{"id":66765,"date":"2022-08-27T09:04:36","date_gmt":"2022-08-27T09:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=66765"},"modified":"2022-08-27T09:04:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T09:04:36","slug":"metadata-ruling-gives-youtube-a-timely-boost-in-content-id-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=66765","title":{"rendered":"Metadata Ruling Gives YouTube a Timely Boost in Content ID Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"data\"<\/a>Many digital file formats allow creators to embed additional data to provide details of ownership or any other relevant information.<\/p>\n

This metadata might include the name of the person who created the file but it can be much more comprehensive. Photographs may carry metadata identifying the exact location where they were taken, while MP3 files could include the title, artist, album, track number, and BPM, to name just a few possibilities. <\/p>\n

This metadata can be useful to copyright holders, from conveying something as simple as their name and website address to management and monitoring functions. The problem is that metadata can be removed, so once third parties have access to a file, all bets are off.<\/p>\n

The DMCA recognizes metadata (and other related marks) as Copyright Management Information (CMI) when \u201cconveyed in connection with\u201d a creative work. 17 U.S. Code \u00a7 1202<\/a> prohibits the intentional removal of CMI without obtaining permission from the copyright owner, when it is known that will \u201cinduce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n

CMI Claims Against YouTube<\/h2>\n

A class action lawsuit filed by musician Maria Schneider against YouTube contains many copyright infringement allegations, including claims relating to CMI. While YouTube denies<\/a> them all, at some point the CMI matter will need to be addressed.<\/p>\n

In a 2017 blog post, Schneider described YouTube as a Wood Chipper on Steroids<\/a>, complaining that when MP3s are uploaded to YouTube, they are converted into a different format and in the process, all metadata \u2013 Copyright Management Information \u2013 is lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo strip CMI metadata \u2018knowingly,\u2019 or to distribute such works knowing CMI has been stripped, is potentially criminal under the law,\u201d Schneider wrote. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut until there is an actual court case on this issue, YouTube will continue to strip away metadata from literally billions of files, like a power chipper on steroids.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schneider ultimately took YouTube to court over its removal of CMI, but other cases dealing with similar issues were concluded first. One is of particular interest.<\/p>\n

Photographer\u2019s CMI Erased<\/h2>\n

Victor Elias specializes in hotel and resort photography. Between 2013 and 2017, Elias took photographs of hotels and licensed their owning companies to use them in promotional activities. All of the photographs contained embedded metadata, i.e Copyright Management Information.<\/p>\n

The owners of the hotels later made the licensed images available to another company, Ice Portal, to facilitate their appearance on travel agents\u2019 websites for promotional purposes. As part of that process, the original images were downloaded from the hotels\u2019 servers and converted to a faster-loading format used by the travel agents.<\/p>\n

The conversion from one format to another meant that metadata was sometimes lost. This meant that images on the travel agents\u2019 websites didn\u2019t always contain CMI as Elias intended. Copies of his images also appeared on other websites, again without the metadata.<\/p>\n

Copyright Lawsuit, Violations of DMCA<\/h2>\n

In 2019, Elias sued Ice Portal (owned by Shiji Group) in a Florida district court for violations of the DMCA under 17 U.S. Code \u00a7 1202(a) and (b)<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ice Portal\/Shiji\u2019s motion for summary judgment was successful. Elias failed to show that Shiji knew, or should have reasonably known, that its actions (removal of CMI) would \u201cinduce, enable, facilitate, or conceal a copyright infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed, noting that liability under the DMCA is reliant on two factors \u2013 that the defendant knew that CMI had been removed and also knew that the removal would either cause or conceal an instance of future infringement. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe court explained that the statute\u2019s plain language requires some identifiable connection between the defendant\u2019s actions and the infringement or the likelihood of infringement,\u201d Stanford Libraries explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hold otherwise would create a standard under which the defendant would always know that its actions would \u2018induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal\u2019 infringement because distributing protected images wrongly cleansed of CMI would always make infringement easier in some general sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Implications Moving Forward<\/h2>\n

A Bloomberg Law report<\/a> says the Eleventh Circuit adopted a \u201cheightened standard\u201d towards CMI, with Trace Jackson, an intellectual property attorney at Rogers Towers, offering his understanding of what that means.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be the case that the person stripping the photograph of the CMI knows of some specific infringement that will or may occur because of that,\u201d the attorney told Bloomberg Law.<\/p>\n

Jackson believes the nature of the platform where the content was published could also provide guidance. Removing a photo\u2019s CMI and putting it on a travel agent\u2019s website would be different from placing it on \u201csome website labeled \u2018free public domain pictures here,\u2019 where you\u2019re kind of asking for infringement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson also believes that to protect artists\u2019 interests, future licensing agreements should carry clear language that prohibits the removal of CMI.<\/p>\n

Copyright Management Information is protected under the DMCA for a reason but Schneider\u2019s claims against YouTube won\u2019t have been helped by the Eleventh Circuit\u2019s affirmation of the lower court\u2019s ruling in the Elias matter.<\/p>\n

The Eleventh Circuit opinion can be found here<\/a> (pdf)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

In Maria Schneider\u2019s CMI article she talks about the moral rights of artists, including the right to attribution and the right of integrity. Few people would argue against these fundamentals and their importance to an artist\u2019s identity. But artists have another basic right \u2013 the freedom to choose who to do business with. When business partners refuse to meet problems half way, another business partner might be a better option.<\/em><\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

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Many digital file formats allow creators to embed additional data to provide details of ownership or any other relevant information. This metadata might include the name of the person who created the file but it can be much more comprehensive. Photographs may carry metadata identifying the exact location where they were taken, while MP3 files […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/66766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}