This post has one simple task: Calling out Vimeo in their ongoing policy that favors protecting copyright infringement on their platform. So let’s start at the beginning, a DMCA Violation Notice is what initiates a takedown request from a copyright holder to a platform or individual or company that has violated a copyright. It has specifically required formatting and must be sent to the right department or person. However, there are certain countries or institutions that go to extra lengths to make the process either impossible to complete or misinterpret the law so as to either endanger a copyright holder or create an obstacle that they are not willing to overcome, needlessly. The former you will find with companies whose servers exist in Poland, the latter is where Vimeo comes in.
Vimeo requires “[Complete physical address with Country code & Zip code]” as a copyright holder’s contact information. To be clear, there is some very specific language required by the DMCA that can’t be omitted or paraphrased; we know the bill very well. The DMCA states that all that is required is “Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact the complaining party” (Full text: https://www.congress.gov/bill/105th-congress/house-bill/2281/text). A physical address is one way to provide contact information, but it is an example of one means (an email address is another listed), and thus not required information. So while an email address for the copyright holder is reasonably sufficient information to contact them, Vimeo requires a full snailmail mailing address. Now, why is this an issue? Well, the full DMCA Violation Notice is given to the offender, in our case, a person or company that makes their money off of stealing someone else’s work and either charging for it or displaying it for web traffic that brings them money via ads (or more nefarious routes). So giving someone like this someone’s home address, which is the case with many copyright holders that aren’t big corporations, puts them in a level of doxxing or accessibility that could be detrimental to them in this digital age. How many things that are sensitive information do you have associated with listing your home address?
Anyway, after 7 back-and-forths via email laying out the above and noting that Vimeo is not following the law, and getting repeated replies of “you must send us the physical address or we refuse to process the violation notice”, the exchange was escalated to a “senior member of our Trust & Safety team who can better assist you with this inquiry”. We’ll let you know if we ever hear back. We aren’t holding our breath. But also, this is why Copyright Slap has other escalation measures that we use. Because the reason YouTube and Vimeo and Facebook and all these platforms don’t self-regulate copyright material is that they make money off of each view. Any takedown, no matter how clearly a violation of the law, cuts into their bottom line. Corporations don’t care about you, they care about their profits. I used to consider Vimeo the indie filmmaker’s friend, but I think that is just the front they put on to bring in customers.
PS Gen AI art “an image of a person in a crowd holding a poster that reads “Vimeo protects pirates” and add a pirate image to the poster as well” brought to you by a person standing backwards in a crowd and a sign that does not overcome the uncanny valley.
