With questionable copyright claim, Jay-Z orders deepfake parodies off YouTube
So if I understand this correctly...<p><i>YouTube</i> took these videos down based on a copyright (DMCA?) claim. Which of course isn&#x27;t a court ruling or anything.<p>At the same time, no court would ever uphold this removal, because it obviously falls under &quot;parody&quot; which is protected. (Otherwise shows like <i>Saturday Night Live</i> couldn&#x27;t even exist.)<p>After all, the end result is no different from a really good vocal impersonator. In fact, a really good impersonator will definitely do better.<p>It&#x27;s disappointing that Jay-Z (or more likely some lawyer working for him) is abusing YouTube&#x27;s takedown mechanism this way.<p>But at the same time, I can see how this could seem particularly scary for a performer. After all, if you&#x27;ve spent decades creating a recognizable profitable persona... the idea that anybody with a personal computer can flood YouTube with fake lyrics that aren&#x27;t yours could feel terrifyingly like losing control of everything you&#x27;ve built.<p>What if some really nasty stuff went viral and became as associated with Jay-Z as the rest of his stuff? Stuff that did serious damage to his brand, which &quot;nobody could unhear&quot;?<p>I genuinely wonder if deepfake technology will actually result in new copyright restriction law. I.e. to make it a crime to produce unlicensed deepfakes that are genuinely indistinguishable to the average person, regardless of whether they&#x27;re parody or not. (While &quot;bad&quot; parodies like <i>SNL</i> will continue to be protected as always.)<p>I kind of feel like that&#x27;s going to have to be the outcome at some point in the near future -- in fact, as soon as really convincing yet nasty deepfakes of senators and representatives start making the rounds and spreading on Facebook, I suspect a new law will get passed <i>incredibly</i> quickly.