Alphabet-owned YouTube will be offering some video creators with up to $1 million in legal fees while the video streaming site has started using HTML instead of the widely-criticized Adobe Flash Player to play videos.
On Nov. 19, Thursday, YouTube unveiled that the company would be providing legal assistance to video creators who have had content taken down by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
The leading video-streaming site believes that some DMCA takedowns should not be done since the creator has followed the rules regarding fair use of content, according to TechCrunch.
During the legal process, DMCA will not be able to effectively remove the videos that are charged as violating laws about copyright infringement.
YouTube promised to show the identified videos at the YouTube Copyright Center aside from keeping the content available to the public.
While DMCA was created to supposedly fight online piracy, the automated takedowns of YouTube videos has been deemed as less about battling piracy and more about impinging the freedom of expression, competition, innovation, and the overall creativity of people.
From political ads to an innocent video of a baby dancing to a Prince song, which has actually reached the attention of the U.S. Court of Appeals, the DMCA takedowns have faced much criticism from the public.
The video streaming site hopes that content creators will not fear the DMCA's tactics since YouTube is ready to cover the legal costs if the company decides to support the video creator.
Likewise, YouTube's financial and legal support aims to let the community understand how videos are deemed as appropriate for DMCA takedowns and how people can create content that would fall under the "fair use" policy.
In other news, HTML 5 is poised to take over the role of Adobe Flash Player when it comes to playing videos on YouTube, according to Neurogadget.
The Adobe Flash Player has been facing a lot of software problems such as vulnerability to hacking and simply being too slow compared to HTML 5.
Now, HTML 5 is YouTube's default player engine since using the software allows for videos to load faster, for encryption to be more efficient, and for people to feel safe about data being given to YouTube.
In the future, the VP9 Codec utilized during the HTML 5 implementation on YouTube would be available globally.