Yesterday I received an email from Facebook indicating that a video I’d posted to my profile was being removed due to Alleged Copywright Violations. A few years ago I received a similar notification from Youtube regarding a video I posted of Prince performing during the halftime show at the Super Bowl in Miami. I wholly understood Youtube’s request, and happily removed the video. But this is different.
Facebook seems to have implemented some sort of automated system to determine if there may be copywrite violations occurring – because the video in question is footage of my wife Laura, my daughter Talia, and myself pumpkin picking. Odd.
I’ll certainly push to have the video placed back on my profile page again as soon as possible, but in the interim I’ll post the video here. You decide – copywrite infringement or fun family video caught in a crawling algorithm incorrectly by the facebook team?
Facebook receives one big bad review from me on this one. I’m sure they’ll fix it – but thought I’d share and see if anyone else experience the same thing?
Here’s the email they sent to my attention:
Hello,
We have removed your video entitled “Talia goes Apple/Pumpkin picking” uploaded at 8:46pm October 16th, 2008. We did this because we learned that your video might include copyrighted material owned by a third party, such as a video clip or background audio.
If you are the copyright owner, or have permission from the rights holder to upload and distribute this material on Facebook, you may file a counter notice of alleged infringement by following the link below.
Please note that if you re-upload this video without filing a counter notice, or if you upload another video that infringes on the rights of a third party, our system will again remove the content. This could cause your access to the Facebook Video application to be disabled, or your Facebook account to be disabled.
To file a counter notice:
File a Counter NotificationFor any other questions, view our Help page.
The Facebook Team
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Christopher Dessi 
i recieved a same type of message from facebook people.
I thoght that some one had reported the video using the option report video(Is this possible),but if some one did it,can faceboook people delete a video on a single report without confirmation? How is that possible?
I tried to send a counter notification, but got trouble in electronic signature.
Can you help,if you have some knowledge about it.
Facebook receives one big bad review from me also on this one.
It’s the background music. On YouTube, moderators are beginning to crack down on people using copyrighted songs by removing the audio files. It’s ridiculous, what’s next, taze-ing me when I let someone else listen to my iPod?
Yes, it must be the background music. I had the same thing with a homevideo with a snippet of a song in the background (40 secs). I received the notification at the exact same moment the upload was done, so it must be an automatic notification. However I send the counter notification (the electronic signature is just retyping the name you already typed on top of the form) and they re-instated my video right away.