Why am I part of a Facebook class action in the first place?

The social network got sued for using you as a product pitchmen for “Sponsored Stories” without your permission. For instance, if I “Liked” Justin Bieber’s page, my Facebook friends might have seen a big ad saying “Jeff likes Beeb’s new eyeliner.” Today, Facebook can still do that because it changed its privacy terms — it’s the earlier ads it’s on the hook for.

How do I collect?

Go to the settlement page and fill out the claim form by May 2.

So how much will I get?

Facebook is paying $20 million all-in to make this go away. Under a revised deal (the judge rejected the first one), Facebook users are eligible for up to $10 each — so long as there’s enough money to go around.

Oh, and that $20 million isn’t just for Facebook users. The lawyers are asking for nearly $8 million. Then there are people like the “escrow agent” and the “settlement administrator” who get a cut too. If the judge okays all this, it will be more like $10 to $12 million to go around.

To look at it another way, if there is $12 million left after the lawyers, there is enough money left to pay 1.2 million Facebook users.

Well, what if more than 1.2 million people make a claim?

You have to share. If 2 million Facebook users sign up, everyone would get about $6. If 2.4 million sign-up, it’s $5. If more people than that sign up, everyone gets nothing.

So what are my chances to get some money?

There are about 165 million Facebook users in America. If even 2 percent decide to make a claim, you’re likely out of luck.

Well, that doesn’t seem fair. Who gets the money then?

The class action says it’s not very efficient to cut $4.99 checks to everyone. So, if too many people are eligible, they’re just going to give the money to your friends at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley and the EFF instead. These groups will then use your money to advocate for privacy.

Well, damn it. It was my privacy that was violated — don’t I even get to be involved?

That’s a good question. This keeps happening again and again — Google, Facebook, etc. violate everyone’s privacy and the money from the resulting lawsuit goes to lawyers and a bit of it goes to “charity.”

To be fair, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Many of the privacy advocates do good work and the class action lawyers, even if they’re in it for themselves, do keep the tech companies on their toes.

The bigger problem here is that these legal deals don’t do a good job of involving the people who are affected. Nor do they produce solutions such as a “pay-for-privacy” option. Would you pay $5 a month for an ad-free, non-creepy version of Facebook? I might. But the class action settlement doesn’t allow us to raise these sort of options or to ask Facebook directly about what they’re doing.

If I don’t get any money, does any good come out of this lawsuit?

A bit. The settlement claims it will force Facebook to create a tool to see which products you’re endorsing and to remove your endorsements. But we’ll have to see if this tool will be easy to use in practice.

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The case provides a window on the evolving world of wiretaps during an era of increasing surveillance. But the case is complicated because Prather stands to get a big chunk of money if the case succeeds and, as the phone companies argue, he may not be a real whistle-blower in the first place.

Not your grandmother’s wiretap

The word “wiretap” itself harkens to an era when police who wanted to listen to suspects’ conversations had to physically tap a wire. In some cases, this involved climbing a telephone pole.

“In the old days, everything was copper and switches,” explained Lee Tien, a privacy expert at the Electronic  Frontier Foundation. “Now, it’s all by computers.”

To carry out wiretaps in the digital era, law enforcement agencies rely on “backdoors” built into networks and devices. The backdoors were built in response to a 1994 law called “CALEA” that required the telecom industry to make sure the government was able to monitor new technologies like VoIP and broadband.

Congress, realizing that it would be expensive for phone companies to make their equipment CALEA-compliant, authorized $500 million to help them carry out the upgrades. The law also permitted the companies to recover “reasonable” costs for carrying out wiretaps. It’s those “reasonable” costs that are the basis of the lawsuit.

Blowing the whistle

Prather, the former prosecutor, has taken on the mob and ran major law enforcement offices. In the 1990s, he headed up the New York Statewide Organized Crime Task Force under then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. During this time, his office conducted over 200 wiretap investigations a year.

After the CALEA law passed, Prather noticed that invoices from the phone companies spiked dramatically. He says that agencies typically requested the wiretap in the midst of an urgent investigation but that the bills would arrive months later. Despite what appeared to be a tenfold increase in prices, the bills provided no explanation of what exactly the phone companies were charging for.

