That Time National Geographic Claimed Copyright On NASA Videos
Keith’s note: Over the past several days media giants such as CNBC and National Geographic have been filing copyright takedown requests on YouTube – which have been granted – against people using their own material that they generated from the launch of DEMO-2 as well as NASA public domain material. National Geographic took this a step further by having NASA’s own video taken down, asserting that National Geographic had the copyright on NASA’s own footage. This has been going on for days. It is baffling that NASA PAO ever allowed this to happen – much less to continue as long as it has. At a time when global chaos has people focused on other things NASA needs every single amplifier of the value of space exploration that they can get.
|
|
National Geographic understands copyright well enough that it was probably an accident that they squashed NASA photos. These things are often done by bots using pattern recognition with no actual brains.
I remember a Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon a few years ago. Some clips from some Dr. Who episodes, which had been cleared for use because those episodes were nominated for the award, caused a bot on UStream to kill the entire live feed. The event was on a Sunday and the problem couldn’t be resolved until Monday morning because the whole process had been automated with no humans in the UStream offices to contact.
Basically a reminder that, in the end, a totally-automated copyright monitoring and enforcement system is basically never going to be 100% workable.
I remember at least 1 shuttle launch video taken down by one of the main news networks. This isn’t anything new. My impression is that it’s so automated that it’s difficult to get contact with a person to fix the issue more permanently.
As I said above, a few prosecutions for perjury under DMCA might solve the problem.
If it’s automatic, who’s committing perjury? My impression was someone like Nat Geo or CNN would load videos on YouTube (first maybe?) and YouTube would look for matches to those and take them down.
If you use DMCA to take down the video, someone has to sign it. Whoever signs it (and a person has to sign it) commits perjury if they don’t have a copyright on the video.
And has National Geographic actually apologized for this? NO.
Have they given the money back they made from YouTube? NO.
Excuses, excuses, they are responsible.
Here is a service that does it automatically. https://www.copyrighthero.c…
Maybe certain content types and sources need to be excluded surrounding large weekend events like EPIC RETURN OF THE U.S. TO FLYING THEIR OWN PEOPLE TO SPACE.
Sorry.
And it is perjury to file an invalid takedown under DMCA.
Sounds like plausible deniability. NatGeo: The bots did it, not us. And they go home with the viewers and cash. None is the wiser.
You could get a job in their legal department.
Oh, I have no doubt the lawyers will get their licks in on this one.
I miss the old days when simply getting something on a B&W TV set was a big deal. And the big worry, not copyright takedown, but hoping someone doesn’t start vacuum cleaner or blender.
How in the HELL is that happening?! And as for YouTube; I took down all my original content from it after musician friends of mine had bogus copyright infringement notices put against them for their OWN songs and material!! YouTube is a potential venue for sheer theft.
As far as I can tell, big publishing companies have “bots” that scan videos on YouTube looking for audio and video that’s also in videos they publish. The “bots” flag any “violations”, and of course the big companies assume they own all the audio and video in all the videos they publish, even if they’re actually using someone else’s audio and video in their content.
It’s a big mess. I don’t know how well content creators are able to get these issues resolved with YouTube. I know audio, in particular, is a big pain for most content creators, who must take great care not to have any copyrighted audio in their content.
For example, after POTUS got done talking during the SpaceX/NASA stream, he played his favorite campaign rally song, which is, of course, copyrighted. I have a feeling this is one of the things that tripped up some of the videos following this mission.
NASA PAO has no say over this. The DMCA basically forces YouTube to take down anything for which an infringement claim is made, with very little chance for recourse. Maybe the drafters of the law assumed that people would be involved In the issuing or reception of takedown orders and use common sense, but both sides are done by bots now.
The DMCA needs to be reformed, to provide some sort of disincentive for fake or bad takedown requests. As it stands now it is ripe for abuse, both intentional and accidental.
A DMCA takedown has to be signed by a person and it is perjury to file one when you don’t have a copyright. But I don’t know if anyone has ever been prosecuted for that.
It’s fraud, not perjury. These aren’t being submitted to a court.
The DMCA requires you to submit a statement that your request is accurate under penalty of perjury. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Bots can never be 100% correct.
I suppose it’s possible that NASA has an under-the-table exclusive distribution deal with NatGeo but I doubt that they’d be legally allowed to do it. It’s more likely that NatGeo’s copyright bots think that anything that looks like a picture from space must be theirs until proven otherwise.
I’ve got a feeling that the legal department of 21st Century Fox (NatGeo’s ultimate owners) have awoken this morning with a huge headache and a desperate wish that this hadn’t happened in the middle of a global lockdown.
Why? They caused significant problems for some independent creators that are difficult to compete with fairly, and they won’t face any legal repercussions for it. Things are running along great as far as they’re concerned, it’s Everyday Astronaut/etc. who got the headaches.
Because, if NatGeo don’t have a deal with NASA, then NASA or some other organ of the Federal government might take offence and that is the sort of thing even large private corporations really don’t want.
If this is being done via DMCA, they ought to refer the organizations that did the takedown notices to the Justice Department for prosecution. Filing an invalid takedown notice is perjury.
Can’t we all just appreciate the moment for its technical achievement and historical significance?
So it is OK for Nat Geo to claim ownership of someone else’s content and NASA public domain material? I don’t think so.
Maybe he works for Sony or Naughty Dog. See The Last Of Us 2 leaks, Muso TNT and overzealous DMCA takedowns…
not at all what the comment was aimed at – it was a criticism of NatGeo for greedily trying to control content and spoiling the moment. Dunno, did NG even have coverage on the 2nd attempt?
SCI channel and Discovery did.
For the docking, CNN had coverage – good for them.
I also intriduced several friends to NASA TV
REMINDER : the non-academic for-profit more commercial portions of National Geographic- such as the publishing and media departments and merchandising – were sold to the Fox corporation a few years ago, ans as such are now part of the greater Disney-ABC-ESPN-Fox -StarWars conglomerate. Much of what used to be the exemplary National Geographic organization is now a component of a for profit mega corporation.
Now you know why they are being covetous of (alleged) copyright infirngement …
I recall sometime ago a deal between NASA and National Geographic that included (what I thought was) very broad control over images. But searching
NASA “National Geographic” site:spaceref.com
NASA “National Geographic” site:nasawatch.com
I came up dry.