NASA Video Taken Down by False Copyright Claim

These kinds of stories seem to be cropping up often now. Someone posts their own work on YouTube, Their own music animation, what have you, and an automated system sees it and claims that it violates the copyright of another company, and you have to jump through hoops to get your own video back up on YouTube. That's what happened when NASA posted a video of the the Curiosity rover's arrival on Mars. The Scripps News Agency tagged the video, that was posted on NASA's official YouTube channel, as one of their own, and the video was immediately taken down. When the Internet noticed, so did Scripps and tried to reverse what had happened. While they did get the matter corrected, it just highlighted again, a problem that has been on going for sometime. The ease of copyright holders to have legitimate videos taken down under false claims, which is illegal. It is then the person or organization that uploaded the video, that the burden of proof falls on to show it's legit. And after a quick bit or research, it also seems that this isn't the first time Scripps has done this.

Now the Digital Millennium Copyright act has some provisions to help in these matters, but it's the sites like YouTube that are being caught in the middle with these bogus claims. And the people making bogus claims then go on to make money off of work they don't own. Even instances of fair use, where it is legal to use copyrighted material, have been taken down by the copyrights holder, even though the use can be proven to be legal.

Ever since the RIAA and MPAA have started their crusade to protect their old business models, copyright law has been abused like a red headed step child. And as per the norm in Washington now a days, Congress seem unable or unwilling to fix the issues. One of my independent studies in high school was on copyright law, as I was planning on going to art school and become a comic book artist. So I wanted to know how to protect my characters I created. After seeing the laws then and how they have evolved now, it's very easy to claim something as your own to either make money off of it or get it removed to censored if you don't agree with it. There really needs to be some reform done in the realm of copyrights. The current system just seems to make things worse.

But just in case you missed it, here is the video in question. Enjoy!

$>MINE!