In 2009, Prather brought his lawsuit to recover “potentially hundreds of millions of dollars” on behalf of the FBI, state governments and police forces in cities like Chicago and New York. The court sealed the case but finally opened portions of it two years later. Available documents include an amended complaint filed by Prather this summer. The complaint doesn’t list a specific dollar figure, but it’s possible to make a rough estimate based on reports from the courts and a watchdog group; the reports say judges authorize around 3,000 wiretaps a year at an average cost of about $50,000 each.

The complaint also argues that new technology means that wiretaps should now be cheap and easy:

This digital upgrade means that, today, all current wiretaps are performed by a simple flick of a switch by the Telecoms. Virtually no labor is necessary. All software and hardware necessary to make this change has been paid for by citizens of the United States via CALEA. This switch duplicates the call information from the targeted line (including both audio information and information such as caller identification) and forwards it along the Telecoms’ network to a Law Enforcement Agency’s call center, after which point the Telecoms perform no additional role in the eavesdropping service.

The complaint also accuses the telephone companies of using expensive and unnecessary techniques to tap conventional landlines. It says the companies pointlessly installing super-sized T-1 lines in cases when a regular residential line would have sufficed.

What’s a fair price price for a wiretap?

Prather’s complaint alleges that, on one occasion, a phone company billed the FBI $100,000 for a single, one-month wiretap and also cites a 2008 audit to claim that the average cost is $50,000.

In response to an email query, Verizon declined comment on the suit; AT&T stated that Prather’s complaint was “without merit.” Neither AT&T, Verizon nor Sprint provided information about what they charged per wiretap.

Public information obtained by the ACLU earlier this year, however, provides some details based on documents provided by the companies. As reported by Forbes: Sprint charges: $400 per “market area” and per “technology” plus $10 per day; AT&T charges a $325 activation fee, plus $5 per day for data and $10 for audio; and Verizon charges a $50 administrative fee plus $700 per month.

And in May, in response to a request from Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA), a Verizon letter stated that the company charges $750-$1,850 per month for an initial wiretap and $500 to $1,250 to renew a wiretap.

It’s not clear how long these prices have been in place. Prather’s lawyer, John Balestriere, wants the companies to explain their rates. He asks why law enforcement agencies must pay so much more than what their targets pay for their monthly phone bills. “There’s nothing special about a wiretap. Generally a wiretap is like a phone line,” said Balestriere. “The silence on this issue is deafening.”

A patriot or a parasite?

If Prather’s allegations are true, his suit could result in a big reimbursement to the federal government and the states — an action most taxpayers would applaud. But the process isn’t that simple.

Prather is coming forward as a bounty hunter through a rare legal procedure called a qui tam suit. Qui tam lawsuits grew out of the Civil War when unscrupulous military contractors overcharged the government for military supplies. The idea is to encourage private citizens to blow the whistle on fraud by allowing them to share in the money that the government recovers (awards are 15 percent  to 25 percent).

Typically, a qui tam bounty collector works for a private company — for example, a pharmaceutical or weapons executive. In the wiretap case, however, the phone companies have argued that Prather isn’t eligible to bring the case, in part because he was a government employee who should have reported any perceived overcharges as part of his job. That question is now before the judge.

Balestriere has blasted the phone companies for suggesting that his client is a parasite, and says Prather is an honorable public servant who is going to bat for law enforcement agencies and the taxpayer.

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Consumer Watchdog is jumping up and down because the settlement, which punishes Google for hacking shenanigans, doesn’t require the company to admit wrongdoing.

“Google executives want to buy their way out of trouble with what for them is pocket change, and then deny doing anything wrong,” said Consumer Watchdog’s John M. Simpson, adding the deal “undercuts the regulatory process.”

Baloney. Simpson and friends appear to be seizing on recent comments by FTC commissioner J. Thomas Rosch to stir the pot. Rosch earlier this month dissented in a Facebook privacy case, saying he preferred that companies use the phrase “neither admits nor denies.”

Well, wait a minute — shouldn’t these companies have to fess up and own their wrongdoing? In a perfect world, yes. But, in reality, the current system works because it shames the companies and forces them to pay sizable fines. Companies choose to play this game because it provides them with a partial shield from civil lawsuits.

