Dear YouTube friends, can I have my account back?
here is the history of how I got 1in YouTube jail (my account suspended) for 10 days. I got my entire YouTube account suspended with hundreds of videos for less than ten videos which are interviews of me on French TV posted with approval from the network/production company. The reason why I put so much attention in it is that YouTube is the only place where the first 30 videos in the Seesmic du Jour history are, as the hard drive backup died. Lessons: keep a backup of all videos, post them in different places and keep the authorization from every channel when it is copyright material and they gave me approval... I understand copyright is a huge issue at YouTube and overal they were very reactive helping me but what I did not like is that I was considered guilty by default with all my videos not even accessible by me anymore. All ends well thanks all friends at YouTube or outside for your help.
-wrote the initial post on July 18th
-contacted a friend at YouTube on July 19th who told me to email copyright@youtube.com did it twice, each time got a "spam notification" email
-on July 20th I got a notification -automated- that the videos with problems where from TF1 (LCI I bet) instead of removing the videos and leaving the account up, the entire account is suspended
-on July 20th I get many of my friends trying to help introducing me to more friends at Google and YouTube, I thank them and keep going with my contact as he is dealing with the matter
-on July 21st, I got an email from the journalist who did the interview offering me to have TF1 contact YouTube to help me. I thank him. He says it is going to take ages.
-on July 22nd, I ask my contact at YouTube if I should email Chad directly, he says no we will solve it. Thanks for your help.
-on July 23rd, someone from my team has another contact at YouTube and asks him without telling me, his friend says he will see what he can do
-on July 23rd later I receive a detailed email with the videos under copyright. All interviews of mine on TV where I had approval from the TV Channel as expected. YouTube suggests I go and contact each of them to get approval, my account is still suspended
-on July 25th I asked YouTube copyright service if they could at least give me access or get me back my nearly 500 videos that are offline and I cannot access anymore. I am not asking to have them online on YouTube, just back to me as many were only posted on YouTube. YouTube says "Unfortunately, we are unable to honor your request because the account has been suspended for repeated claims of alleged copyright infringement" and I am really not happy about this.
-on the same day, I contact the two French TV channels who claimed the 4 videos, TF1 and Canal+ both reply in a day or so and say they will remove the claims as I explained I had approval from them to post these videos.
-on July 28th, the YouTube copyright service activates my account again as they received Canal+ retracting their claims. TF1 tells me they will also remove the claims.
I have posted hundreds of videos on my YouTube "channel", it was upgraded to a "partners" Channel and got hundreds of thousands of views (about a million views with blip.tv). In my account there are a few videos which are interviews of mine on French TV. For each of them I received an approval by email from the channel. In fact, one of them is the leading channel TF1 and I have been for years invited to their PR events as a blogger, I always asked authorization to post my interviews and always got it. Their PR department has actually been quite pleased that I talked about them on my blog. I guess they complained in a very broad way to YouTube and instead of trying to see what is going on in the accounts YouTube just took everything down. If I put myself in YouTube shoes I can understand it is difficult to manage account by account but I have no way of telling them as I post the videos that I have authorization.
What they do is they take down the entire account without even giving you the opportunity to remove the videos that are a problem (even though they are NOT a problem!).
YouTube friends, I am not evil, there is a lot of work in these videos and time, you are taking down my entire account of hundreds of videos just for about 10 videos coming from French TV where I had approval and do not give me a chance to login and remove them. Honestly, I understand I do not matter as you probably have a massive copyright issue to fight with, but you could at least let me get my videos back.
YouTube friends, can you help and put my account back online? I will remove these videos even though the channel gave me the right to do it. Thanks.
What's hilarious is that they suspended me while my last video is about Creative Commons... Oh and it looks like Mahalo has been suspended too.
update, I was told by a friend at YouTube to email copyright at youtube.com which I did twice. The result is below, impossible to email them and the alternative I found on their site is to fax or snail mail them...
update, looks like I am not alone having problems
| From: Copyright Service <copyright@youtube.com> |
caught by our spam filter. Something in your message set it off, and your
message won't be read. Please don't reply to this message -- we won't get
your response.
We want to hear from you, however, and apologize for this inconvenience!
Please try sending your message again, possibly excluding any strange text
or images. Sending your message as "Plain Text" is probably a good idea
too.
Alternately, you can send us a message using the contact form in our help
center.
http://www.google.com/support/
Original Message Follows:
------------------------
From: "Loic Le Meur"
Subject: suspended account
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 03:23:01 +0200
There are a few videos in it that are interviews OF ME on TV and I always
got approval from the producer and network to have them online, although
sometimes just in a spoken way, not signed.
Can you reactivate my account. If these videos are problematic please
remove them or activate my account and I will do it.
The hundreds of videos on my account are original content I created.
LLM
update I received this, my account is still suspended
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notified that a particular video uploaded to our site infringes another's
copyright, we remove the material as the law requires. If you feel a
content owner has misidentified your content as infringing, you may file
an International Counter-Notification or request a retraction of the claim
from the claimant.
#403 Canal+ en aparte impressions sur la victoire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Claimed by Canal Plus (email at Canal Plus)
370 - En Aparte sur le discours de Segolène Royal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Claimed by Canal Plus, (email at Canal Plus)
(french2/2) on LCI TV the future of video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
(email at TF1)
(french) LeWeb3 on French TV LCI by Cedrinc Ingrand
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
(email at TF1)
For more information, please visit the Help Center page about
International Counter-Notifications,
http://help.youtube.com/
Sincerely,
The YouTube Team
