Google, the YouTube owner, reveals that it would help some content creators who have received copyright takedown notices. It offers a fund up to $1m (£650,000) in legal fees.
Only a handful of people has been chosen to get benefits from this support. If the material is considered to be fair, the support will come in.
Copyright holders will be able to make requests to Google or other sites so that the content can be taken under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Fred Von Lohmann, Google’s copyright legal director, said, “”We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear, fair uses that have been subject to DMCA takedowns. We’re doing this because we recognise that creators can be intimidated by the DMCA’s counter-notification process and the potential for litigation that comes with it.”
Adding to it, he said, “While we can’t offer legal protection to every video creator – or even every video that has a strong fair use defence – we’ll continue to resist legally unsupported DMCA takedowns as part of our normal processes.”
The exception to the law: If a small portion of somebody else’s work is used in this context, or in news reporting or for teaching purposes in the US it is exempted.
However, there are exceptions to the law, which vary around the world but can include the use of other material for the purposes of commentary and parody. The videos that will be defended are not visible in the UK but include two video game reviews and a piece that contains news footage of Rachel Dolezal, the American woman who was born white but now says she is black.
