First analysts, now YouTubers put you on blast. Do you A) take it on the chin or B) up fire up the DMCA-o-tron? Nikola Motor Company has demanded the removal of videos posted by the embattled electric vehicle maker's critics that incorporate its ridiculed promotional footage of its Nikola One truck. Last month, financial analysis firm Hindenberg Research published a report questioning claims made by the automaker and founder Trevor …
be aware, dmca has a simple dispute process. and this includes being able to ask for damages for filing false dmca complaints (false in this case because showing a few seconds of a promotional clip for satirical or commentary purpose is about as clear a case of fair use as there is.) Almost 0 people are aware this even exists but it does.
In another article, a YouTuber who was hit with a Nikola takedowns mentioned that process. The difficulty is that the challenge is litigated in court. Thus, a copyright holder with deep pockets can use litigation cost and delay tactics as a cudgel to make the fair-use challenge prohibitively expensive for the "strikee."
In a case like this one, by the time the issue is actually be decided it would probably be moot and all that money would have been wasted.
It unfortunately doesn't work that way on YouTube, the YouTuber is guilty until they prove their innocence - in that their video is removed until they can prove they have not infringed copyright, which can take a long time and for things like news channels, that means that the video is worthless by the time the issue is resolved.
For not categorising Hindenburg as a "short seller" as most of the generalist (and some of the financial) press have done.
I had never heard of them until this came out, then I did look them up. They have both long and short positions but I think what they do with their shorts is quite cool: they look for crooked companies and pounce on them. Basically they do everyone a favour. I read an interview with their founder recently, sadly I don't remember where, but the guy does know his markets inside out.
As for the alleged truck company, it was so patently obvious that they are a scam that one has to wonder what kind of diligence any of the investors might have done.
Diligence often oly happens when investors have some idea of what they are looking at, a lot of them have some spare cash, no technical knowledge and want in on the next big thing
Put Free energy, sustainable energy, green transport etc into a YouTube search qnd see how many scammers are flogging ideas that will never work, thee are so many there must be enough mugs with money to encourage them.
They found a market segment which is virtually unexplored: Trucks that can't move on their own. Nobody builds these, we don't even know yet that we desperately need them (marketing will explain that to us), so here comes a plucky little company and they're immediately shot down by the "move-by-your-own-power" lobby. Sad.
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A warehouse is NOT a container.
Warehouses are anchored to a foundation, and designed not to move. Not even if pushed downhill. Containers aren't anchored to anything[0], and are designed specifically to move, although it takes quite a push to get them moving without accessories. Even downhill, unless your hill is rather steep.
[0] Although I've seen them used as anchors ... There are boats anchored out in San Francisco Bay (and The Delta) which use sunken containers as anchor points.
This company started off with a concept for a gas-turbine powered hybrid truck, an obviously dumb idea which could never hope to compete with a diesel engined truck. Open cycle gas turbines, although a lot lighter and more compact than diesels are far ess efficient, more expensive, louder and require more maintenance.
After a while I guess they figured the above out so they pivoted to hydrogen powered, but of course they didn't actually have any solutions for the usual problems related to hydrogen.
And now they've pivoted to battery electric and couldn't even come up with the same level of functionality a scrapheap challenge team would manage.
They seem like legit con artists.
See below for the original pitch:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/future-cars/news/a29127/nikola-motor-hybrid-big-rig-natural-gas/
Yeah. How inept are their engineers that they can't cobble together a battery pack, motor and motor controller and make this thing move under it's own power? Hell I probably could have managed it for a few thousand dollars at most. Sure it wouldn't have been fast, had much range, or likely held together for more than a few miles, but it would have still been a damn sight better than just shoving it down a hill.
A guys got a strike because he had FOUR videos with the Nikola footage? Don't get me wrong, I do believe Nikola is vaporware at best, but the whole youtube "content creator" economy is frankly stupid. If you had to do four videos to stay relevant in the platform (which most surely are about the same but with different wording to be present in their subscriber's feeds) I'm more than happy to avoid consuming that kind of crap.
"If you had to do four videos to stay relevant in the platform (which most surely are about the same but with different wording to be present in their subscriber's feeds) I'm more than happy to avoid consuming that kind of crap."
I suppose after the third news report about when coronavirus started to spread around the world globally was aired, you just stopped watching news reports about coronavirus then?
"Users must fill out a copyright removal request form, and when doing so we remind them to consider exceptions to copyright law. Anyone who believes their reuse of a video or segment is protected by fair use can file a counter-notice.”
Oh, you remind them to consider exceptions to copyright law, but then you go and file a strike against the YouTuber anyway. So, in practice, you do bugger all to keep things fair because even if the YouTuber disputes the strike, that won't keep you from piling them on and, after three, he's down for the count.
Stop trying to make it look like you're being fair, YouTube, because you are clearly not.
Fair would be a DCMA claim is made, the target is notified, the target then chooses to file a counter claim or not. If not, then the strike is counted. If a counter-claim is filed, then YouTube (not a judge) analyzes the video and determines whether the copyright holder is justified in his claim. YouTube then notifies both parties of its decision, and if there still remains a dispute, everybody goes to court.
THAT would be fair.
No, but they did release a video of the truck moving, leading casual observers/press/investors to BELIEVE that the truck could move under its own power. Otherwise, why release the video? As a proof of concept that the transmission and wheel bearings work well enough that if you put the truck in neutral, it will roll downhill relying only on mother nature's largesse?
> Otherwise, why release the video?
It's the teaser for their new project about roads always heading downhill, no matter the direction. It's based on an older technology by dutch engineer Maurits Cornelis Escher.
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