Viacom and the YouTube fandom Options

[SpiderBraids]

I originally posted this on my LiveJournal on the SOPA blackout day back in January, concerning the effects of Nick getting Winx on the YouTube fandom:

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Nickelodeon's acquisition of Winx Club, while probably allowing the show to become more mainstream than before, may also have a bit of an unintended side effect if you are (or were) a YouTuber making Winx fanvids. There's also been a new law proposed to (supposedly) stop piracy, but also has a potential unintended side effect, and what's more, they are easily connected to each other.

Plenty has been written about the Stop Online Piracy Act and how bad it could be for the internet as a whole, so suffice to say, this Act has many supporters, including Nickelodeon's mother company Viacom, who even produced a video defending the proposed act... which promptly received a rebuttal in the form of a "Truth Annotated Edition", which basically says that piracy is a real problem, but SOPA is going a bit too far.

Even before SOPA was a glimmer in the eyes of its creators, though, Viacom has already become a controversial name in the battle against piracy on YouTube. YouTube (and other user-generated video content sites) allows content owners to get infringing uploads of their content taken down (YouTube even has filters to prevent them from being put up in the first place). Many companies are very diligent in keeping their content off YouTube etc. to protect their revenue streams, and Viacom is no exception. That I can understand. However, Viacom's also been accused of issuing bogus takedowns, whether on non-Viacom material or videos with fair use of their material. (And although counterclaims are allowed, it does open the opportunity for the claimants to meet in court, and since Viacom's a big company, most posters would think twice before filing a counterclaim against them. Incidentally, the takedown provision has also been abused to silence criticism, which is what many people worry might also happen under SOPA.)

The copyright situation on Winx Club in the US has been rather complicated (at least where YouTube is concerned). Back in the 4Kids era, 4K would issue takedowns on Winx material, and even now (at least on YouTube), videos (that were uploaded during the 4K era) that use material from the earliest episodes (even if it's not from the 4K dub) are still filter-blocked (fair use or not) outside of the US and Puerto Rico under their name. Of course, 4K no longer holds the US rights to Winx, but now that Winx is more of a cash cow for Rainbow (the original creators, and the true copyright holder), Rainbow has more recently started to issue their own takedowns. At least their takedowns are making sense, as (AFAIK) they're mostly taking down uploads that the takedown provisions were designed for in the first place: verbatim uploads of their material.

Which brings us to Nick and Viacom. As Nick now airs Winx, Viacom (Nick's mother company, remember) probably deems that it has the right to issue takedowns on Winx material. Viacom being Viacom though, their takedowns reach far beyond just the verbatim uploads. Even short (albeit verbatim) clips are being targeted. Okay, you can argue that Viacom technically has the right to target these clips as well, but still. And before you think that videos made and uploaded before Nick's acquisition (and thus, couldn't have made any use of their dub) are safe, let's just say there's evidence to the contrary. Yes, just like the 4K situation, Viacom is claiming rights on clips that don't use their dub, except with takedowns instead of filtering.

(In any case, I'd also like to point out the credits in both US dubs actually do specifically mention Rainbow's copyright, so make of that as you will.)

"The Everyday Muser" made a brief comment lamenting Viacom's effects on the Winx fandom on YouTube (leading to quite a bit of discussion on that particular issue in the comments). Some examples: The owner of the BelieveInWinx blog has made a few backup YouTube channels to replace the blog's original (and now terminated by Viacom) channel. DokiEnchantix has just uploaded a video to announce that she's no longer uploading any new videos to her account, and she even expects it to be deleted soon. These are probably among the more well-known members of the fandom on YT.

Even I have been affected (read: terminated from YT) by Viacom and Rainbow's takedowns. I could probably argue, though, that my case is different from BelieveInWinx and DokiEnchantix's, because whereas many of their videos are (were) just straight clips, I'd argue that my videos should fall under fair use, as (long story short) the videos in question were comparison videos to show (and comment on) 4Kids' changes (for better or worse), and had no intention on infringing against Rainbow/Viacom's market. The video Viacom made their claim on was made in 2008-9 and therefore could not have used any Viacom material. I also had another video taken down by Rainbow, and I plan on eventually counterclaiming against that one (and get my account back). Considering what Viacom already does now, imagine what they'd do with SOPA.

So, anyone else got anything to say about this issue?