

The rest of the document details steps that were taken to unmask Nazo, like linking his YouTube and Reddit accounts and real life name together, along with the IP used to create and use those fake CSC email addresses. Now, Nazo is being sued by Bungie for $7.6 million dollars in damages, citing both attorney fees and damage to Bungie’s reputation, given that for a time, everyone believed it was them going on a DMCA spree against their own community. Then, Nazo tried to pass it off as maybe his takedowns (the legitimate ones) were also from being caught up in this clearly fraudulent wave, and they should be reinstated, submitting a lengthy plea to YouTube talking about the situation he himself was orchestrating. By the time he was done, Nazo would file 96 different takedown notices against his fellow creators, allowed to do so by what Bungie calls a “loophole,” the fact that YouTube allows anyone to file complaints like this despite no proven authority that the person doing the filing is in fact the proper owner of the content. He registered a number of fake CSC-based email accounts like and started filing takedown notices against other YouTubers.

After 23 infringements, his channel was deleted entirely.įrom here, Nazo wanted vengeance, and chaos, it seems. Then, he reuploaded new music from The Witch Queen, and got even more takedown notices. Nazo refused to take his video down, and eventually, YouTube deleted it for him. This was a controversial decision in its own right among the community at the time, but most of the time, videos could be deleted without further repercussions. He was caught up in a wave of actual DMCA takedowns when Bungie and CSC went after some channels like this. Until the law changes this will continue to be an issue, but vigilance and strongly worded letters will do in the meantime.As it turns out, Lord Nazo previously had uploaded a number of looped Destiny 2 music tracks to his channel. It’s a happy ending for this little saga, and while DMCA abuse is a serious and ongoing issue, at least the bullies didn’t get their way this time. After all, faced with the possibility of a court battle, many a poor or hobby developer will simply abandon their work, which is one of the outcomes being counted on by abusers of the DMCA.Īnd third, the company will be continuing its lobbying work to amend the DMCA and equivalents around the world, with a specific focus on section 1201 it plans to announce soon. Second, GitHub is establishing a $1M developer defense fund that will be used to protect developers on the platform from bad section 1201 claims.

And if a takedown occurs, the developers will still be able to access important data like pull requests and bug reports. Should the project seem to be in violation, they will be given a chance to amend it before takedown. If the findings aren’t decisive, the project will be left up instead of taken down while the proceedings continue. GitHub, perhaps feeling a bit ashamed for having folded so quickly and completely in the face of a shabbily argued nastygram from the RIAA, announced several changes to prevent such occurrences in the future.įirst, all copyright claims under section 1201 - which are fundamentally dubious - will receive a technical and legal review, and an independent one if necessary, to evaluate the truth of their assertions.
DMCA YOUTUBE SOFTWARE
In the first place, what the RIAA described as a suggestion in the documentation to pirate certain songs is only a test that streams a few seconds of those videos to show that the software is working - well within fair use rights.Įuropean parliament votes for controversial copyright reform (yes, again) But then GitHub received a letter from the internet freedom advocates at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and realized they’d been had.Īs the EFF letter explains (and as the technically savvy GitHub must surely have suspected from the start), the YouTube-dl project was never in violation of the DMCA. It’s used for far more than that, from research and accessibility purposes to integration with other apps for watch-later features and so on.Īfter a fork of YouTube-dl was created that lacked the references to popular YouTube videos as examples for use, the project was largely back online. The RIAA is coming for the YouTube downloadersĪs many pointed out at the time, saying this project is a tool for circumventing DRM is like saying a tape recorder is a tool for music piracy.