A source from a big tech company, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me that firms would fight bitterly if they had to admit liability in the FTC settlements. This would result in many more court cases and higher risk and cost for the government. The current “name, shame and pay” tactic used by the FTC and other agencies isn’t pretty but it’s largely effective.

Which brings us back to Consumer Watchdog. Critics say the company is a playground for trial lawyers.  And, unlike the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups that post reports, Consumer Watchdog’s funding and operations are a black hole.

Consumer Watchdog’s latest hysterics smell all the more in light of its recent anti-Google crusade (remember that ad in Times Square?) and the presence of the indefatigable Gary Reback, a former Microsoft lawyer who is currently representing a shopping site that is suing Google.

All of this doesn’t mean Google deserves less scrutiny. The company has many, many sins to atone for and there are few signs it plans to get privacy religion anytime soon. Courts and activist groups also deserve blame for creating privacy settlements that pay lawyers but do little to involve the consumers whose rights have been violated.

The privacy scene is a mess but Consumer Watchdog’s decision to demagogue the regulatory process won’t help.

(Image courtesy of Shutterstock 3445128471)

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UPDATE: The vote was originally scheduled for Friday but took place Thursday evening instead. It passed 248 to 168 on largely partisan lines. (Read our account here)

Here’s a plain English guide to the polices and politics driving the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act:

So is this SOPA all over again?

Not really. The ill-fated Stop Online Piracy Act was about Hollywood trying to force tech companies to become copyright cops. CISPA, on its face, is about giving those same companies tools to confront cyber-attacks.

Isn’t that the same thing?

Critics said that an earlier version of CISPA was a stalking horse for the copyright industry — they worried that companies would dress up anti-piracy initiatives as security complaints. New language makes this unlikely and emphasizes that the bill is indeed about cyber-security.

Well, what cyber-security concerns are we talking about?

Major U.S. companies and government agencies have suffered hacking attacks in which intruders have stolen classified files, trade secrets or source code. The attackers include criminal gangs and state-sponsored (read: China) cyber espionage teams. Security experts warn that cyber-attacks lead to economic loss for companies and military vulnerabilities for the country.

Sounds scary. What does CISPA do to address this?

One of the bill’s main goals is to improve the sharing of information between companies and the government. In theory, it will be easier for the government to warn companies about security threats. In turn, the companies will have more ability to alert the government about suspicious activities or attacks.

So why do we need a law new for this?

CISPA wants to update existing laws like the National Security Act of 1947 to require authorities to share information about cyber-attacks as well as conventional military threats. There are also laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that limit what private companies can do with information about their customers. CISPA would help companies avoid getting sued under those laws when they share information about cyber-security.

Sounds reasonable. Everyone’s got to do their part to prevent a cyber-attack, right?

The problem, as you may have guessed, is that CISPA may be a lot broader than what is needed to get the job done. Critics worry that companies will be cavalier about passing data around if they don’t have to fear privacy lawsuits. Companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google and Netflix (many of which are supporting CISPA) are facing dozens of privacy-related lawsuits — CISPA might be a way to sidestep some of these in the future. Also, the government could invoke CISPA as a pretext to override civil liberties. From this perspective, CISPA is not so much SOPA but instead a new form of the Patriot Act.

Uh, oh. Is the law actually going to pass?

The bill passed the House amidst Democratic grumbling. Politico reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman expects a Senate version will see floor time as soon as next month. This does not, of course, mean that the bill will become law anytime soon — the approach of the November election is likely to put Congress into its semi-annual state of paralysis. Also, there are competing bills from the White House and also from people like Lieberman who want stronger measures to protect infrastructure like dams and utilities.

What about the veto threat?

The White House issued a strong statement on Wednesdays that attacked CISPA for trampling privacy and civil liberties. It said the bill should include a provision obliging the government and companies to minimize the amount of personal data that passes between them. The statement stressed the “civilian nature of cyberspace” and warns of a veto. But veteran political types noted the veto threat contains a hedge — it says advisers would recommend a veto, not that the President will veto it.

Where can I learn more about all this?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has its usual top-rate privacy analysis here. CNET’s Declan McCullagh has a worthy overview of the lobbying forces here and GigaOM’s Derrick Harris has a cool-headed look at the bill here. And the non-partisan Congressional Research Service has the bill and a summary here.

