YouTube freebooted a Christmas video without giving credit and the internet responded

[Cal Jeffrey]

What just happened? YouTube raise the ire of content creators and the community on Christmas when it freebooted a YouTuber’s video for a Christmas greeting without giving the user credit.

Yesterday YouTube tweeted on its official account, “That moment when everything falls into place. Merry Christmas!”

A video accompanied the post showing a very elaborate Christmas-themed domino montage. The video was originally created by YouTube user Lily Hevesh. Hevesh is a self-described “Domino Artist,” and uses the video-sharing platform as a form of advertising for her work.

That moment when everything falls into place. Merry Christmas! pic.twitter.com/g43Ph7RMUd

— YouTube (@YouTube) December 25, 2018

Freebooting video is when a user re-uploads someone else’s content without permission or credit. YouTube took it a step further by stripping out Hevesh’s introduction in the original video. So not only did it not give her credit, it intentionally took out the only part in the video that would have linked it back to her.

Had this been done by anyone else, there would have been potentially harsh consequences. Freebooting is against YouTube's terms of service and is technically against copyright law.

However, the company reserves the right to re-use video posted to the platform. It is something that users agree to when creating an account. That does not mean that it is ethical though, it just indemnifies YouTube from legal repercussions.

In light of that, other content creators and the community at large spoke out against the Christmas faux pas. The tweet was bombarded with thousands of comments criticizing YouTube for the blunder.

Super cool stolen video!

— DreamcastGuy (@DreamcastGuy) December 26, 2018

It wasn’t until Wednesday that YouTube finally got the hint and posted a retweet saying it “forgot” to credit the video’s creator.

"Our mistake–we forgot to credit @Hevesh5 for this video! Check out more of @Hevesh5's epic domino art here: [Link]," the post read.

The tweet seemed a little lame and fell short of an apology. One follower even replied, “‘Forgot’ is a funny way to spell ‘completely missed rule one of our own website.’”

However, in the spirit of Christmas, Hevesh forgave YouTube, thanking it for re-tweeting with a credit and link to her channel. It has undoubtedly helped her in the long run. The original video had only received around 60,000 views as of Christmas Eve. The re-upload now has nearly 400,000 and has brought attention to her channel.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78007-youtube-freebooted-christmas-video-without-giving-credit-internet.html

 

[Uncle Al]

It's a shame he hadn't copyrighted it .... that could result in a pretty penny in royalties owed ......

 

[psycros]

It's a shame he hadn't copyrighted it .... that could result in a pretty penny in royalties owed ......

Wouldn't have mattered. A few years back YouTube changed their terms to insure that any copyright violation they commit would be held up eternally in court thanks to conflicting legal grey areas. Google is beyond the pale when it comes to content theft: their TOSs state that even if you just logged into a third party site via a Google login, if the content you create on that other site passes through their servers they have full rights to use it for free. However, they do NOT have the right to scrub it of credit since it wasn't posted to or created on a Google site. Since the domino video was posted directly to YT they don't even have to give credit to the creator. However, they lost nothing by offering a minor concession to the public on this one. By the way, last I checked Google also had full rights to use anything you put on Google Drive and they data mine every single file. Your "private" data probably isn't private unless you encrypt it before uploading.

 

[Uncle Al]

Wouldn't have mattered. A few years back YouTube changed their terms to insure that any copyright violation they commit would be held up eternally in court thanks to conflicting legal grey areas. Google is beyond the pale when it comes to content theft: their TOSs state that even if you just logged into a third party site via a Google login, if the content you create on that other site passes through their servers they have full rights to use it for free. However, they do NOT have the right to scrub it of credit since it wasn't posted to or created on a Google site. Since the domino video was posted directly to YT they don't even have to give credit to the creator. However, they lost nothing by offering a minor concession to the public on this one. By the way, last I checked Google also had full rights to use anything you put on Google Drive and they data mine every single file. Your "private" data probably isn't private unless you encrypt it before uploading.

You might was to research that one a bit closer on WESTLAW. The 9th circuit has tossed their claim a few times so if they did CW it they would be forced into a negotiation for royalties. Probably wouldn't be much but they would also be forced to give up the number of views which would burn YouTube's britches too!

 

[Theinsanegamer]

It would have been funnier if the youtube community widely used the DMCA takedown system to just endlessly flag the video so it didnt show up. Might have finally forced youtube to fix their broken policies too.

 

[J spot]

Probably a lone employee with the responsibility of coming up with a video took it, thinking that nobody would find out. Kind of like the IGN plagiarism case with the sociopathic liar. Just a theory though. I checked the channel, the person has over 2 million subscribers. Don't know if it was that big before this story broke out.