Google borders on insane with lacking any sort of manual support.
For example, when you are a paid G Suite customer - you'll need to dig hard to find their support number. Then you'll need to click several buttons making it clear you still need support. You also need to then generate a PIN used to access the phone support.
Similar story with Adwords - if you want support with that, you ain't gonna get it. It's a maze of FAQs and automated email responses with useless information.
If you manage to figure out the incantation to email an actual person, they're some kind of 1st-level support whose purpose in life is to piss you off so much with useless pre-canned responses that you finally give up.
Truely, incredible that they get away with it. Also incredible that they're OK with this given how much profit they make from ads.
By comparison, I've had excellent support from Bing Ads in the past - unfortunately they represent a much smaller number of impressions than Adwords.
Google is OK with it because they do it to small spenders. They have human account managers and a very visible phone number if you spend enough. Not saying I agree with it, but it makes sense.
I give then around $250/m. Obviously not a big spend, but I would expect to get support on the very rare occasions when I need it.
On the other side, Google semes very happy to spam me around once a once with offers of human help to restructure ads and so on. I took them up on this offer once, and it was a total waste of an hour - they were obviously going by script, and suggested changes that would increase my spend for no benefit. They also couldn't help at all with the one thing I actually wanted help with (increasing quality scores for obviously relevant content).
So they do have humans for the little people... but only to encourage you to spend more :/
Except legally, Youtube has no obligation to host these videos, and can take them down on a whim. So a lawsuit has no leg to stand on. While, on the other hand, they do have an obligation to take copyright infringement complaints very seriously - in fact, ContentID came from one of those "expensive lawsuits".
Facilitating copyfraud could invalidate their DMCA protections. Since they choose to provide monetary compensation based on accusations instead of evidence with a system they created, they would also be responsible for the system that they created facilitating said copyfraud that is knowingly taking money from legitimate copyright holders and giving it to false claimants. If any other publisher were to give money owed to a creator, say a book creator, this would be obvious fraud, as it is in this case. I think the case is stronger against YouTube than it will would initially appear.
> Facilitating copyfraud could invalidate their DMCA protections.
[citation needed]
> If any other publisher were to give money owed to a creator
YT doesn't actually owe money to anyone. Legally, they could host the videos, put ads and keep all the money. They distribute money because they want to incentivize content creators to upload stuff, but they do it at their discretion.
The creators uploaded their videos under the premise that they would receive a share of ad revenue. Given that creators retain copyright to the materials keeping all the money and continuing to distribute would seem problematic.
Damages for willful infringement are 150k per work. Pretending that they have zero obligations to creators is an .. interesting perspective that I don't think a lawyer would accept.
> legally, Youtube has no obligation to host these videos, and can take them down on a whim
Well, maybe law has to change.
For example, in my country if you offer a service to the public you cannot refuse a customer for no reason. It's intended as an anti-discrimination law, but also as a way to protect customers from abuse.
I think you don't understand what the anti-discrimination law means. That law lists reasons which you can't use to refuse service - and you're free to use any other reason to refuse service. This anti-discrimination law most probably does not force all businesses to provide services to everyone but only businesses with physical public presence.
Because it works the same in most countries, for a good reason. If they were from one of the very few (less than 10) countries where it's that wildly different, I assume they:
1) can't write on Hacker News (more likely)
2) would say it
3) would not use the country as an example of a functioning country
There are multiple legs for a suit to stand on, either against Google or the claimants. Bonus points if you registered the works with the corresponding IP department in your country (I think it's the Library of Congress in the US)
Talk to a lawyer
It seems people on the internet try to solve everything with buttons and emails and forget there's a world out there with laws and rights and everything else
Even then, the "big spender" level keeps shifting upwards. I remember back in the day it was $5k a month that got you special attention. Now it seems like only $10m+ clients get Google's attention.
In my experience it's not hard, maybe this is because i'm on a >50 user GSuite Business plan, but it goes like so:
1. admin console, click the question mark in the top right
2. "contact support" button is right on the front page
3. Choose live chat, phone, or email
4. enter your question
5. click "continue to phone" (can't blame them for trying to show relevant helpdesk articles first)
6. call the number and enter the pin
This is better than some customer support solutions, Many will bounce you back to the helpdesk homepage every chance they get, and the only way to actually get support is to email support@ or go to a special page (Tip: /hc/en-us/requests/new will work with most zendesk instances).
For example, when you are a paid G Suite customer - you'll need to dig hard to find their support number. Then you'll need to click several buttons making it clear you still need support. You also need to then generate a PIN used to access the phone support.