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Company 'Hijacks' Blender's CC BY-Licensed Film, YouTube Strikes UserAndy Maxwell, 05 Dec 08:33 AM The Blender Institute develops Blender, a free an

Company 'Hijacks' Blender's CC BY-Licensed Film, YouTube Strikes User Andy Maxwell, 05 Dec 08:33 AM The Blender Institute develops Blender, a free and open source 3D graphics tool used to create animated films. "Blender is Free Software. Free to Use. Free to Change. Free to Share. Free to Sell Your Work," a statement from Blender reads. The team at Blender Studio drive Blender development by providing help and training courses to Blender users in an open environment, sharing everything in public and making all content available under free licenses. They call themselves The Creators Who Share. Sintel and Big Buck Bunny are among Blender's most recognizable titles and due to Creative Commons licensing (CC BY), they are widely shared, used, remixed and reshared. According to original Blender creator Ton Roosendaal, "Open licenses are essential for sharing our films and their source material." According to some, this almost utopian model with 'free' and 'sharing' underpinning everything, had no chance of survival. Blender has clearly shown otherwise which makes events of the last few days particularly disappointing. Right now, a company is claiming that Blender's free content is actually their content and as a result, must be immediately removed from the internet. We're talking about content that was created with Blender's explicit blessing but even after multiple appeals, not even YouTube will see reason. TV Company Claims Ownership of Blender Film Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz is the co-founder and CTO at AI-focused driver safety company, Nexar. On Sunday he informed TorrentFreak that he's also an independent film composer and producer, working with music production libraries, and distributing to the main music platforms. "I am a composer and producer for film music, and I use Blender videos for rescoring, as Blender Studio provides the video, dialogue and SFX under a CC BY 3.0 to which I can add my own music on top," Bruno said. "I do this because it's hard to find video footage available for scoring, except in music scoring competitions." TorrentFreak contacted Bruno after noticing a post he made on a music production forum. He wrote that after uploading a video containing a clip from the Blender movie Caminandes 3 – Llamigos, YouTube notified him that a rightsholder had filed a copyright complaint, his video had been taken down, and a copyright strike had been issued to his account. The complaint, sent by Uzbekistan-based media/news company ZO'R TV, was not the result of automatic matching under Content ID. It was filed as a formal DMCA notice, meaning that someone probably reviewed the details before sending the complaint. The notice claimed that Bruno had infringed ZO'R TV's copyrights by reproducing content (6:21 to 8:26) from this YouTube video published in 2018. Since the content in question is obviously from Blender's film Caminandes 3, ZO'R TV was in no position to issue a DMCA notice. On that basis, Bruno followed the recognized procedure by sending a DMCA counternotice to YouTube. It didn't go well. YouTube Correspondence After filing his counternotice with YouTube, Bruno was informed that since he'd provided insufficient information, YouTube could not process it. However, YouTube did inform Bruno of the risks of filing a counternotice, including that his name could be sent to the claimant, ZO'R TV in this case. Determined to have his video restored, Bruno accepted the risks and sent another counternotice to YouTube. This time there was no indication that the counternotice was deficient. YouTube thanked him for filing it – but still declined to process it. YouTube's email advised Bruno that counternotices should only be filed in case of a mistake or misidentification. Consulting with a lawyer first might be helpful, YouTube added. Bruno explained that his video had been "incorrectly claimed" and that "ZO'R TV is NOT the copyright holder for the content in my video" so shouldn't be allowed to submit a takedown request. "The content in my video is owned by Blender Studio who has the full copyright. I have a license to this content under the Creative Commons License BY 3.0," he added, linking directly to Blender Studios' upload on YouTube. No Rights to Post Video on YouTube After three attempts to restore the video and have the copyright strike removed, YouTube responded once again. The message contained yet more disappointment for Bruno. "Based on the information that you have provided, it appears that you do not have the necessary rights to post the content on YouTube. Therefore, we regretfully cannot honour your request," it advised. This signaled the end of the debate as far as YouTube was concerned and by rejecting Bruno's right to send a counternotice, the platform denied him an opportunity to