Open Letter to YouTube/Google from an Active “You-Tuber”

Introductory Note to this Blog Post: Here is the content of the open letter that I just wrote and sent to YouTube support. I hope that they forward it to the appropriate entity at their company to have a closer look and hopefully also act on it appropriately.

The general issue is Copyright Laws that they cannot change, but the way how they deal with the situations that are a consequence of IMO insufficient laws in an environment they were not designed for and weren’t even envisioned when those laws were put in place to begin with.

The Letter:

This letter was written in response to the YouTube Account Inquiry #572435220 regarding the termination of the YouTube account “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” on December 18, 2009.

For whatever reason did your email response from January 6, 2010 to my web inquiry about the suspension of my YouTube account “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” on December 18, 2010 show up in my Gmail inbox now, several months later. I was looking for it back in January and did not find any of it. This is weird, but a separate issue.

I am pretty sure that YouTube accounts and their content that were suspended 4+ months ago cannot be reactivated and recovered anyway, so there is no urgency to the situation anymore and my comments can be classified as detailed user feedback, suggestions and complaints from a long time and very active YouTube user who operates multiple personal and professional YouTube accounts for different reasons and purposes. My initial response and not so “nice” blog post about the termination of my account can be found at this URL. It uses stronger words, but might be worth thinking about nevertheless. Several of my former 2000 channel subscribers contacted me via other means to inquire about the unexpected termination of my account that I felt the need to publish a statement myself publicly.

Background Story

The YouTube account “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” was my personal non-commercial outlet to promote and appreciate the Canadian entertainment company “Cirque du Soleil”, inform other people about activities and events that involve the Circus, review related merchandise and comment on various issues that concern the company and are of my personal interest and may also interest other fans of the Circus like me.

In addition to the YouTube channel, I maintained content in written format related to the same subject on my personal web site. The main entry page to this content would be my “Cirque du Soleil Primer Article” at http://www.roysac.com/cirque and its several dozen subsequent pages.

I have no commercial relationship with Cirque du Soleil, although my activities online were noticed and appreciated by various employees of the company, including artists, but also some of their marketing professionals. They notified me about events and other things that might of my interest without any obligations for me to follow up on that and without offering any financial reward for my efforts. However, I met their Las Vegas marketing executive in Las Vegas in person once and was given a free ticket to one of their shows that I have already seen. This was more a sign of being grateful for my support and not an attempt to pay me off or bribe me.

My YouTube channel featured over 200 videos, which could be categorized as follows.

1. Teaser and Promotional Material to Cirque du Soleil resident and touring shows as well as related merchandise, such as show recordings on DVD and similar products.
2. Behind the scene, Making of, Meet the artist kind of mini documentaries that could also be considered “promotional” in nature, although the main target audience would probably be Cirque fans like me, who are also interested in the things that go beyond their elaborate shows.
3. News footage about special activities that involve Cirque du Soleil in general. This can be a multitude of things, from Guinness Book of World Records attempts to Involvements in their Charity work in organizations such as the One Drop Foundation.
4. Original content that I created myself entirely that include product reviews and also “news type” of content or personal opinions about non-product related things.
5. Indirectly related content about Circus arts at large and also content that fall under the categories 1-3 that involve the famous and now former director of Cirque du Soleil, “Franco Dragonè”, who owns today his own company and works independent from Cirque du Soleil, but in the same field.
6. This is probably the category that is the most problematic one and with only a few exceptions all videos that were removed my YouTube in the past belonged to this one. Appearances and special performances by Cirque du Soleil outside their own productions. This includes promotional appearances on national television or special mini performances to openings of special events (such as Oscars, Grammy’s, and Olympic Games etc.). I have a special page that concerns just such performances, which is part of my Primer article series, titled “Cirque du Soleil Special Events and Performances”

I also like to add, that many but not all of the material published on my YouTube channel was edited by me prior its publication to the YouTube web site and not just a simple reproduction of existing material from other sources. Several hundreds of hours of actual work went into the 200+ videos that I published to this Channel.

Although content in the categories 1-2 is also “copyright protected” by law, so is it much less likely that the copyright owner would make a complaint about its publication and distribution free of charge, since it was produced for this purpose in the first place. Exception might be the use in an environment where the copyright owner does not want to be associated with and feels it to be inappropriate, but this is obviously not the case in my example. The owner had knowledge of it and actually appreciated my distribution and publication.

Regarding the content that falls into category 6 I have to say that I was and are aware that the content that I used was not free, but I also did not and do not feel that I was really violating any laws or caused damage or loss the owner of the intellectual property that I used for it. Now I am not a copyright lawyer myself, but after doing some self-study online, during conferences in educational sessions and personal talks to copyright lawyers I learned that the fair-use clause that I think applies to this content is not that clear and not objective applicable as I would wish it would. I only take snippets, typically 1-5 minutes out of 1-3 or more hours of copyrighted material that is only about the Cirque and virtually never about the setting and surrounding where this appearance takes place, which is however mentioned in detail as much as I know as future reference and for historic archiving purposes. It is of educational and almost news like character, where the “news” aspect might be the one that could be debated the most.

Penalty 1 and 3 are perfect examples of this. I am not a regular viewer of TV talk shows like Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” on NBC or “Chelsea Lately”, which I never even had heard of before I learned about Cirques special appearance on it.

Penalty 1:
"Cirque du Soleil - Zumanity @ Jay Leno" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YVO0FD0RpQ
Removed due to a copyright claim by NBC Universal on 07/09/2008

Penalty 2:
"Cirque du Soleil - KA 1/9" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzisBtyhCt4
Removed due to a copyright claim by Cirque du Soleil on 06/25/2009

Note: I left this video out of this discussion, because there is a much bigger story to it, which would be too much to bring into this general debate.

Penalty 3:
"Alan Silva from Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity at Chelsea Lately" formerly at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3BMgsPwjdg
Removed due to a copyright claim by Comcast Entertainment Group on 12/18/2009

Since the laws is vague in this respect and my interest in this non-commercial, I did not and won’t file any counter suit if the copyright owner files a complaint with YouTube and is impossible to communicate with as an individual without commercial interests. I tend to make some attempts to contact the company who filed the complaint to sort out things using common sense and reasoning and come to a solution that serves our mutual interests, but that is unfortunately only accomplished successfully in very few of the cases where it happens.

I don’t mind to serve additional advertisement that benefits the owner or even change and extend the content description to include additional related information of commercial nature, including links to a target web site operated by the owner or an e-commerce site where related products can be purchased by viewers of the video.

This communication issue is something where YouTube/Google could provide some help.

YouTube would and should only act as a neutral relay of information without getting directly involved or extend on its legal responsibilities and risks. I think it would even lower the risks of YouTube, because it would show that the company is actively involved in solving conflicts that are located in a legal gray area and benefit both conflicting parties, save everybody involved time, money, bad blood and headaches and maybe even aids the formation of new partnerships along the way as a bonus.

YouTube does some of it already, but it is only a one-way street at the moment.

It offers to owners of the intellectual property already today the option to include additional ads and/or revenue share for existing ads served on Google property along with the content instead of taking it down completely, if the owner decides to do so. Examples are text ads in the format of video annotations with a link to buy the CD of the audio that is currently being heard by the viewer or extra ad units on the video detail page that promote other and maybe even related content of the copyright owner.

The Issue Today

Publishers are currently not offered anything to serve their interests and support their rights. They are treated, sorry my strong words, like dirt and 2^nd class people, whose time and energy is discarded as worthless and negligible, at the mercy of Google and large media companies to be erased without any warning at any time.

