But on Monday afternoon, Vimeo spokesman Kevin Turner said in an e-mailed statement that the video-sharing site had restored the affected videos after several users informed them that their videos didn’t infringe on the copyright. The majority of these videos have no relation to the actual film.
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DCMA takedown notices have been for years waved like magic wands by copyright holders and trolls to get some online content removed from existence.
Entura global, an anti-piracy firm representing Columbia Pictures, served Vimeo with takedown notices for a number of videos with the word “pixels” in the title. Entura has since withdrawn its takedown notice.
“Pixels – Life Buoy“, the work of filmmaker Dragos Bardac and part of a project for his degree at the National University of Arts in Bucharest, Romania, uploaded in 2010. This shotgun approach has the (presumably) unintended effect of also pulling offline a number of legitimate videos that are either called “Pixels” or use the forbidden word somewhere in the title of the video.
This is not the “Pixels” you’re looking for. Still, Columbia Pictures is apparently anxious that someone might have interest in pirating it, and is responding with heavy-handed DMCA takedown notices.
Unlike the Patrick Jean film on which it was based, Sandler’s film, in which invading aliens take the form of giant, 8-bit video-game characters, has been reviewedpoorly. When a content creator receives three of these strikes, their channel will be suspended from the site. Among the other creators affected were NeMe, a non-profit group that hosted a 2006 short film called Pixels that was produced on a “shoestring budget” and “infringes no copyright”, the group told Vimeo.
Here’s the real problem: The DMCA takedown process is a tool in the hands of cash-rich companies that have the ability to throw money at firms like Entura.
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Anyway, that’s amusing in and of itself, but what makes it more hilarious is that the OFFICIAL trailer for the film was actually removed and taken down by Entura along with the short film that served as the inspiration for Pixels as well.
