The Alex Mauer YouTube DMCA Debacle

[EricKei]

Latest update from French (the attorney on Imagos' side), showing the formal complaint:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF1jZ4ompUU

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On account takedowns -- Indeed. I was referring to YT's summarily taking down the affected videos themselves.

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A brief overview of the DMCA and how YT deals with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGdap10YDk

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WED AM:

OK, now this is just getting sad. It turns out that Mauer rescinded all of her YT DMCA strikes...only to re-issue them (presumably one at a time) shortly thereafter. Ya see, something YT does these days (which may be a recent change) is to have it so that, if multiple videos get Strikes from a single source all at once, it just counts as one Strike. Thus, she redid them, apparently in an attempt to get them counted as multiple Strikes against each of the channels. So, now, instead of one or two channels at 2 Strikes out of 3, it's more like 50 or 60. This has now progressed beyond her intention of blackmail, and into the realm of pure malice. Sad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB272wsWfrg

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FRI AM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KER7...utu.be&t=4m48s

Mauer has been served with a Restraining Order requiring her to stop DMCA'ing anything related to Starr Mazer, and to do what she can to rescind the existing ones. It seems that she has hired, and soon thereafter, fired, an attorney in this Case.

On a side note, she's begun going after River City Ransom Underground, as well.

[Talon]

In other news, both Destructiod and surprisingly Ars Technica have royally dropped the ball with poorly-researched articles that appear to paint Alex Mauer as the victim in all this. Neither article made any mention of the 70+ frivolous DMCA claims, or the fact that Mauer made death threats. The comments on the Ars Technica article are better researched than the original author.

Destructoid first removed their comments section, then tried to claim their article was only an "opinion" piece. Ars Technica has now made, in my opinion, a rather tepid correction, with 1 paragraph referring to "questionable" behaviour by Mauer.

Good job folks

I'll not link to either article. See Sid Alpha's coverage on this:
The Ars Technica fumble
Destructiod drops the ball

[EricKei]

Yup. I saw both I just figured I'd been dropping enough links in a row here as-is, and their shoddy attempts at journalism kinda depressed me -_-

As mentioned above, Mauer fired her attorney almost immediately. Apparently, he didn't say what she wanted to hear. She is STILL referring to Valve and YT blocking her DMCA takedown requests as a glitch in either their system, or in their people.

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Friday night update:

French streamed for a couple more hours with updates and legal details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6DFhcaNQpY

He ended with 15 mins or so of him playing Starr Mazer: DSP (new soundtrack) (it's back on Steam)

The game devs for Starr Mazer: DSP were on-stream with him for a good chunk of time

Highlights:
- He officially has a TRO (temporary restraining order) against Mauer. She and her lawyer (during the very VERY short time she had him employed) sent a letter stating that she would be willing to leave people alone without the court order. French responded with (basically) "We need the court order to enforce this," which worked. Mauer promptly shitcanned her attorney.
- Mauer asked for a time extension to get her legal Responses in order (she has said that she has no idea how to do this), and to possibly get a new attorney. She has a month or so to do that, followed by another month to get ready for court. French says that this is an unusually long amount of time, and it looks like the judge may just be giving her enough rope to hang herself. French suggests that this may be a GOOD thing for his side -- gives him more time to dig up precedent.
- As an example of just that -- he went over a very very recent copyright case where the Plaintiff basically had no leg to stand on, and the judge gave him a legal/verbal asskicking...in formal judicial terms, of course.
- Meantime, she's gone after River City Ransom Underground, among others
- SidAlpha joined the chat in the last half hour or so, and was promptly set upon by someone (else) who has been threatening HIS channel. Expect a video response to that shortly.
- Someone in chat suggested that one of those wayward reporters you mentioned (unsure if it was Kotaku or ArsTechnica) has now been relieved of their position.

