Is YouTube’s three-strike rule fair to users?
I watched an interesting story this weekend on the BBC technology program “Click”, this was regarding a Blogger called Mark Kobayashi-Hillary and his battle with the media giant YouTube (AKA- Google).
Now it would appear that Mark had received an occasional warning email from YouTube in the past, this was regarding his published content (900 videos uploaded) where YouTube felt he had infringed on copy write or where they may of received a complaint from someone.
When Mark uploaded his latest offering on what appears to be a rather inoffensive video, featuring nothing more than an audience and a stage graphic. The media giant YouTube closed his account without further warning or giving him the opportunity to address the problem, so Mark found himself with a situation where not only was the account closed but he had effectively lost over 900 videos!
Ok, I can see something in both sides of this issue, on one side there does have to be a degree of policy policing on all social media sites and it has to come from the provider in the first instance (heaven help us all if a government body vetted content like China). Now YouTube has a policy in place where after the second warning email your account is pulled and no prior additional communication is offered.
On the side of Mark, I can appreciate the sheer frustration in having the account pulled without having the chance to resolve the issue and simply remove the “offensive” video. There is also the issue of losing all of your previously uploaded content, most people assume that these online repositories associated to their respective user accounts are not only safe from digital disaster but also available to them ongoing as needed.
So how many people really read the T&C’s when setting up accounts, even given you are one of the minority who works through them at the outset of account creations there is always the problem of policy interpretation on content.
Here is what YouTube provide:
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Account Strikes
Community Guidelines Strikes
• First Strike:The first strike on an account is considered a warning. This strike stays on the account for six months.
• Second Strike:If an account receives two strikes within a six month period, the ability to post new content to YouTube from that account will be disabled for two weeks. If there are no further issues, full privileges will be restored automatically after the two week period.
• Third Strike:If an account receives a third Community Guidelines strike within six months (before the first strike has expired) the account will be terminated.
When a user has posting privileges temporarily disabled on one account, for the duration of the suspension that user is also prohibited from posting material to YouTube using any other account. Attempts to circumvent this rule may result in immediate termination without warning of all accounts.
These strikes stick with the accounts belonging to that user for six months from the date they are received. If a user receives such a strike they will be notified when they next log-in to their YouTube account. For reference, copies of the notice are also sent to the user’s email address and YouTube private message inbox.
In some cases a video may be removed for the safety and privacy of the user who posted the video, due to a first-party privacy complaint, court order or other unintended issues. In these instances, the user will not receive a strike and the account will not be penalized.
Copyright Strikes
Copyright strikes are counted completely separate from Community Guidelines strikes. Unlike Community Guidelines strikes, which expire after six months, copyright strikes do not expire. Three copyright strikes lead to an account termination. A copyright strike can only be resolved if the user submits a counter-notification and prevails in that process. Please note that there may be adverse legal consequences to filing a false counter-notification.
The bottom line here is that you really need to be sure of your uploaded content, this is unless you have a totally blasé approach and in which case ensure you have access to more than one account ;-).
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Marks full story can be found here, this includes a video from Ollie Rickman from Google who said “the firm must act on complaints sent to them”.
I didn’t include it to preserve any infringements on privacy :-).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/8696716.stm
Tony Savage