In the case of a complaint a publisher gets only very little choices and options, basically reduced to only one, which is to take legal actions themselves and better get a lawyer involved right away before anything might be done to do anything for them. Since the majority of publishers on YouTube are individuals who publish without commercial interests, this is actually very unlikely to be done. What everybody gets are rightfully first confused and then upset or even angry individuals that potentially harm not just Google’s business in the future but potentially also the business of copyright owner. All of this only because of something that probably does not harm anybody involved and most likely benefit everybody involved and may only requires some fine-tuning to make every party completely happy.

Suggested Solution

What YouTube could provide for example is the ability for a publisher to respond to a complaint via a web form, where he is able to state that he believes that the use of the copyrighted content does qualify to be exempted by a fair-use clause, which one and why. This would be non-formal and non-legally binding, entirely separated from any formal legal action the publisher could take. The publisher should also be enabled to make offers to the property owner, like the ones that I mentioned already earlier. Some of which could even be automated entirely by YouTube, such as the activation of additional Ad units on the video page or a supplemental video description block that can be maintained by the copyright owner.

Since the publisher needs to explain why he thinks fair-use might apply in his case, bogus claims could be filtered out fairly easily in most of the cases. The owner will also be forced to have a second look at the case and maybe learns about a previously missed opportunity at the same time that could be of even more benefit for him in the future. The number of actual law suits should in my opinion decrease as a consequence as well and the owner of the copyright also gets to know of the chance that a legal suit might back-fire and creates unnecessary cost for him and might even harms his business.

Google on the other hand adds another level of refinement to its system to better be able to distinguish between publishers who are in essence legitimate, but acting unfortunately in somewhat legal gray area und blatant violators of existing copyright laws that probably deserve the harsh and strict punishment exercised by YouTube in both cases today.

Along the way, you could also implement something where somebody who submits a complaint via your web complaint form gets the ability to retract this complaint, if things got resolved without any legal actions taken by any party, including the publisher. I still have a “Strike” in a different YouTube account that I manage where things got resolved directly between me and the entity who filed the complaint, even though that entity assured me that they tried to get a hold of somebody at YouTube to retract the previously filed complained that it will be removed from my account as a consequence.

See my case as an example.

A channel where over 200 videos were published over a period of 1 ½ years, with over 3.2 million views of those videos with over 5000 ratings and over 3000 user comments. The channel itself also had over 2000 subscribers. All wiped out from the face of this world, because of 3 cases where YouTube has no idea if there was potentially a law violated at all or if the publisher simply did not made the choice to engage in costly and time-consuming legal action, because of the lack of common sense to pursue this route and only option available to him at the moment.

Conclusion

Asking for 5 minutes of the alleged copyright owner’s time, who claims to own the rights and felt those rights to be violated to have a second look and option to resolve the situation in a civilized manner should not be too much in return for the preservation of hundreds of hours of time, unknown amounts of money, energy and love by the publishers and also the time spent by active members of the YouTube community who rate content, make comments, answer questions and help YouTube to rid itself of spam and illegal content.

Google cannot change current laws, which are in the case of copyright laws unfortunately ill-suited for this new environment and situation, which was not envisioned when the laws where put in place as they are to this date (which is my own personal opinion and subjective). There is work needed elsewhere. However, Google could make some more efforts to easy the tensions and reduce conflicts that result from these short comings and are also a result of their commercial services in form of a social video sharing web site called YouTube that pioneered the ways how audio-visual content of commercial as well as non-commercial nature is being consumed by millions of people around the world today and in the future.

I hope that my comments and recommendations make sense and be considered useful and realistic as I believe them to be and will make the life of everybody involved much less painful than it is today, if they should be followed through with and become implemented in the near future.

Regards,

Carsten Cumbrowski

Fresno, CA on April 8, 2010

Note: This letter will also be published publicly on my personal blog at RoySAC.com/blog.

That’s it. I hope I made sense. Comments and Feedback (also anonymously) are not only allowed but also encouraged, via the comment-form further down below.

YouTube Account CirqueDuSoleilGuru Suspended

 

Obituary Note for YouTube’s “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” Born: July 2008, Died: December 18, 2009 200+ Videos, Total video views: 3,244,071, Total ratings 5,240, Total comments posted to videos by users: 3,152, Almost 2,000 subscribers and hundreds of friends. CirqueDuSoleilGuru (aka YouTube.com/CirqueDuSoleilGuru) was a well respected and loved member of the YouTube community, not only because of the valuable content that he provided, but also because of his support and engagement beyond YouTube and the videos in the cause to support and promote the works of Cirque du Soleil. But the content was one important factor also. The average rating of all the videos uploaded to the account was a whopping “4.46” out of “5”. The sudden death was not only tragic, but also unexpected.  What’s now lost also with the death of CirqueDuSoleilGuru, represents hundreds upon hundreds of hours of work by me and other YouTube community members. All of which was destroyed and killed in cold blooded murder because of corporate greed, ignorance and disrespect of the average people, like me and you.

The YouTube Publisher Account (Type: Guru) “CirqueDuSoleilGuru” was suspended on December 18, 2009 by Google without notice or stating any reasons for taking such dramatic actions.

Two users and former subscribers to my channel already contacted me via other communication channels, like another YouTube account of mine or via private email and asked me what happened and how unhappy they are about this happening.

I honestly don't know what happened and why they suspended my YouTube account. I can only make wild speculations, but that is beyond the point.

What makes me mad is the fact that the account was in good standing, no warnings, had almost 2000 subscribers, 3.2 Mio video views, over 3,000 video comments and close to 300 videos and gets suspended without giving any reason or anything. No email, nothing. Support generally does ignore things like that. I know that from past experience, which made me a lot more careful, without success obviously.

It could be something that happened recently or something that happened months or longer ago. You simply don't know. Considering the status and activity (content) of the account, you would expect that they would at least tell you what the problem is that you get at least a chance to do something about it. Nope, hundreds of hours of my time and time of YouTube's users who commented on my videos gone. Not even worth a single email to them to let me know. The last email that I got was about a new subscriber to the channel.

The last Email that I sent to YouTube just a few days before my account was suspended was an alert to make them aware of a scam that was abusing their system to trick users into installing some malware on their computers. This was happening on December 14, 2009. I also blogged about that at my personal blog. Well, you can  see how grateful they are and how much they appreciate their users and how much they value the time that their users spend on producing and publishing videos on their web site.

Moving Forward

I have 3 other YouTube accounts, one has even more videos that my Cirque du Soleil channel had (but much less viewers and subscribers). I don't know if I will start a new Cirque related channel on YouTube. The videos are still up on my File-share for download. Many are also available on other Video sharing sites. I have not yet decided what to do. I am also thinking about not to do much with video sharing sites directly anymore, but host the videos myself on Amazon S3 and put them on a new web site that I would have to create for this stuff. Video sharing sites would then only be used to promote that new site (teasers etc.) and not depend on them for the actual content distribution that much anymore.

It would take a lot of time and eventually money as well. Things I don't have plenty of at the moment. To take the time, I would need to monetize it early on to cover my expenses and pay at least for some of my time. I know quite a bit about this kind of stuff and thus know that it is not so easy in this particular niche.

Regardless of this blog post, I have little hope that it will be resolved in a positive way, because YouTube/Google simply gives a crap about you. The traditional media outlet dinosaurs care even less about anything but how they can milk the consumer cow for hard cash as much as possible. With them is any discussion about the value of content and alternative options to come to terms with them a waste of time for everybody involved. For them is content, media and art nothing more (or less) than a bag of wheat, a commodity with a price label attached to it.

