YouTube issues
A question for anyone here that has a YouTube account and has ever uploaded Michigan sports to it. Are any of your videos suddenly being blocked or written up as matching third party content?
My YouTube account is currently in shambles but it's somehow still standing. Of my 402 videos, over 200 of them are now currently blocked world wide. These videos include all sorts of classic football victories going all the way back to the 1970's, some basketball vids with the Fab Five and the majority of my player tributes.
The same common theme on every video that is blocked globally is thanks to audio visual content administered by ZEFR. I don't even know what the hell ZEFR is or what it stands for.
What's most puzzling is that there is no pattern to any of the vids that were marked up. Some basketball vids are blocked, others are fine. Part 1 of the 2010 UConn FB game is blocked but part 2 is fine. Even silent coaches film from the 1970 MSU football game is blocked by ZEFR despite the fact that it never aired on TV!!!
Is anyone else having this problem? I'm trying to think of the next step to take because I don't want my account removed altogether. I've put 5 years into it and I'd rather not stop doing one of my favorite hobbies.
February 13th, 2013 at 7:43 PM ^
I uploaded the two Michigan Hockey national championship games of 1996 and 1998. Both seem to be still viewable by anyone
February 13th, 2013 at 7:50 PM ^
ZEFR is a company that works with movie studios and other media outlets to post licensed clips on youtube. Basically they are saying that you cant post those videos because you dont have a license like they do. It is bs, your videos seem to be fair use. I believe Brian had a similar problem with mgoblog youtube videos being blocked, try to contact him to see what he did.
February 13th, 2013 at 7:49 PM ^
http://zefr.com/partners.html?_=1
Sounds ominous.
February 13th, 2013 at 7:49 PM ^
February 13th, 2013 at 7:51 PM ^
Wow I'm glad you're in the same boat and not the only one. I've had 3 of my videos pulled down by these bastards as well. (2003 vs houston, 2004 vs miami and 2006 vs iowa).
So far I've fought them all with counterclaims on youtube since I own all of the footage on my account. But with youtube being youtube, they'll most likely take the corporation's side and screw us over.
My option is either fight these assholes until the end or take my talents (lolz) to Dailymotion or Vimeo and post my content there.
I assume Thorin is having these same problems as well.
February 13th, 2013 at 10:18 PM ^
Yeah, same here. We're pretty much fucked.
February 13th, 2013 at 7:51 PM ^
February 13th, 2013 at 7:52 PM ^
February 13th, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^
So on my channel, I have you (WH), goblue16, Thorin and my names in this funky group called the Wolverine YouTube Alliance.
If this crap continues and I don't win my counterclaims. we should all take our content and put it on another site like Dailymotion or Vimeo. Or just create a new site alltogether which could be hard.
February 13th, 2013 at 7:59 PM ^
If they're blocking coaches' film from the 70s, and you're sure that ZEFR doesn't have rights to that content, get in contact with Youtube and let them know that you'll be contesting any and all DMCA notices from ZEFR until this is resolved. This is blatantly illegal since they obviously don't have good-faith reason to say that they own that footage.. I'm sure an IP lawyer would be able to advise you.
February 13th, 2013 at 8:09 PM ^
I'm worried that me giving them threats will just make them remove the account and not even deal with it.
This is so stupid. I've had this account since 2007. But now in 2013, copyright is suddenly an issue.
February 13th, 2013 at 8:40 PM ^
Nope nope... if Youtube gets accused of suppressing your right to defend yourself, they're really screwed both publicity-wise and legally. Fight it tooth and nail. There's no "playing nice" with copyright trolls.
February 14th, 2013 at 12:51 AM ^
Here's a little background on false DMCA claims:
http://mikeyounglaw.com/web-lawyer-dmca-copyright-infringement/
That said, false DMCA claims really need to be punished much, much, much more harshly to prevent corporations from just sending out DMCA claims en masse. But you do have options.
February 13th, 2013 at 8:05 PM ^
ZEFR is also called Movieclips, who has a partnership with Youtube. I would assume that they are removing everyone elses videos so they can protect their own interests.
February 13th, 2013 at 8:10 PM ^
February 13th, 2013 at 8:18 PM ^
I just had another video flagged. One where I PURCHASED THE CONTENT IN IT.
I filed a claim for all 4 of them now. Put my neck and account on the line. Give me liberty or give me death.
February 13th, 2013 at 10:20 PM ^
Purchasing the content doesn't give you a license to distribute it.
February 13th, 2013 at 9:19 PM ^
Fuck it. I'm done. I've been playing back and forth with the assholes by disputing claims and ZEFR keeps reinstating them. Youtube isn't even in charge of their own site. And they now have taken them down permanently. Now they're making me do a stupid copyright quiz. That's the last straw for me.
