Almost a month ago I posted about a notice I had received from YouTube telling me the following:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Entertainment Rights claiming that this material is infringing
This was about a video of Bronto’s Adventure Playland with VeggieTales. Entertainment Rights is the corporation that owns Big Idea. Big Idea is the VeggieTales company. So apparently they saw the word VeggieTales and said it was copyright infringement.
In the email it said that in order to get the video back, I had to send a counter notice. I replied to the email within 10 minutes, and told them it was ridiculous. Obviously no one had looked at the video, and demanded that it be put back up. 24 hours later I still hadn’t received a response yet. Another 24 hours went by and I finally got a response back that said the following:
When we’re notified that a particular video uploaded to our site infringes another’s copyright, we remove the material as the law requires. If you feel a content owner has misidentified your content as infringing, you may file a counter-notification.
So I checked out the counter-notification page, and I would have had to send in a document to Google that might be used in Federal District Court in San Francisco County, California. What?! I have a video of an attraction in Niagara Falls and I need to send a document that would be used in court to prove that it isn’t copyrighted material?!
So, I replied to that message again, and also emailed an info email address at Entertainment Rights, and the customer service email address at Big Idea. I was pretty angry. VeggieTales is supposed to teach good moral values (Sunday morning values, Saturday morning fun), yet they essentially lied to Google about my video. Even though I’m sure it was software that did it automatically, it still reflected bad on them.
Three days later I still hadn’t heard back again from Google/YouTube, Entertainment Rights, or Big Idea, so I emailed Entertainment Rights and Big Idea again. Later that day, I got an email from someone named Tammy that said:
I have passed along your concern to our legal group to review
She then emailed me the next day (without me email in between):
Again, thank you for your patience. Our sincere apologies for the disappointment you have experienced with this incident. Google has been contacted and hope to have resolution very soon.
Then finally, one week later, I received the following from Google/YouTube:
Dear Graham,
Entertainment Rights has retracted its copyright claim with respect to the following video:
Bronto’s Adventure Playland with VeggieTales http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=bMrq5Mmqu2o
This content has been restored and your account will not be penalised.
For technical reasons, it may take a day for the video to be available again.Hope this helps,
Vicky
The YouTube Team
So, it’s now back up. I watched the video, and there isn’t a single shot of anything that says VeggieTales on it. The entire video is of the inside of the place. You don’t even see the sign (which has VeggieTales on it).
Anyway, I’m glad that’s over with. But it sure was frustrating. It seems like there should be some sort of punishment/consequence for companies that file erroneous claims. They have the right to file a claim/notice, and I have no chance to defend myself before they take the video down?!
As a side note, remember that you can see all of my Niagara Falls related YouTube videos right here on my site. Just visit the blog and at the top of every page is a link called Videos