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In a panel on how women present themselves in the digital age, Huffington Post editor Margaret Wheeler Johnson asked, “Are you the same person online as you are in real life?” The question speaks to the bigger concern: When there are so many social media avenues to present yourself, how do you maintain authenticity and manage your identity (to borrow a current buzzword)? Some would argue that upkeep is unnecessary.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook has famously said,

You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly … Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.

But while much of the discussion around Zuckerberg’s comment has had to do with the “lack of integrity” bit, the feminist bloggers on the panel “Sex, dating and privacy online” responded instead to the idea of a single identity, stating that in this culture, multiple online identities (and a separation of public and private) are still necessary for most.

For an example of how fraught this area is for women or those who might have social reasons for staying anonymous, just consider the times. The rights of gay men and women to get married are leading to vitriol from the right, and top-rated radio hosts get away with calling a grown woman who takes birth control a slut. So while Zuck may have been accusing folks of lying if they maintain separate identities, the issue is far more subtle when seen from the fringe (or rather, the perceived fringe).

And because of handy features like single sign-on and integrations across social networks, it is increasingly hard to control data about yourself, as the EFF points out. One solution, from writer and panelist Rachel Kramer Bussel’s perpective? Reveal everything.

By blogging, tweeting, Instagramming and otherwise frankly being as public as possible, there is no longer anything to hide. It’s kind of like preemptively telling your boyfriend that embarrassing childhood story before your parents spill the beans. And of course, we have plenty of tools at our disposal to do this: Already, there are 600 tweets posted every second.

Blogger Twanna Hines pointed out, though, that this method is a privilege. For those with professional jobs who might not want their personal lives (in her context, sexual lives) broadcasted or who are concerned with safety, the online world can be a place of paranoia and fear.

The other choice? Reveal nothing. On a different panel, artist Zach Blas brought us back to the idea that identity is located in the face. His new project “Fag Face” disrupts the concept of biometrics by creating a mask that is an amalgamation of faces to protect your individual face and, therefore, your identity. His art piece could be considered a literal interpretation of a recent movement Blas talked about in the session, where people Like and Friend everyone, so that it is impossible to tell what they actually like or who they are friends with, thus maintaining anonymity.

That hits the heart of the discussion: In a world where companies are pushing people to expose everything, do we have to make a choice between authenticity and anonymity?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Corinne Day

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On Monday, Carrier IQ released detailed information about what IQ Agent can and cannot do, (You can read the full document as a PDF here), revealing its software can track information ranging from URLs to the frequency of application and SMS use, depending on how far down Agent is implemented in the OS. In its most embedded form, IQ Agent can even monitor radio-signaling data. Carrier IQ, however, vehemently denies that IQ Agent tracks keystrokes, contrary to the original findings of whistleblower Trevor Eckhart. This infographic, designed by the EFF’s Parker Higgins, shows keystrokes actually being logged in some devices with IQ Agent installed. We explain why that is below the graphic.

In the EFF’s blog, Peter Eckersley explains that the in some Carrier IQ implementations, keystroke data is being recorded in the log file, but that data isn’t sent back to Carrier IQ and the operators’ database. However, since other applications have access to that log file, that keystroke data could be making its way to other companies. Here’s Eckersley’s detailed but rather technical explanation:

Unfortunately, our current belief is that the layer-4 logging that has been observed, which goes to Android system logs, is in fact being inadvertently transmitted to some third parties and otherwise made available to other applications on the device. This happens when crash reporting tools collect copies of the system logs for debugging purposes. The recipients of such transmissions are unlikely to have anticipated receiving keystrokes, text messages, URLs or location information through such channels, but that can in fact happen on some of the phones to which Carrier IQ has been ported.

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Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

On the surface, these two events — one organized alongside the G8 summit on behalf of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the other put together by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) — look very similar. But the OECD has been trying desperately to put daylight between them, not least because Sarkozy’s event was roundly criticized (including by me) as a stitch-up between governments and corporate interests.

As a result, the OECD has been trying to put distance between its event and its predecessor: promoting the idea that its discussions are something more loose, broader and with less of a controlling agenda. Just the other day, it got the message across in a New York Times story  where OECD official Sam Paltridge explained what the point of the debate was.

