And, for what it's worth, UMG has stopped getting the video blocked, and says it will allow it to stay up for now. That backfired in all sorts of ways, and it sounds like YouTube told UMG to knock it off, knowing that this was not the intention of the agreement at all. Of course, in this case, it used it for an entirely different purpose, which was to try to censor this ad. In other words, due to the specific nature of the Vevo agreement - which was intended to move videos from YouTube to Vevo - UMG can pull videos that show its artists off of YouTube. So, I'm guessing that UMG basically used this loophole, which was supposed to be about taking videos off YouTube for the purpose of putting them on Vevo, and realized it could just "take the videos off YouTube" as long as they had UMG artists in them, without ever putting them up on Vevo. All the YouTube videos of UMG artists magically jumped over to Vevo. I know when Vevo launched, that was part of the deal. I believe that part of the Vevo agreement is that UMG gets to "pull" videos of its own artists from YouTube for the purpose of putting them on Vevo.
YouTube later changed that message to say it was a terms of service issue. This is new, in a sense, because YouTube has always suggested that CMS is for copyright issues - and, in fact, the original message on the video, did, in fact, say that it was a copyright issue. UMG claims that its agreement with YouTube goes beyond just copyright, and that it's allowed to pull videos for other (unnamed) reasons. That said, a part of UMG's explanation isn't entirely clear, but I have some guesses as to what happened.
That's a bit scary, but it suggests UMG more or less has a free pass to shut down certain videos it doesn't like without much recourse (well, beyond public ridicule). But seeing as Google has a big partnership with UMG to build and run Vevo, that's unlikely to happen. In theory, this also means that the only retribution that can happen for UMG wrongly taking down the videos of others is that Google cuts them off. This is kind of a weak excuse, frankly, and really calls into question how YouTube's CMS system works, more than anything else. So, on that point, UMG may very well be correct in its filing, that it's not subject to DMCA sanctions because it didn't actually file a DMCA notice. DMCA takedowns say that the video is "no longer available." It said "This video contains content from UMG, who has blocked it on copyright grounds." That's the message that shows up on CMS blocks.
If you're familiar with the details of the system (which it appears MegaUpload and its lawyers were not), it was actually easy to tell this was a CMS block by the message that appeared on the blocked video.
This last one doesn't get much attention and isn't that well known, but it's basically halfway in between the other two (loosely speaking), granting partners the ability to spot and block videos that aren't matched by ContentID, but without sending a DMCA takedown. And one is via YouTube's Content Management System. One is via ContentID, the automated system that matches fingerprints. There are a few different ways that content can be taken down off of YouTube concerning copyright claims. The key part of the company's legal response likely is accurate and probably kills MegaUpload's case. UMG is still being questionable, sleazy and short-sighted. But I think I understand what's going on here - and it's a very specific situation, where UMG sorta used a loophole - so read on for the details. This seems odd, and lots of people are screaming about some crazy clause that lets UMG censor anyone's videos. After the court gave UMG basically a day to respond, the company filed its response and made a rather surprising point: that a deal with YouTube/Google lets it take down videos it has no copyright over. The legal fight between Megaupload and Universal Music Group keeps getting more and more.