Saturday:

- SidAlpha's video is up. Apparently, a troll who goes out of their way to insist that a) their name will not be found online and b) they they are NOT Alex Mauer/not associated with her in any way, has made overt threats to issue DMCA claims/strikes against SidAlpha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcyVdDyOUX8
- Said troll has already issued claims against Mauer.
- This doesn't sound suspicious at all, now does it? People are obviously already suspecting Mauer to be the culprit here, in disguise, but only time will tell.

Sunday:

- SidAlpha on the case and RCR/Conatus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVBgzh8ndLA

Saturday (7/29):

- RCR is back up on Steam, so now Mauer arranged to have their YT channel shut down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTAYXV_Y5rM

[EricKei]

And here I was thinking (and hoping) that we'd have a month or two's respite from this before anything noteworthy came up. Seems not.

Mme. Mauer just recently issued a couple more takedown strikes (of the "3 and your channel gets deleted" variety, like what she did to RCR/Conatus) -- in such a way that MAY be a violation of her restraining order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVXvaVtuNJU

[EricKei]

Minor update -- Having been given a three two-month extension so that Mauer could hire an attorney and get her case properly organized, she has let this time expire with no apparent attempt to follow up. The Plaintiffs are now seeking Summary judgment as a result.


Linking to SM's summary video, as I'm assuming most folks have less tolerance than I do for hour-long streams (by French, the plaintiff's attorney) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYQqGkhdt-M

Update to the update -- About 3 hours after the Motion for Summary Judgment was filed and served to Ms. Mauer, she responded via email. Whether the judge accepts it is to be seen.

Update to....you know >_> Apparently, her email to the judge expressed Mauer's amazement that he would accept the Settlement -- which she and the defendant signed -- at all rather than shooting it down (...Why would he? Could he have??) -- And, in the course of so doing, she called the judge an "idiot." Way to go, Alex, way to go...

[EricKei]

It's over!!

Final (hopefully) update: IT'S OVER! -- Courtesy of a livestream from French which is running as I speak:

The case is being desimissed with predjudice (meaning, no more suits about this subject); Mauer has agreed not to pull these shenanigans anymore; the game has resumed development as of two months ago.

So, YAY!

[Ginger Tea]

Still not over as far as Sid Alpha is concerned, she and some guy who pulled shady shit of some kind have been trying to get his channel closed down due to community strikes about using private information.

In the guys case it's that he goes by his real name online, so he can't say StrongBad69 aka Dave Smith, it's Dave Smith all the way.

[EricKei]

Yeah, I saw videos about that, recently, as well.

Sad thing is, if Mauer pursues that line of action, she more than likely would not understand why it might be considered a violation. Remember, she openly told the judge (after it was too late) that she considered the settlement to be more or less a joke that was never meant to be in force. Guess she should have said something about that BEFORE she signed it...

On a side note -- The Starr Mazer guys have either set up a site, or are in the process of setting one up, which allows someone to be declared "associated with" Imagos, which would cause them to be covered by this settlement. French will be vetting the applications. This could theoretically include anyone Mauer has tried to DMCA over SM content.

edit: The judge responds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-ZYCXCwTl0

[catcul]

Unfortunately, she's at it again. She has issued 8 DMCA takedowns after agreeing to stop doing that.

[Gravekeeper]

...I may pick up Starr Mazer just out of spite.

[EricKei]

GK - I may do the same. It honestly looks like the sort of game I'd like to play, anyway.

CC - Thanks for the update! Not wise of her to do this -- It's a blatant violation of a Court Order o_O

[Talon]

...I may pick up Starr Mazer just out of spite.

I second the motion!

[catcul]

It looks like these false DMCA takedowns could mean that Alex Mauer has perjured herself.

Hopefully, she can be sent to jail for this.

[EricKei]

Possibly, as the same can be said of her initial DMCA claims that got all of this crap started -- but unlikely. Ditto for her actually *ever* having to pay any money. She has some well-documented mental issues, and the opposition was prepared for this possibility when they chose to defend the lawsuit. From what I've seen, they really only cared about maintaining their rights. I don't think they asked for much beyond court/attorney costs, anyway, some of which has been covered via crowdfundung (and at a greatly reduced rate).