“We’re trying to get the message across that if you hamper the flow of information, you are shooting yourself in the foot in terms of the economic benefits of the Internet. If someone comes along and threatens that openness, that’s a real problem for economic growth.”

It’s a fair point — and one worth making. After all, the system is coming under pressure from all directions. Dictatorships want their own levels of control. Businesses have a profit-based agenda. Developing nations don’t want to be at the mercy of their larger cousins. And many countries, notably Russia, are lobbying for greater centralized powers to control the network through “establishing international control over the Internet using the monitoring and supervisor capabilities of the International Telecommunication Union.”

(There’s a deep irony in the fact that Russia, which harbors a vast industry of online criminals and rarely helps international investigators track down fraudsters within its borders, is doing this, of course — but the point is simple: if control is centralized, they can use soft power and indirect pressure more effectively than with a fragmented system of governance spread across ICANN, service providers, national courts and companies like Google.)

The trouble with the OECD’s attempt to paint its event as a friendly, broad consensual approach to the future of the ‘Net is that it’s still largely invitation-only. Even those “civil” groups who were part of the talks — including established names such as the Internet Society and the Electronic Frontier Foundation — have poured water on it, announcing yesterday that they were withdrawing their support for the event’s draft proposals.

CSISAC, the OECD’s advisory group representing civil society organizations, says it cannot agree with the general tone of the communique put forward by the event’s organizers:

“CSISAC believes that the Communiqué which was presented today at the OECD’s High Level Meeting on the Internet Economy in Paris, could undermine online freedom of expression, freedom of information, the right to privacy, and innovation across the world,” it said. But it “was not able to accept the final draft’s over-emphasis on intellectual property enforcement at the expense of fundamental freedoms.”

It’s great that somebody is standing up here. After all, there are so few bodies out there that get a chance to represent the most important group that has a stake in the future of the network — the users.

As I’ve argued before, most of the decisions are left to unaccountable bodies who do not necessarily have your best interests at heart: governments, corporations, technology platforms, international bodies and powerful individuals. They are all subject to lobbying and vested interests, and they all have reasons for wanting to stop the Internet from growing unfettered.

The real problem is that, as the events in Paris over the last month show, all of this gets us nowhere. We’re stuck in the same arguments, again and again, going nowhere.

There’s so much going on in the online world, yet discussions about the future of the Internet come down to an ever-tightening, ever-more-shrill argument about copyright. One side says greater controls are needed to keep the creative economy afloat; the other side says it’s a Trojan horse. Let them monitor what you do in the name of protecting copyright, and soon they’ll monitor your every move. Whether either of those positions are accurate is up for debate, but the truth is that real users are simply left to be kicked around between opposing poles like a ball.

I don’t know whether we’ll ever get past this, but here’s a suggestion: The next time the great and the good gather in Paris, I think they should simply put aside the question of copyright and focus on what they can do to enhance the way that people — real people — use and access the Internet. Maybe then we’ll see a real consensus, rather than being stuck in our own version of Groundhog Day.

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Cord Cutting? Bah, Humbug! Magid Says Digital Video is Additive; new study says only 3 percent of consumers are even considering leaving TV subscriptions for other video sources. (MediaPost)

Silverman’s Rein-Ben-tion; Silverman’s Electus, formed last year following the executive’s much-maligned tenure at NBC, has emerged as a deal-making juggernaut in the online video arena. (Mediaweek)

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Anti-Piracy Lawyers Sued For Fraud, Abuse and Extortion; United States Copyright Group (USCG) finds itself on the other side of the gun. (TorrentFreak)

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However, under the new rules, it’s legal to circumvent such measures if you’re a documentary filmmaker or if you intend to use the material for “noncommercial videos.” The EFF, which was actively pushing for these exemptions, is celebrating them as a huge success on its blog, with the organization’s senior staff attorney Corynne McSherry quoted as saying:

“Noncommercial videos are a powerful art form online, and many use short clips from popular movies. Finally the creative people that make those videos won’t have to worry that they are breaking the law in the process, even though their works are clearly fair uses. That benefits everyone — from the artists themselves to those of us who enjoy watching the amazing works they create.”