Appealing to their responsibilities in society falls on dumb ears, because they are not in business to do anything good for society, but to maximize profits for their share holders and for themselves.

I just watched yesterday a video about the history of YouTube (on YouTube) and had to laugh when they talked about the value and importance of "community" and the users who are active in it. Well, the video was not created by YouTube themselves, but some students. They obviously did not know better.

The thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that I finished 10 or so videos, branded with "YouTube's CirqueDuSoleilGuru" that I wanted to upload when I learned that my account was suspended. A "nice" Christmas present.

You could try to help and contact YouTube to ask them about my account as a caring and appreciative user, who liked the content of my channel. I have no idea, if that might trigger that they take a second look at it, but it is not hard to do, does not take too much of your time and who knows, might works. You are now the second user who contacted me because of that. Maybe others will start wondering too and could join in too. You don't have to do it of course, but I'd appreciate it really.

Doing What I Dared to Do

PS. I just used YouTube’s web form to request more information about the account suspension, which I also just found out about today, but have little hope to get anything back from there that would help in this situation, if I hear back anything from YouTube at all. So far YouTube/Google tends to follow the strategy of complete silence and ignorance when it is about unpleasant things they don’t want to cope with.

I did not want to speculate about why the account was suspended, but I found this post in Google Groups, which is interesting and says it all. There somebody stated it cold and clear that YouTube has the right to suspend any account at any time for any reason without any notice and that you are at their mercy from the moment when you created your YouTube account and agreed to their terms of services while doing so.

It also states that a typical reason for an account suspension is their “3-Strikes” rule, where a strike is ONE video where somebody complained about and it was removed without you fighting against it on the legal battlefront.

I had more than 3 movies that were removed from the account over the months and I stopped arguing with them in those cases, if there could be the possibility that the fair-use clause does apply. I did not involve a lawyer, heck no. I did all this stuff in my spare time as a hobby and to support Cirque du Soleil and the artists and not for profit. In some cases YouTube simply slammed additional ads over the video and shared the revenue from those ads with the alleged owner (or partial owner) of the content.

I also got contacted by companies and individuals about the content of some videos. A few even were unhappy at first, but then realized that what I was doing was not to do them any bad, but the exact opposite. Anger tended to turn into appreciation and acknowledgement of the work that I had done for them without them asking or compensating me.

Also Cirque officials contacted me through YouTube to send me information etc. in the hope that I would help them with the voluntary promotion of their stuff, if I liked it. This said, I doubt that Cirque du Soleil had any hand in this issue. You might would think otherwise, considering that the vast majority of the content at my CIrqueDuSoleilGuru channel was about or from Cirque du Soleil itself.

It’s all such a pain and waste.

Regards,

Carsten aka Roy/SAC aka Ex-CirqueDuSoleilGuru

Malware Threat Warning! Scam via Online Video!

This is not a prank! I Just stumbled across this when videos by the YouTube user  Kaleigh421112Trang suddenly showed up in my subscriptions (based on Keywords) for my CirqueDuSoleilGuru account.

I made the URLs that are not hyperlinked this way on purpose, to prevent any accidental harm to the readers. You can copy and paste the URLs into your browsers address bar, if you know what you are doing at your own risk. Don’t say that I did not warn you!

The user account in question was just created on 12/13/2009

By now this user has already 190 virtually identical videos uploaded that don't show much, except a message that the video cannot be watched on YouTube due to length limitation. See description for link to full video. etc. Here is a screen shot of it.

E.g. Circus Circus Part 1/13 Online*:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5kYgqUX0rE

*This video was actually already taken down by YouTube, maybe because I flagged it as Spam from an established YouTube account with almost 2000 subscribers. But most of the other videos are still up as I am writing this. For example this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJj-PkdLqac  (which I also reported so it is probably being removed shortly as well)

The videos that are still up all include a short description and a obscured link with tracking code embed via the redirection service TinyURL.com. In the example video that I mentioned before and reported to YouTube already the URL was: http://tinyurl.com/ycksuwy&499420166

Here Comes The Scammy Part

That URL redirects to: http://www.onlinemoviedb.info/watch.php?vid=Dreaming_in_Circus

The page states that a plug-in must be downloaded to watch the video. It includes multiple links where you are supposed to download the needed plug-in from, such as this one (Warning! Do not Download and Execute)!

http://preview.licenseacquisition.org/48/1056428137.51143/vlc-1.0.1-win32.exe

The referred to EXE “vlcsetup.exe” is 328,984 bytes in size. The file name is implying that the plug-in is related to the freeware VideoLan Video Player, what it is not.

I downloaded the executable without starting it. I then scanned it with McAfee Viruscan, which did not detect anything yet. So I uploaded it to VirusTotal.com, an online on-demand virus and malware scanner, which scans files using over 50 different scanners such as McAfee, F-Secure, Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Panda, PC-Tools, Sophos, TrendMicro and others.

I wasn’t the first one who checked the file obviously, because a report was already available*, which gives it a 37% probability that it is infected. It is probably new and I bet the probability will increase as I write this (as do the uploads of virtually identical videos with the same purpose to YouTube).

Here is the link to the report from VirusTotal.com.

 

* VirusTotal.com knows that it is the same file as somebody else already submit based on the file size and file name, because that could be faked easily. It uses so called checksums that are generated from the entire content of the file. The Checksums for this file are for example: MD5   : bead2d46d08ff080ac4a6d0908922230 SHA1  : 0697fe4257419efc39921c9da71c8339cde3f463 SHA256: 6e62e219e38c90562a59851b72f2929000b599a6ddd0f2482c7b1acda0a8ce9d

More Hints and Scale of the Problem

Here are more accounts on YouTube. Just to name a few (Each with hundreds of videos each):

http://www.youtube.com/user/Moon230377Arletta
http://www.youtube.com/user/Dirk891479Pasty
http://www.youtube.com/user/Kathy664276Dominica

There are most certainly a lot more, but they should be easily be detected. Look for new users that have hundred+ videos of 9:58 minutes length and a TinyURL.com link in the video description.

All of those Users always have video listing disabled (does not show anything on the user’s home page)

The target website itself lists tons of copyrighted movies on its homepage.

Also suspicious, the detail page of every movie has the same comments to give the impression that people watched the movie etc. 

Here are the fake comments

Looploop
3rd link worked perfectly and fast mirror. I liked it. Thanks for the upload! 

Hotjamz
Yep that was a good one 5/5 

Monstersb
didn't think it was all that,but it was good.7/10.great qualit tho 

DazedNConfused
How do I watch this video? 

DazedNConfused
Never mind. I just downloaded the plugin and the video worked flawlessly! 

This Is Just The Beginning

The uploads are done on a large scale and with sophisticated scripts to dynamically create typical titles with matching descriptions in YouTube. YouTube also has a dupe checker that identical videos cannot be uploaded by the same account (at least used to be it that way). But changing a single byte is already enough to get around it. That’s probably all these guys did, because the videos appear to the human viewer identical. They also show all the same Thumbnail, which should raise suspicion by any user of YouTube with some working brain cells left (That is how I got suspicious). The hackers are obviously not sophisticated enough though, because they did not seem to have taken into account the problem with identical thumbnails that will appear in the box with “more videos by …” but also in the “related video box” where I got the other user names from. Because the videos are similar in some fashion, YouTube thinks that they are related.

