nirvana is a Parody because there is a clear linkage between the choice of copyrighted material and the target of ridicule. On the other hand, Amish Paradise is a Satire, not a Parody because there is no clear linkage between the use of Gangsta's Paradise as the base for a song making fun of the Amish. The level of humor is not a consideration, but rather the argument from the content creator that the Parody simply would not be possible without the use of the copyrighted material. Now, Weird Al is an exception in that he always asks permission whether he needs to or not, but he's also very very seldom denied simply because of who he is.

Honestly, sometimes being right isn't enough though. Be very aware that these content owners are most likely far more willing to go to court than you are. If a copyright holder fails to protect their copyright, that can actually cause it to be much harder for them to protect in the future.

That said, I'm not aware of any single YouTuber having been taken to court over a case like this. The most likely outcome if you dispute it will be a DMCA takedown request which will give you a copyright strike. You can appeal the DMCA takedown as well, but that is very very close to a court challenge.

I'm personally hoping that some big YouTuber gets p****d off enough and goes through with a court battle. It's high time we had a proper ruling, and ultimately I think the reason we haven't seen a court battle is because the copyright holders are afraid they might not win which is why they hide behind the DMCA.
 
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