have the video restored, stand up for Blender's rights, and get the strike removed. "Respecting Copyright in a Strange Way" Bruno is clearly unhappy with the way things have played out. In this case, at least, a Creative Commons license appears to have carried no weight. It's possible it was completely ignored. "I feel that the manual reviewers are respecting 'copyright' in a strange way, as the reviewer saw the license and ignored it, probably because it was not a commercial license, and the only thing that I feel would make them change their mind is if the works were in the public domain (which they are not and don't need to be)," Bruno told TorrentFreak. "Primarily, I feel this is a lack of executive understanding of this problem, mixed with a combination of lack of training and proper playbooks for the editorial specialists looking at copyright strikes to understand that open source licenses are valid licenses to copyright content. "At the end of the day, it is money talking, big studio take downs are followed up without challenge and counter notifications ignored." Bruno suggests this could be tested by having Blender take down the ZO'R TV video using the Blender Studio content, but how Blender feels about this issue is currently unknown. Bruno has sent an email to Blender but at the time of writing, he's yet to receive a response. Overall, Bruno is unimpressed with YouTube and its appeal process, describing it as "opaque, generic, and intimidating" while favoring large rightsholders. "I feel we have no rights honestly, and that the DMCA achieves exactly the opposite of what it is supposed to do. There is no course of action anymore for me vs the platform, YouTube. My only option now is to take this court, but clearly I won't since I am just an independent composer and can't bear the legal costs. "The process is totally asymmetric," he concludes. Bruno is Not Alone The video published by ZO'R TV appeared on YouTube in March 2018 and since then has amassed 324 views. Whether the person actually watched the video is unclear, but a solitary user comment posted yesterday suggests that Bruno isn't alone. User: chANIMEnnel Hello, I sent you a copyright infringement email that you sent to my YouTube channel chANIMennel. Give feedback. The associated video is released under the copyright law of Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) "Sharing is the copying and distribution of material in any medium or format." You have copyrighted my channel because of a video that does not belong to you. Retract this unfair notice. (translated from original) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 12/05/2022 Ernesto Van der Sar, 04 Dec 11:30 PM The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. These torrent download statistics are only meant to provide further insight into the piracy trends. All data are gathered from public resources. This week we have three newcomers on the list. "Black Adam" is the most downloaded title. The most torrented movies for the week ending on December 05 are: Movie Rank Rank last week Movie name IMDb Rating / Trailer Most downloaded movies via torrent sites 1 (1) Black Adam 7.1 / trailer 2 (…) Troll 5.9 / trailer 3 (3) Spirited 6.6 / trailer 4 (2) Triangle of Sadness 7.8 / trailer 5 (4) Top Gun: Maverick 8.6 / trailer 6 (5) Bullet Train 7.4 / trailer 7 (…) Black Panther: Wakanda Forever 7.3 / trailer 8 (7) Smile 6.8 / trailer 9 (8) The Woman King 6.7 / trailer 10 (…) Thor: Love and Thunder 6.3 / trailer Note: We also publish an updating archive of all the list of weekly most torrented movies lists. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. New Pirate Site Blocking Law Allows Intermediaries To File Complaints Andy Maxwell, 04 Dec 08:00 PM A decade ago prominent voices issued dire warnings that blocking would "break the internet," but of course, the internet survived, just as blocking advocates said it would. That meant tacit permission for more piracy blocks, then faster blocks, and then both – with less involvement of the courts and unnecessary public oversight. And with the groundwork done, other countries could quickly implement the same kinds of systems because the Internet is doing just fine. Those who issued those warnings a decade ago weren't supporters of piracy – but they did know what was coming. Dozens of countries now have site-blocking systems in place and ISPs actively help to set them up. The recent moves against DNS providers are alarming but in time, they too will become the latest uncontested standard before implementation of the next incremental step, followed by the next. Of course, it would be alarmist to even imply that blocking, censoring, or diverting other types of information might suit future governments worldwide. Uruguay certainly doesn't think so. Freedom of expression is fully guaranteed for citizens, groups and the press, without any kind of censorship, including the internet. With some exceptions, apparently. Uruguay Implements Site-Blocking