It is very very hard to produce identical thumbnails for videos that are not identical. In the early days YouTube used frames that could be predicted in advance (and was used for manipulations by users). This isn’t possible today anymore.

I would not be surprised, if similar scams will pop-up in the future more and more, also on other smaller social networks and video sharing sites. Those scams will also get more and more sophisticated and users will be vulnerable until their Antivirus/Antispyware software will be updated to detect those new threats that will emerge and then disappear again quickly.

The only real protection is up to the user himself

NEVER download and install a plug-in where you don’t know and trust the source. Installing a malicious plug-in is like unlocking the door, disabling the alarm and then open it to invite the burglar in to have a look around and take whatever he likes.  Almost all video sharing sites use FLASH for the video playback. The Flash plug-in should only be downloaded from the Adobe.com web site (and not from anywhere else).

http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer

Some apps might use the Shockwave plug-in, also from Adobe, which can be downloaded and installed via

http://www.adobe.com/go/getshockwave

Although I have not seen used with online video yet, web applications might also use JAVA by SUN, which can also be downloaded absolutely free of charge (like the FLASH and SHOCKWAVE plug-ins) from the web site that was created by SUN just for this. The URL is: http://www.java.com/download

Be Careful, without getting paranoid. Use common sense and caution where appropriate. Unfortunately not everybody on the Internet has the safety and happiness of the users in mind.

Be Safe!

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

Extortion and Trickery Practices of American Banks Exposed

Note: I only write about social and political issues at my personal blog, if I think that I must. This article qualifies as such. It also seems to be an issue that only applies to Americans and not other western or developed countries as far as I know. Correct me on that one, if I should be wrong about this assumption.

I recently watched the 56 minutes long episode “The Card Game” of the PBS documentary series “FRONTLINE”, which premiered on American television on 11/24/2009, investigates the massive US consumer loan and credit card industry and its abusive behaviors in the past and present in an unregulated marketplace where anything goes. The video recording of this documentary can be watched online at the PBS.ORG web site.

I was aware of many of the aspects of the American loan industry and surprised that such predatorily behavior that was demonstrated by all US Banks and other private enterprises was perfectly legal in this country. I was initially shocked when I learned about those realities and still disgusted by it and by anybody who argues that this is okay and perfectly normal in a free and market driven economy, especially if those individuals claim that the those cases which might be considered excessive are only exceptions and not created intentionally for profiteering by those companies and banks that cause them.

Some of the facts from the documentary were even new to me and disgusted me only more and at the same time aware of the fact that there is a pressing need for change, especially in times like these. I highly recommend watching this video. I decided to write this post to extend on that and also raise the awareness that most other free countries in the world already did something about the problem hundreds of years ago.

Some people describe the industry as the “Wild West”, but the Wild West was never that wild in comparison. The only thing I can think of to compare it to is defined as “organized crime” and generally known as criminal acts committed by a “Mafia”. Many members of the Mafia served and serve prison sentences for crimes that dwarf the, for the average JOE indistinguishable from each other, but perfectly legal practices (under U.S. laws) committed by the banks. There is no doubt that those practices are considered “immoral” and worse by the vast majority of people in the United States and are outright illegal in most other western countries, including Great Britain and my own native country of Germany.

These practices have a specific word to describe them in the German language, called “Wucher”. I did not know if there existed a word in the English language for this as well and only learned about it recently also. The word “Usury” seems to be that word. The Britannica Concise Encyclopedia defines “usury” as:

Usury

In law, the crime of charging an unlawfully high rate of interest.
In Old English law, the taking of any compensation whatsoever was termed usury. With the expansion of trade in the 13th century, the demand for credit increased, necessitating a modification in the definition of the term. In 1545 England fixed a legal maximum interest, a practice later followed by other Western nations (with the exception of the United States*).

*added by author

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines usury as:

English: usury = lending money at exorbitant interest rates. archaic interest at such rates.

Those definitions are in my opinion too short and also too narrow to capture the full meaning of the German word “Wucher”. So I will try my best for my own definition to describe it to you.

Usury describes the offering of a service and demanding in return for a clearly excessive compensation, exploiting a situation when the party this service is being offered to is the most vulnerable and typically left without another choice with the exception of extreme and typically immediate destructive ones. It could also be an offer where the actual compensation the party that became victim of usury agreed to was well hidden in the agreement itself. The victim would have been unaware of it during the time when the agreement was made, not consent with the fulfillment of its obligation when it becomes apparent, and never had knowingly agreed to those terms when the contact was sealed.

Usury is a legal exception to a free economy that is in general market driven without government interference for an exceptional situation that is clearly located outside of the typical free market environment. Usury could be described as the financial world equivalent of extortion, fraudulent deception or trickery committed in the real world.

Contractual agreements imposed by one party on another that could be described as Usury are also often the attempt by one party to “lock in” the other one in a vicious and destructive cycle to extort the maximum amount of profit from the party that fell victim of a usury (typically exceeding the value of the original services that was provided by the first party many times over) and in many cases leading to a point where the victim becomes unable to fulfill the obligations demanded by the agreement.

The setting of a maximum interest rate for a loan transaction is one method to prevent usury, but not the only or even best option, because it would not protect against usury committed outside of loan transactions, but the same premise and outcome.

German business law as it is defined within paragraph 2 of § 138 (article 138) with the BGB “Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch” (German Civil Code) describes “usury” as follows:

durch das jemand unter Ausbeutung der Zwangslage, der Unerfahrenheit, des Mangels an Urteilsvermögen oder der erheblichen Willensschwäche eines anderen sich oder einem Dritten für eine Leistung Vermögensvorteile versprechen oder gewähren lässt, die in einem auffälligen Missverhältnis zu der Leistung stehen.

Quote taken from the German Language Wikipedia entry for “Wucher”

It roughly translates to English (which wasn’t easy to do):

“that someone through the exploitation of the position of constraint, the inexperience, the lack of judgment or the considerable lack of will-power of somebody, takes advantage for one selves  or a third  party  intending or not preventing to gain material advantages for a  reward or  financial promises that are strikingly disproportionate to the value of the provided service .”

Mutual agreements or contracts that qualify as usury are automatically void and never considered valid or binding from the start, even if they were signed by both parties. Since the definition does not include any specific figure or exact definition of what is “disproportionate” in return for any given service, courts normally have to decide that on a case by case basis, evaluating all objective and subjective arguments from both sides, but the general “rule of thumb” is that in virtually any case a usury is committed, if the required compensation for a service is in excess of twice the value of the original service provided by the usurer.

A $30 “overdraft fee” that is charged for a transaction that exceeds a person’s account balance by $15 or less and covered by the “overdraft protection service” provided by the bank is a clear case of usury. As stated already, it is irrelevant if the person agreed to the terms of this service or not. Making the customer aware of the fee alone is not enough, because the customer is typically unaware of all the facts required to be able to predict the invocation of the service due to the lack of transparency of the underlying transactions that trigger it. Unexpected freezing of funds for some reason, delayed processing of transactions unfavorable to the customer or expedited processing of transactions favorable to the bank, non-chronological booking order are often the cause for the unintended activation of service by the customer thus preventing the customer from avoiding it in the first place.

Usurers could even face civil and criminal charges in Germany, risking imprisonment, depending on the amount of damage that was caused to the other party as a direct or indirect consequence from the usury.

