According to federal copyright laws, fair use can be applied for the purposes of proper use (being used as an educational tool or as a parody), the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used and the impact of the copyrighted work. While Billany’s series was being made for non-commercial use as a parody of a cartoon show with his own dialogue, the actual footage from the show was used in all of Billany’s videos. As of this month, Billany has made 37 videos episodes, all using at least five minutes of content from Yu-Gi-Oh.
It is understandable after repeated use of copyright content why Billany’s videos would get taken down, but what about one video of copyrighted content that is under a minute?, an article in the Wall Street Journal said. Wendy Seltzer, a law professor at Brooklyn Law School, put up a 34-second video clip of Super Bowl XLI, with the first 10 seconds featuring the NFL disclaimer about prohibiting reproduction of their material. Seltzer did this to show her students how clumsy the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was. Passed on Oct. 12, 1998, the DMCA in part seeks that service providers remove materials from their users that constitutes copyright infringement.
The NFL sent YouTube DMCA notice to take down the NFL clip. When YouTube complied, Seltzer sent a counter-notification to get the clip back. YouTube returned the clip after Seltzer stated it was fair use and used for educational purposes. When the NFL saw that the clip was back, they sent YouTube another DMCA notice. YouTube once again took down the clip.
Erik Jensen of the Sydney Morning Herald describes another incident involving the DMCA. Jensen writes about a 15-year-old Australian boy who pretended to be a representative from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the other ABC) using a fake DMCA notice to have taken down over 200 clips from ABC’s network. Ironically, ABC allows YouTube to use their content.
While YouTube’s system is not perfect, they do their best to stop potential (but mostly flagrant) copyright infringement. Television shows, music videos, movies and other copyrighted content have been put on YouTube in their entirety. Last year, Google implemented a filter system to cut down on violating video clips.