Critics have long pointed out that the DMCA can be abused to essentially take away rights otherwise granted. In this case, documentary filmmakers and YouTubers alike have always been protected by Fair Use, as long as their videos fulfill certain criteria. However, exercising those rights was in many cases not possible without ripping DVDs, which forced them to break the law.

The new exemptions come only days after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling questioning whether the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions can be used at all to restrict use cases that would otherwise be perfectly legal. In its ruling, the court wrote:

“Merely bypassing a technological protection that restricts a user from viewing or using a work is insufficient to trigger the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. The DMCA prohibits only forms of access that would violate or impinge on the protections that the Copyright Act otherwise affords copyright owners.”

In other words: Ripping a DVD to make a backup copy is perfectly legal, ripping it to sell copies is not — at least based on this decision. Maybe the DMCA is finally catching up with reality, after all.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ToastyKen.

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First you have to figure out what kind of takedown you’re dealing with. In the case of today’s Downfall meme takedowns, both Corynne McSherry of the EFF and Ben Moskowitz of the Open Video Alliance believe that the videos were unavailable not because of a DMCA takedown notice, but because of YouTube’s Content ID matching program, which identified the Downfall footage being used and automatically took the videos offline.

There’s no clear way to determine what kind of takedown has happened to you, though, without carefully reading the language used on the takedown notice. So if the message on your video reads something like “This video contains content from [NAME OF COPYRIGHT HOLDER HERE], who has blocked it on copyright grounds,” then you’re dealing with a Content ID notice. You can also go to your YouTube account and look at your video listings — there’s a section that lists the videos which have been identified as Content ID Matches.

To dispute a Content ID removal with YouTube, click the View Copyright Info button for the video in the Content ID Match section or consult their help options. After some slightly terrifying legal language (“There are very few valid reasons for disputing a claim. Please review the information below, because submitting an invalid dispute could result in penalties against your account”), you will be asked to complete the below form.

Let’s say YouTube agrees that this was a wrongful takedown, and restores your video — but According to a YouTube spokesperson, once a user files a dispute the video immediately goes back online — but let’s say that the content owner doesn’t agree with that decision. Well, that’s when the copyright holder will file a DMCA takedown against you. To dispute this claim, you have to file a counter-notification, which McSherry said, “says to the content owner ‘If you think this is infringing, you can sue me.’ It’s calling their bluff.” If the content owner doesn’t file suit against you in the 10-14 days following your counter-notification, then YouTube will restore your video online.

The DMCA counter-notification process is a lot more complicated than protesting a Content ID takedown, though, and must include, per the EFF:

“Your contact information, a signature, a statement under penalty of perjury that the “material was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification,” and your consent to the jurisdiction of your local federal court (if the copyright owner elects to sue you).

Which is why the EFF recommends consulting a qualified attorney before filing one.

On the surface, the Content ID system does provide YouTube a means of working with copyright holders to protect their content while also providing video producers with a less formal process to defend their work than the DMCA counter-notice. But according to McSherry, while someone who seeks to file a DMCA takedown has an obligation to consider fair use issues before sending the notice, the same doesn’t apply to Content ID takedowns — which means that the casual striking of content is becoming a lot more common, with just one recent example being the removal of audio from a lecture given by Lawrence Lessig last month.

“In [the case of Downfall], I’m not convinced Constantin Film consciously removed these parody videos. Maybe they are trying to stave off unauthorized views of their IP. But when the ContentID net is deployed, lots of dolphins get caught along with the tuna,” Moskowitz said.

McSherry meanwhile commented that the EFF has a Takedown Wall of Shame that celebrates the worst “bogus copyright and trademark complaints,” and that the Downfall parody removals would join it soon. “These videos are clearly fair use,” she said.

Despite the fact that all this and more information is out in the open, and available both via sites like the EFF and YouTube’s own help section, Moskowitz doesn’t believe that many people know what their options are when it comes to disputing takedowns. “To YouTube’s credit, the process of reinstating a video after a ContentID flagging is pretty straightforward and clear,” he said. “But users are easily discouraged, and maybe even frightened. It’s also worth noting that ContentID is a para-copyright enforcement regime. Once the videos are reinstated, copyright holders can return with a proper DMCA takedown and force videos offline again.”

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