By German law, ALL CEO’s of US Banks would most likely have to spend long prison terms for all the damage caused to people as a direct consequence of the usuries committed by their banks. The practice of so called “payday loans” (short term cash advances offered for a high fee) is beyond doubt usury and thus illegal in Germany by definition already, even though the fees are much lower than twice the amount loaned when only looked at the nominal values of those transactions. However, the transaction is for the average person indistinguishable from a “loan transaction” as defined by US laws, even though it does not qualify as such in the US legal system. The standard terms for the calculation of due return payments of loans are defined by the annual interest rate applied to the loaned amount. In the case of payday loans, this annual interest rate is typically over 400%, which is far beyond 200% of the “thumb rule”.

The PBS documentary shows that recent legislation made by the Obama administration was incapable to really address the issue, changing virtually nothing and certainly not the behavior, not to mention the attitude, of the American banks to protect the free economy from such predatory behavior.

If you ask a criminal who was sent to jail for committing crimes like extortion or trickery, they will most certainly claim their innocence, trying to convince you that their victim had either a choice (in the case of extortion) or they should not have been blamed for the lack of comprehension, knowledge or intelligence in the case of the victims of their trickery and deceptions. Compare this to arguments made by PR (Public Relations) agents and lobbyists for the banking industry and you might find them to be striking similar to each other with only one major difference. In the first case they come out of the mouth of a convicted criminal wearing a “striped” prison uniform and in the other out of the mouth of a well groomed person wearing business attire.

A law that protects honest people and businesses from usury is just as bad in a free market economy (or necessary) as criminal laws that protect the same honest people and businesses against extortion and trickery, and what is wrong about those? Are they limiting your personal liberties and freedom? The criminal who was sent to prison because of them probably would agree, but do you?

Cheers!

Carsten Cumbrowski

Feel free to comment or express your own opinion about this subject via the comments section below. You can do this anonymously, if you don’t want to state your name. I will publish any comment unless it is nothing more than a personal attack of any other person (including myself)  without any factual proof to backup any defamation attempts, off topic spam or stuff that is illegal and could create any legal issues.

Berlin Wall Video Copyright Issues

Here is now another great example for the current copyright laws being not only outdated and not fit for today’s world we live in, but also how those archaic laws are actually bad for society as a whole.

Let me start from the beginning…

The Beginning of the Story

I was contacted by Emily B. Hager on Saturday, October 31, 2009 via email and via phone.

Emily B. Hager is a video reporter for the New York Times (yes, THE NY Times). She was working on a last minute video  called “The Man Who Opened the Gate”, which was published on Monday, November 2, 2009, together with the article by Roger Cohen titled “The Hinge of History” with a supporting video.

The article is about Harald Jaeger, the Boarder Guard at the border crossing “Bornholmer Strasse'” who opened the gates on November 9, 1989 to let people pass from East Berlin to West Berlin in violation of a direct order by his superior. Emily came across my video “Moments in History – The Fall of the Berlin Wall”

I was contacted regarding this video by many others before that and already had posted an article where I addressed many of the very similar questions that I received regarding my video. Emily found the video of mine at the Internet Archive, where I also posted it, among other sites, like YouTube, Vimeo, my blog and over half a dozen other sites. I told her that I have plenty of video footage that she was looking for, mostly from a German Documentary DVD by Spiegel-TV titled "Spiegel TV - Der Fall der Mauer⁵" (ISBN #: 3-937901-04-3), which I purchased among other Documentary DVDs about the Berlin Wall and East Germany.

I agreed to send her the footage from the events around checkpoint Bornholmer Strasse in original DVD quality MPEG format and also provided her with the contact information at Spiegel to clarify the legal situation with them regarding her commercial use of the footage for the New York Times website. I stated in my previous post already that I am not sure about the copyright situation regarding the content that I used myself in my own video, not the other general footage about this historic significant event.

I asked her to let me know about Spiegel’s response regarding the legal situation of the content that they used in their documentary  in return for me helping her with her own video. I provided her with the contact information that I found been printed on the back of my original documentary DVD.

Spiegel TV
Brandstwiete 19
D-20457 Hamburg
Telefon: +49 (0)40 - 301 08-0
Fax: +49 (0)40 - 301 08-222

Emily obviously finished her video on time, using some of the footage that I provided to her to be published only 2 days later on the NY Times website. I did not hear from Emily for a while after that, however, two days after the video was published at the Times, on November 4, 2009, I received an Email (in German language) from Stephanie Kröner, from the Legal Department at Spiegel TV GmbH in Hamburg, which was basically a Cease and Desist letter, demanding that I delete my Moments in History video at the Internet Archive. They stated “that they found out to their surprise” about my video, no mention of the New York Times.

Original Email from Spiegel TV

(in German language only, sorry)

From: stephanie_kroener AT spiegel-tv DOT de
ent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 1:37 AM
To: Carsten Cumbrowski
Cc: Ulrich_Meyer AT Spiegel-tv DOT de
Subject: Rechtsverletzung SPIEGEL TV Materialien

Sehr geehrter Herr Cumbrowski,

mit Überraschung mussten wir feststellen, dass Sie unter der Internetadresse http://www.archive.org/details/MomentsInHistory-TheFallOfTheBerlinWall1989
einen Filmbeitrag zum Abruf bereitstellen, ohne über die hierzu erforderlichen Nutzungsrechte zu verfügen. Die Rechte an einem Großteil der dort verwendeten Filmausschnitte stehen ausschließlich der SPIEGEL TV GmbH zu.
Wir weisen Sie hiermit ausdrücklich auf diese Rechtsverletzung hin und fordern Sie zur sofortigen Löschung der betreffenden Filmmaterialien auf. Die Löschung der kompletten Materialien hat bis spätestens zum

        07. November 2009

zu erfolgen. Sollten die betroffenen Materialien bis zur gesetzten Frist nicht vollständig entfernt worden sein, sehen wir uns gezwungen, die notwendigen zivil- und auch strafrechtlichen Schritte einzuleiten.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Stephanie Kröner
Rechtsabteilung
SPIEGEL TV GmbH
Brandstwiete 19
20457 Hamburg
Germany
Telefon 040.30108-0
Fax 040.30108-428
http://www.spiegelgruppe.de/

SPIEGEL TV GmbH
Sitz und Registergericht Hamburg HRB 46 100
Geschaeftsfuehrer: Fried von Bismarck, Dirk Pommer, Cassian von Salomon

Because of the very unusual timing I thought that Emily was able to contact Spiegel TV, that they own the rights for at least some of the content that I used in Video and that they did not like my video very much. I deleted the video at the Internet Archive the same day and responded to Stephanie and Ulrich Meyer at Spiegel TV, who was CC’ed in the Email that was sent to me, telling them that I was doing what they demanded.

I did not delete the entire entry at the Internet Archive. I only deleted the video there and updated the video description with some biting remarks regarding the fact why the video is now missing. :)

Since it appears that some of the footage that I used is protected by copyright, I admit that the Public Domain Video section is not the right place for my video, because it does not consist of only Public Domain video footage as I thought.

I included in my response to Spiegel TV more than just the acknowledgement of the fulfillment of their demand, because the story has a little bit more to it than just my video at the Web Archive and I was sure that Spiegel TV had no idea about that.

My Email Response to Spiegel TV

Here is my full Email response (also in German Language, but don’t worry, I also provide the content of my email in English language with additional comments further down below).