Fuck youtube. I say we take our vids to Dailymotion. There are no such thing as rules there.
February 13th, 2013 at 10:27 PM ^
I've taken that quiz at least 10 times. After you finish moving your videos, can you move my 2000 videos (including the deleted ones that I don't have copies of)?
February 13th, 2013 at 10:53 PM ^
I just set up my Dailymotion account and uploaded 2 videos.
The transfer process is very tedious and will take awhile but I'm willing to help out everyone with the downloading of the videos. I think if you still have the original link of the deleted video, it will work on savevid. Test er out.
Dailymotion: http://www.dailymotion.com/wolverinedevotee
Dailymotion is the wild west. There are no rules there. Vimeo requires a subscription after a certain amount of content is uploaded.
I know we've butt heads in the past, but the only way to solve this problem is to work together.
February 13th, 2013 at 11:33 PM ^
I'm going to keep uploading to YouTube. ZEFR is annoying but they're not blocking videos as fast as I'm uploading them. You can also re-upload stuff as long as you do something to the file to change the checksum like add or cut one second. For example, I re-uploaded the 2012 MSU game after it was blocked:
February 13th, 2013 at 11:45 PM ^
Be careful though if u keep uploading the same video that was blocked they might flag your account
February 14th, 2013 at 9:27 AM ^
It's not the same video if it has a different checksum. Trust me, YouTube employs no humans.
February 14th, 2013 at 8:29 AM ^
I'm still stuck on the stupid defective quiz. I can't get past it. Every time I submit it it says Authorization Error. I'm using Chrome, tried Firefox same thing happened. Would IE work?
February 13th, 2013 at 9:43 PM ^
I've enjoyed your videos a lot & they help me get through the off season. Let us know if you do decide to take your wealth of wolverine awesomeness somewhere else.
February 13th, 2013 at 9:56 PM ^
Please let us know if you're forced to post elsewhere. I love your stuff and my only wish (selfishly) is that you had more game footage from the 70's.
February 13th, 2013 at 10:49 PM ^
What happens if you take videos that haven't been flagged yet on YouTube and make them unlisted? It might keep the trolls at bay since they might not be able to find them, but it would still allow you to embed them wherever you want.
I suppose it defeats the purpose of letting people stumble across them on YouTube, but at least it may let you keep some kind of control over the content you have there.
February 14th, 2013 at 12:30 AM ^
This is a good point. Wolverine Historian, you might want to consider getting a site like the MGoVideo guys have, have your videos unlisted on Youtube, then embedded on your site. That could be a possible workaround.
February 14th, 2013 at 3:14 AM ^
It won't work. ZEFR and other content owners search for embeds too. I've had several unlisted videos blocked. Having a site also means their lawyers will come after you personally instead of just blocking your videos through YouTube's copyright system.
February 14th, 2013 at 8:53 AM ^
There's got to be millions of sports videos on YouTube.
And other college teams have their own historians. Oklahoma, Nebraska, OSU, Notre Dame, Florida, USC, Iowa, Virginia, etc. They don't have as much content as I do but if I'm getting blocked, they better be too.
God, this sucks.
February 14th, 2013 at 9:03 AM ^
February 14th, 2013 at 12:32 AM ^
Really sad. I hope this works out for you. What you do is highly valued by the M fan community and it's seriously not defrauding anyone. These 3rd party copyright witch hunt assholes are just out to make a buck.
February 14th, 2013 at 2:28 AM ^
February 14th, 2013 at 6:14 AM ^
Can you (or any mgolawyer) send an email to mgovideo at gmail dot com? Notre Dame has filed a complaint against me and the guy who helped Brian before has been slow in getting back to me. I know you're still a student but I would appreciate it if you could read the complaint and let me know what you think.
February 14th, 2013 at 4:01 AM ^
@WolverineHistorian: Dude you do an awesome job!
thanks for all those vids.....considered switching to some other site?
dailymotion...hudl ....something like that
February 14th, 2013 at 8:31 AM ^
I just received emails for all my counterclaims and ZEFR has released it's claim on my videos. They dropped it immediately.
I need to reupload them now.
February 14th, 2013 at 9:11 AM ^
Huh? You said you were doing the quiz last night which means you just got a copyright strike. It takes at least 10-14 days to process a counter-notification.
February 14th, 2013 at 9:17 AM ^
Not what I just got in my email. I'm at work right now but I'll post a screenshot of the email later.
February 14th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^
Stupid bitches won't stop. They're going after all of my videos.