And the latest in news of Youtube DMCA and how it sometimes doesn’t quite work as intended…

Microsoft have admitted that a bunch of videos that were recently hit by DMCA notices and taken down were in fact not infringing at all. The videos in questions came from bloggers FrugalTech host Bruce Naylor, and LockerGnome founder Chris Pirillo, who took to Twitter using the hashtag #Microstopped to protest the notices. The notices were filed against the videos purely because people in the comments of the videos were posting product keys for the game. Really.

Microsoft have at least apologised for the gaffe and are now taking “steps to reinstate legitimate video content and are working towards a better solution to targeting stolen IP while respecting legitimate content”. So credit where it’s due, at least they have admitted they made an error and are trying their best to fix it and have it not happen again.

However, it once again highlights the issue with automatic takedown where there’s little to no checking for the infringing content. Of course, it’s not possible to check so many videos by human either. It’s unfortunately a system left open to exploitation and a lack of penalties in place for those who wrongfully and sometimes maliciously take down content doesn’t help matters; but possibly this is the ‘best’ solution at the moment.

Possibly.