From: Carsten Cumbrowski
Sent: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 2:47 AM
To: stephanie_kroener AT spiegel-tv DOT de
Cc: Ulrich_Meye AT spiegel-tv DOT de
Subject: Re: Rechtsverletzung SPIEGEL TV Materialien

Sehr geehrter Spiegel TV,

Ich habe das Video vom Internet Archive auf  http://www.archive.org/details/MomentsInHistory-TheFallOfTheBerlinWall1989 entfernt, wie Sie es von mir verlangt haben.

Damit habe ich ihrer Aufforderung Rechnung getragen. Mit dem offiziellen Teil aus dem Weg, moechte ich gerne ein paar persoenliche Kommentare zu Ihrer Email machen.

Kommentare und Fragen

• Sie mussten feststellen? Bloedsinn. Emily B. Hager von der New York Times (oder ihrer Rechtsabteilung) hat sie kontaktiert, dank mir. Bitteschoen, (nicht mehr) gern geschehen.
• Da Urheberrecht fuer einen Teil des verwendeten Materials existiert ist das Internet Archive eh der falsche Ort zur Veroeffentlichung.
• Damit ist das Video aber nicht aus der Welt. Nach Amerikanischem Urheberrecht, was bei mir Anwendung findet, da ich schon lange nicht mehr in Deutschland angemeldet bin, da ich meinen Wohnsitz heute in den USA habe, faellt mein Video sehr wahrscheinlich unter die "Fair use" Klausel, die es erlaubt Teile eines urheberrechtlich geschuetzten Werkes unter bestimmten Bedingungen zu verwenden.
• Ich finde es enttaeuschend von Ihnen auf diese Art und Weise zu hoeren. Es handelt sich immerhin nicht darum, dass ich Ihre DVD zum Download bereitgestellt habe, sondern nur ca. 5 minuten des Materials (von ungefaehr 2 Stunden) fuer ein persoenliches Video ueber wichtige Ereignisse der deutschen Geschichte benutzt habe. Ich habe auch keinerlei kommerzielle Interessen mit dem Video verfolgt, nicht einmal indirekt.
• Dieses Material duerfte meiner Meinung nach nicht einmal durch Copyright geschuetzt sein, da es sich hierbei um wichtigen Belege von bedeutende geschichtlichen Ereignissen handelt. Nicht-kommerzielle Nutzung zum Zwecke der Bildung und Aufklaerung sollte nicht durch kommerzielle Interessen unterbunden und zunichte gemacht werden. Da es sich hierbei offentlichtlich um eine Nachlaessigkeit des Gesetzgebers handelt, sollten Sie stattdessen die soziale Verantwortung uebernehmen, falls denn Spiegel TV GmbH ein Interesse daran hat, im Interesse der Gesellschaft als Ganzes zu handeln.
• Ich wurde von verschiedensten Personen, Publikationen und Gesellschaften kontaktiert wegen meines Videos. Koennten Sie mir wenigstens den Gefallen tun, mir eine Liste zu schicken mit den verwendeten Video Material fuer die DVD "Der Fall der Mauer" (ISBN 3-937901-04-3) und des Bonus Materials und wer dazu Urheberrechte besitzt oder nicht? Ich weiss zum Beispiel das einiges des Materials um 1961 von Universal Studio's Newsreels stammen, die sich seit laengerem in der Public Domain befinden. Ich plane naemlich noch weitere Videos ueber dieses Thema zu erstellen und es ist unheimlich schwer zu ermitteln wer was fuer Rechte oder nicht besitzt.
• Ausserdem, was waere notwendig, um das verwendete Video Material fuer die nicht-kommerzielle Nutzung durch Andere zu "clearen"? Zum Beispiel einer Regierung, die das Video fuer die Einweihung einer Mauergedenkstaette verwenden moechte, oder einer oeffentlichen non-profit Kulturverantstaltung zum anlaesslichen Jubilaeum des Mauerfalls in Berlin bei der Deutschen Botschaft in einem anderen Land? Das sind nur zwei Beispiele von vielen, die hier nur zur besseren Erklaerung meiner Frage dienen sollen.

Ich hoffe das Sie sich meine Kommentare einmal durch den Kopf gehen lassen und das Sie mir trotz alledem auf meine Fragen antworten werden.

Vielen Dank. Liebe Gruesse aus Kalifornien.

Carsten Cumbrowski

Geboren April 1974 in Ost Berlin

e: MY EMAIL ADDRESS

I was making them aware of the fact that I believe that they only became aware of my video at the Internet Archive because of the inquiry by the New York Times reporter that I was sending to them. I also expressed my disappointment to hear from them like this. If they had send me a friendly letter without legal threats telling me that they own rights to some of the content in my video with the request to remove it from the Internet Archive, which makes it appear to be public domain, that would have done the trick as well.

I also stated that this does not make my video disappear from the face of this world, because of my publication of it elsewhere. However, I believe that my video publication at those other locations should fall under the fair-use clause (or exception) of the U.S. copyright law.

I made them aware that the laws of the United States and not Germany apply to me even though I am a German citizen, because I am living permanently in the United States now and not in Germany anymore. The fair-use clause does basically permit the use of small amounts of copyrighted material under specific circumstances, which I believe to apply to my situation.

I went ahead that I think that the material should not even be protectable under copyright law, because of their historic significance for society, but that was more as FYI because Spiegel TV is obviously not the right place to do anything about this general problem. But they could for this particular content do something about it, for example release it into the public domain or at least stop sending C&D letters to people who use their footage non-commercially for educational purposes. That is, if Spiegel TV would be interested in what is good for society versus what only being good for them and bad for society in general.

Then I made a request. I asked them to send me a list with the legal situation of the content used in their DVD production and where they or somebody else owns any rights for. I also asked them what the requirements are to use their stuff, using real examples from requests that I received regarding my own short video. It is now over 2 weeks since I send them this request and they still owe me a response to it.

Hearing Back from the NY Times

Meanwhile, I was contacted again by Emily from the New York Times on November 12, 2009. There I found out that she had only brief contact with Spiegel TV, but somebody else than Stephanie Kröner or Ulrich Meyer and that this person promised to get back to her regarding the use of material in the New York Times video, but until then also didn’t do.  Well, the New York Times won’t have a problem if and when Spiegel TV gets back to them. They are a commercial publication and deal with those things on a daily basis. However, what I learned from this fact is that there must be some internal Spiegel TV communication going on across multiple departments, acting independent from each other. So the legal department from Spiegel TV may never heard of the New York Times reporter, but got notified about my video somehow else, but triggered by the inquiry that was made my Emily.

Conclusion

As you can see, it is a mess. And I still don’t know what is expected of me or anybody else to do in order to use the historic video footage about the Berlin Wall to educate people and raise awareness of what happened and what did not in non commercial projects. The only SAFE thing to do is not do anything at all. That is probably expected and hoped, but we as society would take more than one step backwards in development and at the same time increase the risk of the development of totalitarian states and governments taking control to enslave its people. It happened before, but I will not sit on my hands doing nothing in order to prevent it from happening once more and so should you.

I know that this story did not come to an end yet so there will be another post of mine, if there are new and noteworthy developments in this matter.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC

p.s. all this attention to my Berlin Wall video has to do with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which just passed 2 weeks ago on Monday, November 9. 2009.

Berlin Wall History Timeline from May 8th 1945 to October 3rd 1990

This is an updated and extended version of the historic timeline of the events about and surrounding the Berlin Wall that separated a city and it’s people for over 28 years. I posted a timeline previously on July 29, 2009. This version has much more details and I also included a lot more images to illustrate the individual events within the historic timeline.