Following legal action by Fox Networks Group Latin America, in 2018 a criminal court in Uruguay instructed local ISPs to block popular sports streaming portal RojaDirecta. The head of the Fox Networks' anti-piracy unit described the ruling as "the beginning of judicial awareness on online piracy issues." It was indeed just the beginning. The government made its intentions clear in 2020 with Article 712 of Law No. 19,924, which envisioned the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (URSEC) taking the lead to ensure that allegedly infringing content was blocked by local Internet service providers, before it could reach consumers in Uruguay. Time to Start Blocking Uruguay's Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM), issued a decree on October 25, 2022. It states that since it is "the obligation of the State to ensure the protection of intellectual work and copyright," the introduction of a pirate site blocking regime is the government's response. "The issued decree was conceived to eliminate the broadcasting of television signals broadcast through the Internet or similar networks, for unauthorized commercial purposes, which violates laws 9,739, on literary and artistic property, and 17,616, on the protection of intellectual property," a government statement reads. Any complaints concerning illegal TV streams must be sent to the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (URSEC). If the regulator is satisfied, instructions will be issued to service providers to implement blocking or similar measures within four days. What sets this system apart from those available in most other countries is that applications for blocking can be filed by companies that aren't necessarily the ultimate rightsholders of TV shows or movies. TV Services and Intermediaries As Article 1 of Decree No. 345/022 explains, operators of licensed television services in Uruguay can report pirate services to URSEC for evaluation and if the regulator agrees, comprehensive blocking measures will follow. [T]he holders of television services for subscribers may file a well-founded complaint with the URSEC, as an affidavit, so that the Unit can evaluate it and order, if applicable, the notification to platforms and/or independent intermediaries or the provision of a temporary electronic blockade that is necessary to prevent access from the national territory to IP addresses (Internet Protocol) and/or Internet domains (DNS) and/or URLs (Uniform Resource Locator), corresponding to specific offers of infringing products, services and/or content, as appropriate, that are used to develop such activities, under the sole responsibility of the person filing the complaint. Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraph, when the platform and/or the independent intermediary have their own complaint mechanisms for the removal of content and/or sales offers of allegedly illegal products and/or services, the owner or representative of the complainant, may appeal through the means provided by the intermediary, in order to assert their rights through the fastest and most effective means.(Translated from Spanish) The decree's Article 3 details the rest of the process, including that assumed pirate services will initially face blocking for up to 30 days in advance of a judicial review. Blocking vs. Freedom of Expression The Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry (LACNIC) appreciates the new blocking regime is designed to protect content from piracy. However, it has fears that freedom of expression could be a casualty due to an absence of skills to implement accurate blocking. "Recently the state published a decree in which the authorities can block sites that violate intellectual property rights, in essence: television signals that are transmitted illegally," says Oscar Robles Garay, executive director of LACNIC. "It's okay to protect the intellectual property of others, but sometimes when you do that without enough technical expertise, other rights can be affected: websites, government sites, schools and more, which is clearly not the focus of these measures." A decision on whether live streams should be blocked within 30 minutes of a complaint has been delayed until next year but, given moves in other regions, implementation seems is only a question of time. After that, requests for complex dynamic injunctions will likely follow and when they aren't considered effective enough, interference with DNS records seems the next likely blocking candidate. By then, even more aggressive blocking options will become available, most likely across 45 to 50 countries, covering just hundreds of millions of internet users, and countless ISPs and intermediaries. When none of these measures return the required results, tougher measures will undoubtedly follow. But whatever they are, the internet will never, ever break. Promise. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2022 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company