As I found myself facing similar discussions with Facebook regarding copyright and fair use, I started having flashbacks to some of the early debates we had with YouTube… and in which we prevailed. These date back to 2012:

Step 1: Raise your hand…

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Step 2: Objection!

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Step 3: Victory!

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The email linked to Google’s blog, and more coverage on CNET. We expanded our arguments over time, leading to some of my earliest fair use articles: the concept, cases and precedents, and the commercial applications and limitations, common sense and specifically on ContentID after we experienced downtime due to a processing delay.

I wrote a whole book about it in 2016, then last year in 2019, I went on the offensive against some rights holders:

Part 1: Counter-Strike – Exposing Abusers of Content ID (this is a primer on how YouTube’s ContentID works)

video | article

Part 2: Class Warfare – Estimating Amounts Rights holders are Unlawfully Claiming via Content ID (this is an eye-opening piece on how rights holders have abused ContentID)

video | article

Part 3: And Justice for All – Solutions to Fix Content ID (some ways we can help the law catch up with what technology has enabled, unleashed)

video | article

Facebook is always years behind YouTube in video practices… I am going to help them catch up.