The timeline extends beyond the events of the actual erection of the Wall on August 13, 1961 and its fall on November 9, 1989, because I believe that it is important to know the events that eventually led to the building of such a horrible thing in the first place. Events actually started with the end of World War 2 in Europe and when Nazi Germany surrendered to the victorious allies.

BEFORE THE WALL

May 8th, 1945 – Germany signs its total capitulation and ends the World War 2 in the European theatre. Picture: Raising of the Soviet flag on top of the Berlin Reichstag building by soldiers of the Red Army on May 2nd, 1945
Germany is broken up into 4 zones, each governed by one of the victorious Allies: the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain and France. Berlin gets a special status and is also broken up into 4 zones. The three sectors occupied by the U.S., Britain and France is called West Berlin or the “allied sectors” and the Soviet occupied sector is called East Berlin or simply “the zone”.
June 19th, 1948 - A new currency is introduced, but only in 3 of the 4 German sectors, the American, British and French occupied. The Soviets responded to this on June 23rd, 1948 with the blockade of West Berlin and an emergency changeover to a new currency for the soviet occupied sector. The blockade will last almost an entire year before it is lifted on May 11th, 1949.
September 9th, 1948 Ernst Reuter makes his famous speech where he appeals to the “People of the World” … “Look at this City!”
May 23rd, 1949, West Germany or more correctly the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) is founded in the West Sectors (US/GB/FR), „Bonn“ becomes the temporary Capital, the „special status“ of Berlin remains. On October 7th, 1949 the second German state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is founded in the soviet occupied zone.
June 17th, 1953 Volksaufstand (People Unrest) in East Berlin. The uprising is triggered by an increase in Quota for Workers by the government, but fuelled by a general unhappiness with the situation in the Eastern part of Germany
June 15th, 1961 - International Press-Conference in East-Berlin A journalist from the West German newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau" asked the question, if the creation of a "Free East Berlin" means that a border will be erected at the Brandenburg Gate. The East German Head of State "Walter Ulbricht" responded to this question with the following... “I understand your question like that there are people in West Germany who wish that we mobilize the construction workers of the capital of the GDR to erect a wall, yes? I am not aware of such intention, but that the construction workers of the capital are mainly busy with the construction of homes and that the available man power is used entirely Nobody has the intention to build a wall.”
July, 1961, 30.415 refugees moved to West Berlin, the largest number since 1953. The border between West and East Germany was already shut close and every attempt to cross it a deadly risk. The border between West and East Berlin was the only opening left for people to escape; East Germany was bleeding out, because the people who fled were mostly the young and skilled workers, which had catastrophic consequences for the East German economy.
THE WALL IS BEING ERRECTED
August 13th, 1961 0:00AM local time, launch of operation “Rose”. East German Army (NVA), Standing/Militarized Police Force (Bereitschaftspolizei), Paramilitary Combat Troops (Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse) severed 12 City Train and Subway connections between East and West Berlin, by 1:05AM Brandenburg Gate was blocked and by 6:00AM 193 Main and Side Streets between West and East Berlin were cut off/blocked.
Nowhere becomes the tragedy more clear than at Bernauer Strasse where the houses on one side belong to East Berlin, but the street including the curb to West Berlin. East German could simply climb out of their Windows to flee to the west, but that was made harder quickly when East Germany started to wall up the windows, starting at the lower floors first forcing people to take much greater risks by escaping through windows in the upper floors. This is also the reason for the Wall to claim its first victim there. … August 22nd, 1961, the 58 years old Ida Siekmann died as a result of her injuries caused by her jump out of the window at Bernauer Stasse.
October 27th, 1961 5:00PM, 10 Tanks on each side, the American and Russian faced off at the Berlin Wall for 18 hours, getting the world at the brink of World War 3. The Incident was caused because an American diplomat was forced by East German border guards to show papers, which was against his immunity status.
August, 1962 Brick Wall 7 ½ Miles, 91.7 Miles Fences, 130 Watchtowers
August 17th, 1962, the 18-years old bricklayer Peter Fechter was shot by East German border guards when he attempted to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin. He bleeds to death, lying in the death strip near the border crossing “Checkpoint Charlie” after crying for help for over 1 hour, in front of West Berlin Police and allied forces who were unable to help him.
1965 The brick wall is being replaced by concrete Wall 1966 Wall length 25 KM (15.5 mi), 210 Watchtowers
Between 1975 and 1980 the final and most sophisticated version of the wall was build, which was made up of 12ft high and 4ft wide reinforced concrete segments. The top of those segments was lined with smooth pipe, made of concrete as well to make it harder to climb. This new concrete wall made up 66mi of the 96mi border around West Berlin. 27mi of it was the border between East and West Berlin, with 23mi of it through residential areas. It got also 302 watch towers and 20 bunkers to make this border even more impregnable. Additional technical details: Electrified Fence: 107,5 KM (66.8 mi), Anti-Tank Trenches: 105,5 KM (65.5 mi), Metal Grating (special fence): 66,5 KM (41.3 mi)
February 5th, 1989, the Wall claimed its last victim. The 20 years old Chris Gueffroy was shot at the Wall while he and his friend attempted to cross the border to West Berlin.
May 2nd, 1989 Communist Hungary begins to dismantle the 150mi (240 km)of barbed-wire fence along its border with capitalist neighbor Austria.
August 8th, 1989 Hundreds of East Germans take refuge in West German diplomatic facilities in East Berlin, Prague, and Budapest.
August 19th, 1989 Hungarian border guards unlock a frontier gate at a joint Hungarian-Austrian friendship picnic organized by Hungarian opposition groups and Austria's “Pan-Europa Union”, allowing hundreds of East Germans to flee into Austria (illegally).
September 11th, 1989, Hungary legalized travel over the border to Austria for GDR (East German) citizens heading for the FRG (West Germany).
October 1st, 1989, West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher announces to the 3,500 East German refugees (including 800 children) in the West German Embassy in Prague that they are permitted to leave to West Germany. More than 800 East Germans who camped at the West German Embassy in Warsaw were also permitted to leave. More than 30,000 East Germans had fled by then via the Hungarian-Austrian border already.
October 4th, 1989 East Germany allows the refugees in the West German embassy in Prague to leave to West Germany via special trains driving across East Germany (implying that those refugees are being expelled from East Germany, which makes them legal immigrants and exempts them from criminal prosecutions in absentia for violating an East German law that prohibits “escape from the republic.'') Riots occurred in the East German cities where the special trains passed through.
October 7th, 1989. East Germany celebrates its 40th anniversary with a big parade and the soviet prime-minister Michael Gorbachev as a special guest. The Palace of the Republic where the leaders celebrated later that evening is completely surrounded and cut off by police. Outside in the streets people were demonstrating against the system. Riots erupted.
November 4th, 1989, the largest single demonstration against the regime took place in East Berlin. At least 500,000 people gathered in the center of the City to protest.
November 9th, 1989 6:00PM At the end of an international press conference in East Berlin, East German Politbüro member Günther Schabowski fished out a handwritten note that was handed to him 30 minutes before the conference and announced a new travel law in front of the astonished international press , quote: “.... and therefore we have made the decision today, to institute a regulation, which permits every resident of East Germany to depart the country through any border crossing of the GDR ....” Some members of the press asked “When?”, “From Now?” Schabowski responded: “This becomes active... to my knowledge... It’s now ...immediately.” Berliners from East and West could not believe their ears when they heard about this announcement in the evening news and flocked to the border to find out if this is really true. When they arrived at the border, they found the border crossings shut as usual. People were upset and talked to the border guards, referring to what Schabowski had said on national television, meanwhile people from West Berlin started climbing the Wall platform at Brandenburg Gate from the western side, which was unique and only available there.
Note: Mr. Schabowski made an error. East Germans were not supposed to be able to cross the borders to West Berlin and West Germany immediately. They were required to get a travel visa at a local police or registration office first, which were to be issued to any East German who asks for it without any restriction starting on November 10th, 1989. The issued visa would not be valid before the next day or November 11th, 1989. People felt betrayed and some even tor their passports or IDs to pieces in protest. Eventually the guards were allowed to let the loudest of the “trouble makers” pass and stamped their IDs in a special way to be able to identify them later and deny access back to East Berlin, if they should decide to return. Most of them did of course, which heated the situation even further.
November 9th, 1989 11:30PM local time, PKE-Oberstleutnant Harald Jäger (PKE = Passkontrolleinheit), officer in charge at the border crossing between Berlin Prenzlauer Berg and Wedding, at Bornholmer Strasse disobeys a direct order of his superior officer Oberst Sieghorn and ceases passport check operations. The pike fell. The impregnable bulwark of East Germany against the capitalist west lost its power over night without a single shot being fired “to defend it”. This is a remarkable fact that should not be forgotten. The Berlin Wall lasted 10,860 days.
THE WALL FELL
October 3rd, 1990, East and West Germany are re-united (4 days before the 41 birthday of East Germany, which was intended)

There were 136 confirmed deaths (as of 7. August 2009**) as a direct result of the Berlin Wall (and at least 251 died during or shortly after checks at Berlin border crossings**); the actual number of deaths is probably much higher. Estimates go as high as over 200 and over 1,000 deaths on the entire border between East and West Germany . East German authorities were trying to cover up any incident as good as possible, which makes it impossible to ever be able to determine the actual number of deaths caused by the Wall and the inner German border.

Break-down of the 136 confirmed deaths**:

• 98 East German escapees who died during their attempt to cross the border, through deadly fire by border guards, fatal accident or committing suicide.
• 30 people from East and West Germany without escape intentions were either shot or had fatal accidents at the border.
• 8 East German border guards, who were killed by a deserter, comrade, escapee, escape helper or by a West-Berlin cop while on-duty.

Figures with unknown source/not verified:

Total number of escaped persons: 218,283 using Disguise, Hand-built Aircrafts, Small Submarines, Hot-Air Balloons, Tunnels, Rudimentary Chair Lifts and other ingenious methods.

Sentences for Escapes: 60,000 with an average term of imprisonment of 16 months. Most of them were “sold off” to West Germany usually for the equivalent of today $75,000 US Dollars a-piece (paid in DM back then) after that time.

  …

** Source: Joint project “Die Todesopfer an der Berliner Mauer 1961-1989” (The Fatalities at the Berlin Wall 1961-1989) between "Gedenkstaette Berliner Mauer" (Berlin Wall Memorial) and the "Zentrums fuer Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam" (Center for time based Historic Research Potsdam)

I wrote about the subject of the Berlin Wall already several times in the past and even created some video documentaries to illustrate the events in picture and audio. Here is the list of my previous posts:

• The Berlin Wall and the Walls between Us (August 6, 2008)
• The Berlin Wall History - Lessons Learned ... Again (September 4, 2008)
• Moments in History - The Fall of the Berlin Wall (December 6, 2008)
• The Berlin Wall - August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989 (July 29, 2009)
• The Fall of the Berlin Wall - Personal Account of Events (August 13, 2009) (on the day, the Wall was erected)
• Berlin Wall Video Responses, Copyright and Background Information (October 5, 2009)

The reason for the increased coverage is the upcoming 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9th, 2009. This is a big event and commemorated around the world.

Cheers!

Carsten aka Roy/SAC
Born in East Berlin in 1974

Appendix A) Names and year of death of the confirmed fatalities**:

1961 Siekmann, Ida Litfin, Günter Hoff, Roland Urban, Rudolf Segler, Olga Lünser, Bernd Düllick, Udo Probst, Werner Lehmann, Lothar Wohlfahrt, Dieter Krüger, Ingo Feldhahn, Georg	1962 Schmiel, Dorit Jercha, Heinz Held, Philipp Schmidtchen, Jörgen (Border Guard) Böhme, Peter Brüske, Klaus Frank, Horst Göring, Peter (Border Guard) Haberlandt, Lutz Hannemann, Axel Glöde, Wolfgang Kelm, Erna Huhn, Reinhold (Border Guard) Noffke, Siegfried Fechter, Peter Wesa, Hans-Dieter Mundt, Ernst Seling, Günter (Border Guard) Walzer, Anton Plischke, Horst Reck, Ottfried Wiedenhöft, Günter	1963 Räwel, Hans Kutscher, Horst Kreitlow, Peter Muszynski, Wolf-Olaf Mädler, Peter Widera, Siegfried (Border Guard) Schröter, Klaus Schulz, Dietmar Berger, Dieter Schultz, Paul
1964 Hayn, Walter Philipp, Adolf Heike, Walter Gneiser, Rainer Wolscht, Norbert Trabant, Hildegard Mispelhorn, Wernhard Schultz, Egon (Border Guard) Wolf, Hans-Joachim Mehr, Joachim	1965 Unknown (N.N.) Buttkus, Christian Krzemien, Ulrich Hauptmann, Hans-Peter Döbler, Hermann Kratzel, Klaus Garten, Klaus Kittel, Walter Cyrius, Heinz Sokolowski, Heinz Kühn, Erich Schöneberger, Heinz	1966 Brandes, Dieter Block, Willi Schleusener, Lothar Hartmann, Jörg Marzahn, Willi Schulze, Eberhard Kollender, Michael Stretz, Paul Wroblewski, Eduard Schmidt, Heinz Senk, Andreas Kube, Karl-Heinz
1967 Sahmland, Max Willi Piesik, Franciszek	1968 Weckeiser, Elke Weckeiser, Dieter Mende, Herbert Lehmann, Bernd Krug, Siegfried Körner, Horst Henninger, Rolf (Border Guard)	1969 Lange, Johannes Kluge, Klaus-Jürgen Lis, Leo
1970 Wehhage, Eckhardt Wehhage, Christel Müller, Heinz Born, Willi Ehrlich, Friedhelm Thiem, Gerald Kliem, Helmut Friese, Christian-Peter	1971 Kabelitz, Rolf-Dieter Hoffmann, Wolfgang Kühl, Werner Beilig, Dieter	1972 Kullack, Horst Weylandt, Manfred Schulze, Klaus Katranci, Cengaver
1973 H., Holger Frommann, Volker Einsiedel, Horst Gertzki, Manfred Krobot, Siegfried	1974 Niering, Burkhard Sprenger, Johannes Savoca, Guiseppe	1975 Halli, Herbert Mert, Cetin Kiebler, Herbert Hennig, Lothar
1976 n/a	1977 Schwietzer, Dietmar Weise, Henri	1978 and 1979 n/a
1980 Steinhaür, Ulrich (Border Guard) Jirkowski, Marinetta	1981 Muschol, Dr. Johannes Starrost, Hans-Jürgen Taubmann, Thomas	1982 Freie, Lothar Fritz
1983 Proksch, Silvio	1984 Schmidt, Michael-Horst	1985 n/a
1986 Liebeke, Rainer Groß, René Mäder, Manfred Bittner, Michael	1987 Schmidt, Lutz 1988 n/a	1989 Diederichs, Ingolf Freudenberg, Winfried Güffroy, Chris